The solo diving movement, a good idea?

[w ripley]

. . . I find that when I dive alone I take everything, from getting suited up, the entire dive, through exiting at the end of the dive much more sedately. I don't forget anything and the entire experience is much more fun. When diving with someone else I worry that I'm holding them back so I hurry to don my equipment. I become self-concious about my diving style. So I sometimes make mistakes that I wouldn't make if not worrying about the other person and do not enjoy the dive much . . .

Me too.

 

[TMHeimer]

I'll second that. Alone, you have an exact routine. Like clockwork, nothing is left out or forgotten. Buddy diving can be fine, but you have to make sure you do all your own stuff -- not forget anything because you're chatting. And yes, you may think about holding someone up, or rushing them. Particularly on a boat. I really enjoy DMing an OW class, but when I do a solo dive the next week it's great to just think about myself. Kind of like being a Conductor then just sitting in the band playing clarinet.

 

[Bob DBF]

I get what you are saying but if you use this argument then it could also be used for aspects of diving. "I am not hurting anyone else by going beyond my training so why should others care?"

I do think there should be standards in solo diving.

Well my training started solo, with portions of a couple of dives buddy breathing with my dad, who had a few more dives than me, but both of us could read. My first 20 or so dives were solo, no BC, J-valve, no SPG, no octo, no C-card. When I did run across a buddy, I had no problem buddy diving. I was doing what now is called tech diving well before I got certified. 50 years later, it has not been luck.

I contend that if divers took certification seriously and instructors spent the time to turn out knowledgeable responsible divers (there are some instructors who do), said divers would have the ability to go beyond their training in a safe manner and increase their abilities, as was done before the Agencys got so interested in marketing.

From my point of view, a number of solo "standards" are made for the training agency and not for the diver and the dive, one size does not fit all



Bob
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I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.

 

[Nemrod]

I do think there should be standards in solo diving.

As long as they are my standards, since I am the SOLO diver I will choose my standards. Most would fail my standards cold because they are physical fitness, experience, planning, not equipment. My redundancies and what is proper or not for a dive is my buisness. Solo divers, by our nature, are an independent bunch.

I am a minimalist diver, I choose, generally, to use as little equipment as possible that makes sense (to me) for the dive. It is my experience and philosophy that more equipment does not a safer diver make. The more junk there is, the more complicated it all becomes and the more likely there will be a failure.

I do not believe in equipment, I believe in me.

N

 

[DaleC]

Buddy diving involves a commitment to the concept of our dive rather than my dive.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

That is a true and excellent comment and cuts to the core of the issue. In this regard I am flexible. If my buddy wants to do an "our" dive I am all in with it. If they want to do a same ocean dive "ok". Quite often I want to do a "me" dive, with my own agenda that I don't want to compromise, so I solo.
The trick is to communicate and know which dive you are on.

 

[Searcaigh]

I do think there should be standards in solo diving.

There are standards for solo diving

 

[DCBC]

As a generic statement that's delusional. With a buddy you have deep explicit experience with, probably correct.

Watch this re. the generic buddy team (Solo Diving- Coming out of the Closet on Vimeo)

I elect to dive alone or in a Buddy team long before getting into the water. If I dive in a Buddy team, I choose to conform with the rules (my Buddy and I mutually agree upon). For me this is not a passive decision. I don't dive with someone with questionable capabilities.

As Bob has described so well, there must be an attitude adjustment if you choose to dive in a Buddy team. Some people take this less seriously than others. As most of my personal diving is decompression, on Heliox in deep wrecks, my attitude toward the Buddy team is as serious as a heart attack. That's the way I was taught and cannot help but expect the same from my Buddy. If a Buddy doesn't share the same level of commitment, I dive alone or just pour myself a single malt and stay on the beach...

 

[oldschoolto]

Nah ... there's some misconceptions there. We are most certainly not ALL solo divers ... I know many people who are committed to diving as a team that are anything but solo diving.

I think it more accurate to say you've never dived with anyone like that ... or at least you've never given yourself the chance to make that commitment. But they're out there ... functioning quite well as a team. And diving with those people can be pure joy when you're on the same page.

