SOLO Diving Practice Skills

[SCUBA482]

In my last thread about when might an entry level diver consider starting the SOLO portion of his/her career, I came across some wisdom from the users on this board. Some of the responses prompted me to begin asking, "what skills would the vets suggest a newer diver consider practicing or planning for before slipping into the big pond alone."

I.E. - What would you do if you lost your mask or had a full mask flood? Answers were ranging from having an accessible spare, to having the ability to ascend safely while conducting a safety stop if needed etc without a mask.

I am really interested in those skills that have occurred and the ones most likely to occur and what some of the experienced SOLO divers have done or preplanned to do should a failure or incident occur. I am not looking "for my idea is better than yours," but more of a variety of ideas different people do. I want to add some different tools to my arsenal from your experiences. Please be specific to equipment used and maybe take the time to explain certain acronymns for clarity. Please be mindful this is for new or newer divers considering SOLO and the knowledge of equipment may be limited. As with any training class, some will not ask for clarity though others have the same question. If I see something that isn't obvious equipment industry standard or just something I haven't heard of before I will ask.

I hope this thread will provide myself (and others) with a comprehensive list of things to consider and practice before SOLO diving or at least add another tool to those who already are SOLO divers.

Thanks in advance.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Practice in shallow water ... 15 feet or less ... with a buddy ...

1. Start with the easy one ... deploying your redundant air supply. You are looking for how easy it is to deploy, how reliable it functions, and any potential "gotchya's" ... like accidentally trapping your reg hose ... you may need to learn how to avoid. Make sure your buddy is watching you constantly, and is close enough to hand you their secondary if things don't go well.

2. Take your mask off. Hand it to your dive buddy. See how long you can function without a mask on. When you start getting really uncomfortable, signal your buddy to give you back your mask, put it on and clear it.

For a lot of people (especially in cold water), just having the water touching your eyes and nose will change your breathing pattern ... has nothing to do with what it does to your sight, it's a reflex to the feel of water on that part of your face. Keep in mind that your breathing affects your buoyancy control. Work on maintaining a steady breathing pattern while maskless.

This drill will also help you get practice at solving a problem while managing your stress level.

3. Have your dive buddy secure a piece of line (say from a reel or spool) around a stationary object, then give it a wrap or two around your tank valve. See if you can get yourself untangled without taking off your BCD. If not, remove your BCD, untangle the line, and put it back on again. Make sure your buddy is nearby, ready with an air source in case yours gets away from you. Keep practicing this drill until you get the desireable (and repeatable) results.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[SCUBA482]

Practice in shallow water ... 15 feet or less ... with a buddy ...

1. Start with the easy one ... deploying your redundant air supply. You are looking for how easy it is to deploy, how reliable it functions, and any potential "gotchya's" ... like accidentally trapping your reg hose ... you may need to learn how to avoid. Make sure your buddy is watching you constantly, and is close enough to hand you their secondary if things don't go well.

2. Take your mask off. Hand it to your dive buddy. See how long you can function without a mask on. When you start getting really uncomfortable, signal your buddy to give you back your mask, put it on and clear it.

For a lot of people (especially in cold water), just having the water touching your eyes and nose will change your breathing pattern ... has nothing to do with what it does to your sight, it's a reflex to the feel of water on that part of your face. Keep in mind that your breathing affects your buoyancy control. Work on maintaining a steady breathing pattern while maskless.

This drill will also help you get practice at solving a problem while managing your stress level.

3. Have your dive buddy secure a piece of line (say from a reel or spool) around a stationary object, then give it a wrap or two around your tank valve. See if you can get yourself untangled without taking off your BCD. If not, remove your BCD, untangle the line, and put it back on again. Make sure your buddy is nearby, ready with an air source in case yours gets away from you. Keep practicing this drill until you get the desireable (and repeatable) results.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

All good stuff...a perfect start for an entry level SOLO diver to begin honing skills in shallow water to build some muscle memory on what to do. Brain muscle memory on staying calm and working through problems like these are excellent things to consider. Thanks again Bob!

 

[heavyjeffd]

Great post, especially the untangle drill.

 

[Cave Bum]

My solo diving is usually in caves so my preplanning and thinking through problems is inline with that type of diving.

