solo diving sites?

[tropitan]

Another survey question:

When would you consider a site acceptable for you to solo?

a) After assessing from the shore or boat.
b) After one exploratory dive with a buddy.
c) After several dives and feeling 'familiar' with the site.
d) Only after many dives and becoming very familiar with the site.

Thank you.

 

[EmptyTank]

The short answer, whenever you feel like it. The long answer, it is still entirely an individual decision with far too many variables.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Those are good answers. How about the other way around? As a shore guide, there are some dives that I have made solo first, to see if I thought customers or my BDB could make the dive with me at a later date.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

+1 agreement with EmptyTank.

The majority of the time, I believe it's safe to solo. The more difficult the conditions, the more likely I would want a good teammate.

I grew up solo diving. Often, my family would be fishing and I'd go scuba diving. I did my first night dive solo, my first surf entry dive solo, my first ice dive solo, learned to dive my drysuit solo, achieved all my personal best freedives solo before verification with others, and to this day continue to do lots of new dives solo. As a kid, I didn't have as much access to dive buddies (many adults don't want to spend the day with a teen dive buddy) and training back then was a lot better at the OW level than it is today. Plus, I was young, brave, dumb and lucky. Now, if I have any doubts about the conditions or my safety, I'll dive with a team.

Too many variables. I recently made a solo dive into a cave we named "Malcolm's Nightmare" in the Caribbean. So named because the conditions are about the worst one can imagine starting a cave dive. I don't think this place is even remotely safe for a team. In this case, you can lose either way. Each time I go inside, I'm thankful and amazed to emerge. Conversely, I like night diving in shallow water from shore with a buddy in New England because conditions and scenery remind me of Jaws. Even though shark attack is rare, I still get the heebie jeebies.

 

[Bob DBF]

+1 with EmptyTank & Trace.

If I have any concerns about a dive site I usually do a free-dive in the area to check out the entrance, exit, and shallow water for anything that could bite me on the a$$ when I'm geared up for SCUBA. This has saved me from some very interesting dives.


Bob
----------------------------------
Not pushing the envelope just poking at it on occasion.

 

[Darnold9999]

Too many variables.

If it is a site that many divers have dived I will solo from a dive brief.

If I am exploring on my own I want tide tables, charts and current weather conditions so I have some notion of what I am getting in to.

Ultimately I won't dive a site if I don't feel comfortable doing it, but having/not having a buddy really doesn't enter into the decision.

 

[diver_doug]

No need for me to reply since you've gotten all the answers you need, but I'm bored so I'm gonna respond anyway. DEPENDS DEPENDS DEPENDS! For the local shorediving that I do, usually I like to snorkel/freedive a new site before diving it, but sometimes I can tell from the surface that there aren't many rocks to watch out for, it will be easy enter/exit etc.; so I'll dive it without snorkeling/freediving first. For me my "benchmark" consists of asking myself: "do I feel comfortable doing this dive?" If the answer is "yes" then I do it...if the answer is "no" then I figure out what needs to be done so that I do feel comfortable (this could be anything number of things such as: snorkel it first, check out the site from another angle, talk to divers who have dived this particular site, wait for better conditions, get more experience, dive it with someone else, etc.)

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

Another survey question:

When would you consider a site acceptable for you to solo?

a) After assessing from the shore or boat.
b) After one exploratory dive with a buddy.
c) After several dives and feeling 'familiar' with the site.
d) Only after many dives and becoming very familiar with the site.

Thank you.

All of the above

As an extreme example, I've done solo dives at totally unfamiliar shore dive sites overseas, and of course here in Hawaii. On the other end of the spectrum, I've solo'ed at sites only after diving them with buddies dozens of times first.

In all cases, I first try to "read" the site as carefully as possible: Since I shore dive, I look for entry/exit point risks, check for surf and overall weather "condition", I try to see if there are likely exit points further along the coast if I "goof" on my navigation, I try to see how far the swim to the "dropoff" is, and check for unusual water movement on the surface that may indicate a strong current; etc.

I will often jump in with just freediving gear first to do some "recon".

In all cases, if the site does not look or "feel" right for any reason, I just don't dive it, and that same rule applies when I'm diving with a buddy.

Best wishes.

 

[Dewit2it]

Myself, I generally check the site on snorkel to look for problems before going out solo. If I have a hard time on snorkel, think what I'll have with my gear and a 30 pound video housing. Depthwise, I always look to be able to easily do an out-of-air emergency ascent.

 

[Searcaigh]

I rarely dive solo on a site that I am not familiar with, although if the site is shallow <10M and conditions good then I will go for it.