Tec solo training
- Thread starter Twiny
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Thankfully, no instructor or agency that I am aware of.
I think you just do the tech deco training and then go kill yourself separately! 
I’m kidding. But solo is one course and everything else is everything else. Solo isn’t combined w anything generally. They tend to tell you to go on your own and go beyond your training. Interpret that as you like.
I’m kidding. But solo is one course and everything else is everything else. Solo isn’t combined w anything generally. They tend to tell you to go on your own and go beyond your training. Interpret that as you like.
If you’re already tech trained, what do you expect out of the solo cert that you don’t already know?
Decompressing solo needs careful planning, it needs to be done on a fixed stage which you must get back to. You must know exactly where your going to surface in order to avoid any surface traffic. No one knows where you are until your back on your boat or back ashore. Forget about surface markers, Sunday boaters will run over them as fast as they will run over you.
Really? If you’re tech trained, the recreational solo class would be a waste of money unless you needed the card to be able to dive solo off certain boats or at certain locations.
The SDI solo class is a recreational class. The class materials specifically say solo overhead or tech diving is not a good idea. The tech training materials say the same thing. So you’re on your own.
The solo diver certifications (SDI Solo Diver and PADI Self-Reliant Diver) are extremely short workshops that will not teach you anything significant. They both need you to be a competent diver before starting the "course" (I much prefer workshop). In reality they're just assessments of your abilities. This is why they need a minimum of 100 dives and "the correct attitude".
The Solo Diver course does not allow you to go into decompression nor "overhead" diving. It's simply a recreational NDL dive with backup gasses and equipment -- which a technical diver would carry anyway.
Technical diver training will spend a lot of time on skills for mitigating issues. For example; doing safe gas switches, shutting down freeflows, switching to backup gas, using spare masks, spare buoyancy, spare SMBs, etc. You'll practice doing those mitigations as part of those courses AND you will go away and practice them yourself.
Solo technical diving with decompression requires the skills to safely run that dive alone and resolve any issues that you may encounter. It's a state of mind as much a skills thing. You would have already planned the dive for the depth, type of dive, state, conditions, etc. You'll bring along more than enough gas for any single failure in a gas supply to complete the dive with all decompression obligations completed.
You don't just start doing it; you work up to it. You do many decompression dives with others until you know how to deal with the issues and hanging around at your stops. You build your depth limits, gas requirements, etc. Eventually you'll start doing a bit of deco solo, then slowly work with more decompression.
A guy came on an "independent diver" boat I was on. He rocked up with a recreational attitude and odd equipment and went diving where he obviously couldn't manage his equipment.
Whilst I was having an excellent 2 hour solo decompression dive, he died.
The Solo Diver course does not allow you to go into decompression nor "overhead" diving. It's simply a recreational NDL dive with backup gasses and equipment -- which a technical diver would carry anyway.
Technical diver training will spend a lot of time on skills for mitigating issues. For example; doing safe gas switches, shutting down freeflows, switching to backup gas, using spare masks, spare buoyancy, spare SMBs, etc. You'll practice doing those mitigations as part of those courses AND you will go away and practice them yourself.
Solo technical diving with decompression requires the skills to safely run that dive alone and resolve any issues that you may encounter. It's a state of mind as much a skills thing. You would have already planned the dive for the depth, type of dive, state, conditions, etc. You'll bring along more than enough gas for any single failure in a gas supply to complete the dive with all decompression obligations completed.
You don't just start doing it; you work up to it. You do many decompression dives with others until you know how to deal with the issues and hanging around at your stops. You build your depth limits, gas requirements, etc. Eventually you'll start doing a bit of deco solo, then slowly work with more decompression.
A guy came on an "independent diver" boat I was on. He rocked up with a recreational attitude and odd equipment and went diving where he obviously couldn't manage his equipment.
Whilst I was having an excellent 2 hour solo decompression dive, he died.
The SDI Solo class SHOULD teach you some important things. My students learn a lot about multi-tasking, stress management, mitigation strategies, emergency tactics, and more.
Fortunately, no agency has a "tech solo" class. However, a lot of the solo techniques are helpful to the tech diver. We do drift deco here and getting separated from your buddy/team/group is a reality to be dealt with.
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