When I first sat down to evaluate what I needed to change for solo cave diving I came up with four items and only four items. These four items are based on "what a buddy could do or give you to help in an emergency".

1. Problem 1: Catastrophic loss of gas: I chose an AL72 as my buddy bottle. This is approximately 1/3 of the gas in a set of over-pumped double LP95’s which is what my cave diving buddy used (in cave diving we use the rule of thirds, reserving a third of our gas for a buddy in an emergency). I test my emergency planning on random dives every 4-6 months by deciding arbitrarily on a dive, at the point of furthest penetration, to switch to my buddy bottle and exit on it to be sure I’m diving within my self-rescue range. (When doing this be sure to keep an eye on your main tank SPG, because that has now become your backup gas)
2. Problem 2: Loss of lights: For cave diving we carry, as minimum, one primary and two backup lights. For solo diving up to 2000 foot penetration I add one backup light and for greater then 2000 foot penetration I add two. This I also practice every once-in-a-while. I did one dive with a buddy, an hour and 45 minute dive at Peacock, on a Dive Rite LED backup light! (We had plenty of working lights we just wanted to see what problems it would present… It didn’t present any!)
3. Problem 3: A broken mask: I carry a spare mask in a pouch on my harness webbing. (I now also carry this spare mask for buddy dives as well, it’s cheap insurance)
4. Problem 4: Getting stuck in a space too small to get through: When solo diving I avoid spots so tight I could get stuck, spots I do sometimes go with a buddy who can pull me out by my feet if I get stuck.

The most important thing, in my opinion, is to keep practicing your emergency procedures so they will work flawlessly when they are needed. Just having the extra equipment, while never using it, won’t guarantee that it will get you out of a jam when you need it.

Like the old joke goes, when the man was asked “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”…

His answer was: "PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!"

The same goes for emergency procedures.

This list is not a be-all and end-all, instead I hope it gives you some insight into how I went about evaluating the needs for my particular type of diving, in the hope that you can use the same type of procedure to evaluate your type of diving.

Be save and have fun in the water! Bruce

 

[paddler3d]

2. Take your mask off. Hand it to your dive buddy. See how long you can function without a mask on. When you start getting really uncomfortable, signal your buddy to give you back your mask, put it on and clear it.

For a lot of people (especially in cold water), just having the water touching your eyes and nose will change your breathing pattern ... has nothing to do with what it does to your sight, it's a reflex to the feel of water on that part of your face. Keep in mind that your breathing affects your buoyancy control. Work on maintaining a steady breathing pattern while maskless.

This drill will also help you get practice at solving a problem while managing your stress level.

A few weeks ago I did my rescue class. I had to do this skill. The water temp was a balmy 40degrees.

I was shocked at how cold the water felt.

Before doing the skill, my breathing was normal and relaxed. It easily doubled when I took my mask off. I went from being slightly negative on the platform to slightly positive and I had to ditch some air in the BC. I tried super hard to relax and get my breathing rate down. It seriously wasn't until I got my mask back on, cleared and sealed under hood did my breathing get back to normal.

What is this? Why is this?

I was floored.

I think that last time I had actually taken my mask off in the quarries was during my OW checkout.

 

[SCUBA482]

My solo diving is usually in caves so my preplanning and thinking through problems is inline with that type of diving.

When I first sat down to evaluate what I needed to change for solo cave diving I came up with four items and only four items.

1. Problem 1: Catastrophic loss of gas: I chose an AL72 as my buddy bottle. This is approximately 1/3 of the gas in a set of over-pumped double LP95’s which is what my cave diving buddy used. I test my emergency planning on random dives every 4-6 months by deciding arbitrarily on a dive, at the point of furthest penetration, to switch to my buddy bottle and exit on it to be sure I’m diving within my self-rescue range. (When doing this be sure to keep an eye on your main tank SPG, because that has now become your backup gas)
2. Problem 2: Loss of lights: For cave diving we carry, as minimum, one primary and two backup lights. For solo diving up to 2000 foot penetration I add one backup light and for greater then 2000 foot penetration I add two. This I also practice every once-in-a-while. I did one dive with a buddy, an hour and 45 minute dive at Peacock, on a Dive Rite LED backup light! (We had plenty of working lights we just wanted to see what problems it would present… It didn’t present any!)
3. Problem 3: A broken mask: I carry a spare mask in a pouch on my harness webbing. (I now also carry this spare mask for buddy dives as well, it’s cheap insurance)
4. Problem 4: Getting stuck in a space too small to get through: When solo diving I avoid spots so tight I could get stuck, spots I do sometimes go with a buddy who can pull me out by my feet if I get stuck.

