The solo diving movement, a good idea?

[Doc Harry]

blah, blah.... and point the finger back at yourself.
Blah, blah

Clearly, you fail to understand why solo divers go solo.

 

[drrich2]

Two to tango, no matter how much you want to rationalize it.

It takes 2 to tango, but only 1 to screw it up. Buddy diving is a cooperative effort. Following around a buddy who is oblivious to you is something a lot of people would consider poor and undesirable buddy diving, even if you can tail him effectively. Put another way, doing what you describe, you're his buddy, but is he yours?

And I imagine a lot of instabuddy diving takes place on charter boat trips. When I boat dive, I follow the professional dive guide. He knows the lay of the reef, where he's going, how to get there and back, and he will be back on the boat in an hour. If I'm with him, so will I. I aim to be with him. If an instabuddy swims off in some other direction, I'm not chasing him.

Richard.

 

[Searcaigh]

Here is my theory - all the divers who beat the drum of solo as their alternative because they were driven to it by all the bad buddies they had, I cry bs, and point the finger back at yourself.

One truth that all are in denial of is that it takes two to tango. When your insta-buddy hit the bottom at took off, why did you not follow? When your insta-buddy never asked you about your air on a dive, how long was your discussion on the boat with your insta-buddy before the dive began?

I cry BS. Unless your buddy just plain out swims you, there is no such thing as an insta-buddy taking off on you. Many people who wear the solo badge on their chest and do so blamed on being forced to because of bad buddies, need to admit 50% of the guilt.

Two to tango, no matter how much you want to rationalize it.

Personally I totally disagree with you on this Mike.

My solo diving stems from my insatiable appetite to improve my underwater photography, and that was after my first unintentional solo dive with another photographer back in the mid 90s. Until then I had always dived with regular buddies.

I have had instabuddies on overseas dive trips that have

1. Gone OOA after 20 mins
2. Disappeared into the wild blue yonder deeper than planned
3. Dived a yo yo profile

I have no intention after paying thousands of dollars for flights and the dive trip to be buddying with such people and would rather spend extra on a private guide in order to satisfy my personal goals for the dive than be with such instabuddies.

Even when I travel now I find that solo divers are becoming accepted, but I also dive at places where the other divers have also traveled thousands of miles to get there and are not the idiots as I described above, but what we have in common is a camera and that changes the whole scenario.

This year Lembeh Resort was kind enough to provide me with a pony bottle to use for my solo shore dives, never had to use it but it was nice to have that redundancy available, and it will be a destination that I ail return to also.

 

[Doc Harry]

Why do I dive solo? I'm off this Tuesday and Wednesday morning, who's gonna dive with me?

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I solo because I want to. Period. Sometimes I don't want to worry about anyone else. Or the dive I am doing is actually safer IMO if I only need to think about myself and the objective. Most any dive I will do with a buddy or team I will do solo. That includes overheads (real and theoretical). The only one I feel another person is necessary is under the ice. And then the other can be on the surface on the other end of the tether. I ride motorcycles solo. I shoot solo. Was hunting alone from age 14 on when I used to do that. I know the risks as do my loved ones. In truth my only real worry solo diving is who will care for my cats if something happens to me as they don't know what to do. Need to get those instructions down in writing now that I think of it.

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[Stoo]

The worst thing about the buddy system is the belief that there's always somebody around to get you out of trouble. The best thing about the solo diving system is the message that there isn't.

As someone who dives solo much of the time and has logged perhaps 2500 - 3000 solo dives over the past 40 years, I've been following this thread with some interest. All I will say is there are a tremendous number of misconceptions among many of you that are opposed to it. As a rescue tool in the average recreational diving situation, the buddy system is a monumental failure. There are so many cases of fatalities where buddies were of absolutely no use, that it should be apparent that IF you rely on a buddy to save your a$$, then you seriously need to reassess your skills and training.

While I enjoy diving with some buddies, I still dive as if I am alone. When I'm diving at home, I ALWAYS wear doubles and all the "double everything" that the fashionably equipped solo diver wears.

I want to be clear, that I am not advocating in an way, shape or form that we should abandon the buddy system. There are some advantages to it, and perhaps the best and most obvious use is when you have an experienced diver buddied with a newbie. In that sort of situation though, I would argue that the benefit is one-sided.

