What topics/information would you write into a Solo Diving textbook?

[b1gcountry]

On equipment, I would suggest the solo diver carry:
* Pony bottle (size is a different thread arguement)
* 5 foot SMB with Solas tape
* Strobe
* Reel
* Cannister containing either VHF/cell/epirb, and GPS, Flare, Mirror
* Dive Alert horn
* 50lb lift bag (backup to SMB)
* Extra mask
* (long shot, but) Halcyon diver life raft
* Knife(s)

It seems most of the above would be equipment recommended for conditions where you might get swept away to sea for extended periods..solo or not. There are a lot of situations in my diving where carrying this amount of surface support gear would be unneeded, like the local lakes where you can swim to shore very easily. Even in TGL, there isn't much danger of being carried out to sea, although the cold could pose problems...

Tom

 

[JessH]

Instead of a list of gear that you must have I would talk through the different failure modes of various gear configurations and have a discussion on what is considered adequate redundancy. Would manifolded doubles be considered enough redundancy? Does the possibility of a failure at the isolator constitute enough of a risk to consider this setup to not provide adequate redundancy?
When doing a dive to 20ft is the possibility of doing an ESA enough redundancy to justify diving with a single tank and no pony bottle? What if you get tangled in a line and have a regulator failure while tangled? Is this situation realistic enough to justify planning for? What if you are wrong?

I feel that allowing a diver to think through the reasoning will allow the reader to develop a set of standards that they will actually stick to much more religiously than if you simply state that they can't do something. You can of course include a set of suggestions about what you feel is safe and necessary.

It should definitely include a thorough discussion of gas management. While this is not something that is specific to solo diving I feel that most divers don't have a good understanding of it. When solo diving you aren't going to have another diver to get you out of tough situations so you need to make sure to plan accordingly. You obviously don't have to carry emergency gas for someone else but you need to carry it for yourself and you need to account for the fact that it may take you longer to solve problems than it would with a buddy.

~Jess