The most important thing, in my opinion, is to keep practicing your emergency procedures so they will work flawlessly when they are needed. Just having the extra equipment, while never using it, won’t guarantee that it will get you out of a jam when you need it.

Like the old joke goes, when the man was asked “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”…

His answer was: "PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!"

The same goes for emergency procedures.

This list is not a be-all and end-all, instead I hope it gives you some insight into how I went about evaluating the needs for my particular type of diving, in the hope that you can use the same type of procedure to evaluate your type of diving.

Be save and have fun in the water! Bruce

VERY INTERESTING! To me, just that you dive caves SOLO is a head turner. I think you pretty much summed up the main focus of SOLO being that as a diver you need to think what can/will happen when you SOLO for the area and type of diving you do. Once you have that part of the plan down, the rest lies with the practice you mention and testing yourself safely with your back-up equipment. The old say that failing to plan is planning to fail. You MUST be proficient in all your gear, especially while depending upon yourself at depth.

Thanks for a great post!

 

[SCUBA482]

A few weeks ago I did my rescue class. I had to do this skill. The water temp was a balmy 40degrees.

I was shocked at how cold the water felt.

Before doing the skill, my breathing was normal and relaxed. It easily doubled when I took my mask off. I went from being slightly negative on the platform to slightly positive and I had to ditch some air in the BC. I tried super hard to relax and get my breathing rate down. It seriously wasn't until I got my mask back on, cleared and sealed under hood did my breathing get back to normal.

What is this? Why is this?

I was floored.

I think that last time I had actually taken my mask off in the quarries was during my OW checkout.

Do you think then that most divers don't practice the basic skills taught and constantly test themselves while diving after certification. We all should have the mask drill down after the OW cert right? Not knocking you in your surprised reaction and air demands after removing your mask, just wondering maybe conditions were colder than when you did it in your OW cert? Either way, in your post and the one you quoted, the simple task of the mask drill adds the healthy stress to your training regime to cause enough stress to work through and test yourself. And then when it doesn't I guess I'll be looking for some other drill (which is what I am attempting to gather a list of in this thread) to again cause stress during training to work through until absolute proficiency. And always remember to revisit the perishable skills taught during all our dive training.

 

[Cathay Stray]

A couple of times I asked friends to wrap me in fishing line - getting me nearly cocooned in 20-30 m of line. Sure enough they were around to help in case but after some few minutes the knife and scissors managed to do the job. By the way, there are few things as good for cutting out as simple kitchen scissors used for cutting through chicken bones and alike. Normally they have curved blades and some even have corrugated which means the net/line/kelp will not slip out from between the cutting edes.
Cutting myself out was fun but of course it was fun only because the guys were at hand... I would like to try doing the same maskless next time.

 

[Walter]

when might an entry level diver consider starting the SOLO portion of his/her career

A new diver shouldn't even be thinking about diving solo. Solo diving is something many extremely skilled divers would never consider. Those who do have a few hundered logged dives and are considering solo diving should ask themselves a few questions before starting.

Have I ever had a diving emergency?

If the answer is no, you don't know how you'll react when you do. Wait until after you've experienced an emergency.

How calm were you during the emergency?

If you were anything other than calm, solo diving is not your thing.

Can I effectively deal with the simultaneous failure or loss of any two items (mask and 1 fin; regulator failure and loss of mask; 1 fin and stuck inflator hose; BC that won't hold air and mask; etc.) of gear?

If the answer is no, you are not yet ready for solo.

Do I know I can deal with the simultaneous failure or loss of any two items because I've practiced?

If you haven't practiced, you don't know.

SCUBA482, I believe you are trying to get into diving solo long before you're ready. Slow down, enjoy diving with a buddy. Don't lose your life because you are impatient.
If the answer is no, you're not ready