I love to solo dive. I also love diving with a whole bunch of people who I trust without hesitation would be right on top of it if I never needed them to pull me out of a bad situation. Several of those people are former students ... so I know exactly what they're capable of ... there's no false sense of safety at all when we dive together.

Buddy diving involves a commitment to the concept of our dive rather than my dive. If you have any hesitation making that commitment, then you are not really buddy diving ... although you may be in the water in the proximity of another diver. If that's you, then certainly you should be prepared for some self-sufficiency .. because that style of diving feeds a sense of independence that defeats the whole point of a buddy.

Diving is very habitual ... we develop and rely on behaviors based on how we dive and how we look at diving. I find that the more I solo dive, the harder it becomes for me to make that mental commitment, and to rely on learned behaviors to be a part of a team. It's one potential "gotchya" you need to be aware of if you want to dive solo ... you'll develop habits that are not conducive to diving with other divers. Making a mental commitment to one or the other style of diving is much easier than developing habits that work well for both. It can be done ... but it's not as simple as flipping a mental "switch".

If you're not prepared to make the commitment to developing good habits as a dive buddy, then yes ... you'd best be ready to save your own ass. Because team diving involves a two-way relationship that won't work if only one of the divers is ready to make the commitment. And in that case, no matter how close you are to each other, you're diving alone ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Bob.... As you point out in your post..... TEAM.... Team diving is not Buddy diving as it has become.... Teams work as a single unit, Each member is part of a whole .... Buddy diving ( instant buddy ) does not lend itself to this single unit... Teams take time to work as one.... To " know " what the guy/girl you are with is most likely going to do....


I'm not counting on some unknown person to stay with me when the $hit hits the fan.... I do have a "very few" divers that I know that "would / will" do whatever is need to work the problem... And that works both ways....

Jim...

 

[DCBC]

... Buddy diving ( instant buddy ) does not lend itself to this single unit... Teams take time to work as one....

Jim, the old school method of diving with a Buddy is a Buddy Team. To some a Buddy Team consists of more than two Divers. I do not believe that this has to be the case.

I appreciate your comments surrounding the level of commitment of today's diver towards his Buddy. I would suggest that this is founded in the way people are taught. Again, the Standards for certification have dropped over the years. Less emphasis has been placed on diver rescue (take another course), so people typically dive with others less as a matter of safety than the social experience. This of course depends upon the individual instructor and the Standards of the Agency they teach for.

I also realize that because I teach my students how to dive in a team, that they may not put these skills into practice. Obviously if the other diver doesn't know how to dive as a Buddy properly or chooses not to, it all goes-out the window. As Bob and I have mentioned, it's all a matter of choice and attitude toward how people elect to dive. In today's short training programs, "commitment" means less on the part of the Student and Instructor than it use to mean.

 

[Searcaigh]

On Friday I witnessed two buddy pairs at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Pair A knew each other well, performed buddy checks prior to diving, one was doing his first dive since March when he had broken his leg and the other guy was super supportive from the word go. Both had their own gear and were in synch. Although English was not their first language I understood what they were discussing etc., and attempted to join in occasionally since I knew sufficient to converse.

Pair B were a shambles, and were also both friends. They had arrived 40 minutes late at the dive op, and 10 minutes after the boat should have departed, barely apologised when the came aboard then and spoke mainly in their own language from then on. Watching them attempting to put their gear together was a lesson on how not to!

As soon as we reached the dive site I was in the water and descending within a minute.

After the first dive I noticed neither had a watch but one of them had hired the Dive Op's Suunto Zoop and was asking the boat crew (who are not divers and whose first language is also not English) how it worked! Unbelievable but not surprising while watching them gear up for the second dive, their training was either long forgotten or not good enough, no buddy checks whatsoever and one of them almost forgot his weight belt until one of the boat crew pointed it out.

For me this clearly demonstrated that buddy pairs vary a lot and I would guess that their actions above water probably reflected how they behaved underwater too, I did not see either pair underwater when I was diving to comment, but if I'd had to buddy with one pair, I don't think my choice would surprise anyone.

Happy that I dive solo