Also, I think that solo-diving is much more common than is acknowledged. The group I am most familiar with here, is for the most part, made up of folks that might look like they are diving as buddies, but in reality, most buddy pairs are two solo divers, diving near each other. That's probably the best possible scenario...

To anyone contemplating solo diving, I will recommend it only if you are a highly experienced diver (as in hundreds of dives) and are properly equipped. The TDI Solo course is worth doing I think.

I'd also recommend that you spend some time in the solo diver sub-forum, although I suggest that you NOT try to convince anyone of the error of our ways unless you enjoy a good-natured flogging!

 

[Jim Lapenta]

The buddy system works when used properly. To do that it needs to be taught properly. The issue there is a fair number of OW instructors don't have a clue how,or outright choose not, to teach it properly.

They don't insist on buddies staying together in the pool and in open water they lead them on single file swims.

That right there says to the new diver that the system is optional and not important. And that the instructor doesn't care about teaching divers how the buddy system is supposed to be used.

So in effect, contrary to anything the materials or their agency may say, they are encouraging solo diving with none of the skills, knowledge, experience, or awareness required for it.

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[Mike]

1. Gone OOA after 20 mins
2. Disappeared into the wild blue yonder deeper than planned
3. Dived a yo yo profile

And how much discussion did you have before the dive? " Hi I'm Searcaigh, wow, isn't this beautiful here? Where are you staying? Oh, how nice...."

In 15 years of diving I've watched scores of insta buddies meet, greet and jump in without spending a moment on any discussions about, dive planning, signals, how they would dive, staying in what proximity with each other, lost buddy procedures, any procedures at all.. zero, zip, nada. I've probably seen in 15 years 2 insta buddies actually meet, plan and dive.

Two to tango.

Hey if your insta-buddy suddenly starts exceeding the max depth or suddenly starts to penetrate a wreck, you're not going to follow him, but how many of you signal this person or grab their fin, and motion to stay together or do you just watch him go off. It's the latter.

If you want to solo dive, go for it. It can make a lot of sense and there are ways to mitigate the dangers. But I don't buy into the excuses used so many times about the buddy system breaking down when I know that almost 100% of the time when 2 insta buddies get together, the prefered method of a successful dive experience with these two new budides is through mental telepathy and then they go on the dive and one is shocked that suddenly the wheels fall off, no surprise at all. I've watched after the 1st dive on the surface interval there is no correction of the problems on the first dive so the 2nd dive is different, instead on the 2nd dive there is more of the same.

Failure of the buddy system is a convenient excuse, and if you need an excuse to justify your choice to solo dive so be it, you won't be alone in using it.

 

[drbill]

BS. A few years back I analyzed my "incident rate" diving solo vs diving with a buddy. I was 17X more likely to have an incident diving with a buddy... and each incident was due to the buddy. In the two cases I had incidents diving solo, both were due to bad decisions on my part (not carrying my pony and not diving my plan when I do dive without it).

Another factor in diving with a buddy for me is that a buddy distracts from my focus on filming. It takes little time for me to perform my normal checks (SPG, etc.) on myself while filming but if buddied up I spend far more time thinking about my buddy and checking up on them. I dive to film critters so this impacts the intent of my diving, often to a degree I'm not comfortable with.

Here is my theory - all the divers who beat the drum of solo as their alternative because they were driven to it by all the bad buddies they had, I cry bs, and point the finger back at yourself.

One truth that all are in denial of is that it takes two to tango. When your insta-buddy hit the bottom at took off, why did you not follow? When your insta-buddy never asked you about your air on a dive, how long was your discussion on the boat with your insta-buddy before the dive began?

I cry BS. Unless your buddy just plain out swims you, there is no such thing as an insta-buddy taking off on you. Many people who wear the solo badge on their chest and do so blamed on being forced to because of bad buddies, need to admit 50% of the guilt.

Two to tango, no matter how much you want to rationalize it.

 

[phoenix31tt]

I see the failure of the buddy system as a legitimate excuse... I've also seen some of the solo divers on this forum say that they were actually the "bad buddy"...

I'm not sure what exactly are you trying o say Mike.. That all solo divers are/were bad buddies? That all use the buddy from hell scenario to justify solo diving?

I really dont see that

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