How many of you dive solo?

[JE]

To all of you - Thank you very much for your concern and your comments. You've all raised issues that I am going to give some serious thought to.

Thanks!!

Rick

Rick,

There comes a mark in solo diving when after spending hours at it on numerous dives, that one becomes bored-! It is much more fun to have someone to explore with. Like Gary said, a certain amount of self-reliance is a good thing, just don't be stupid about it. Above all dive safe & sane-!

JE.... 8)

[DeWayne]

I have nothing against diving solo, but if you have to ask then obviously you are not ready to go it alone. The cave is the worst possible place to start solo; if your mindset is such that you truly want to dive solo for whatever the reason, then start slow in open water. Get to know your equipment as well as yourself. It is all about having fun, and that you will likely not be doing if you just up and decide to go inside a cave by yourself with no prior solo experience.

[wingman]

Breathing off an AL-80, I'll only have 20 - 30 mins of air before I turn it with a good 90 minutes of untouched backgas for an emergency.

Rick

Just to let you know that there are some that consider the Al80 as buddy gas and therefore do not breathe it at all during a solo dive and dive 6ths or 3rds depending on training level and comfort out of their back gas with an open isolator. Bill

[Genesis]

Yep.

If I'm diving solo in an overhead I typically take a full 80 and never touch it; its "aw #hit" gas. Gas management becomes a matter of insuring that you have two separate sources of gas that each (individually) can get you out from wherever you might be at any point.

A twinset CAN fail catastrophically (e.g. isolator valve stem blows out); thus "your best buddy AL". Also, if you have a single-side failure on a twinset you must figure out what you will have once you stop the leak - this is not "half of what's in the can right now", because some will be lost in dealing with whatever happened in the first place. In addition when that sort of situation arises you also have to figure on OTHER problems being present at the same time as well which are likely to impede a clean exit (e.g. the siltout you caused trying to deal with the blown O-ring, etc) plus your breathing rate is likely to be jacked from the incident, so computing gas management on the premise that you can exit "cleanly" can be a fatal mistake.

Murphy is not a nice guy and my expeirence is that he tends to show up in threes. When the first thing goes wrong I start looking for the other two, because they're usually close behind....

I do agree with Dewayne though - if you've gotta ask about solo diving (in any environment, not just an overhead) you're probably not ready for it. But, IMHO, you shouldn't be diving at all if you can't self-rescue - the accident statistics are littered with people who got in trouble and their buddy either was unable to help them for some reason or got himself killed simply by being there and becoming a part of what went wrong. Yes, the opposite happens too - just to be fair about it - the problem is that out of all the gear we take underwater with us, the most likely to fail to operate "properly" in a bad situation is the human mind.

[temrich]

When did Ginnie become "solo NO-NO" I was there over Christmas break and did the Maple Leaf circuit solo. No one said anything to me about it being prohibited. I had this debate with my firends in Ohio about solo cave diving. I agree with the cavers on here that say that a buddy can get you out of trouble. However, they can get you into trouble too! I would rather solo than be killed by another diver. Just my 2 cents. Dive safe

When did Ginnie become "solo NO-NO"

They can make all the rules they want, but they can't necessarily enforce them, because they own the dry land, not the cave. For example, they don't want you to use a DPV without a card, so they won't let you have one on their dry land. But once you're in the water, you can decide to dive solo, and since you're in a navigable waterway, they have no jurisdiction.

[Rich]

Once he gears up we go flying down in the ear (I'm following) and first thing, he hooks a left and starts into the catacombs. No biggie, I've been wanting to go in there anyway. He doesn't run a line so I start to tie onto the mainline and he comes back and motions me to just follow him in. I ignore him, finish tying on and start following him running a reel.

I'm not going to comment on the solo thing as most people on here know my thoughts on the matter

However, I did want to commend you on your actions. Too many idiots die in caves because they play "follow the leader" instead of "thinking for themselves". You did exactly the right thing not to follow your "buddy" blindly and take the time to run your own line.....

Safe diving,

Rich

[Line Squirrel]

I'm currently at intro level and I know how you feel about feeling guilty when diving with full cave divers.

Guys, if it bothered us "full cave" guys we wouldn't put the invite out there for you to tag along. It is however YOUR responsability to stay within your comfort level. If during the predive breifing there is something that makes you a little nervous, that's the time to say something. If you feel the need to thumb it for whatever reason, do it! The cave isn't going anywhere, there is always tomorrow.

[Angie Reim]

Once he gears up we go flying down in the ear (I'm following) and first thing, he hooks a left and starts into the catacombs. No biggie, I've been wanting to go in there anyway. He doesn't run a line so I start to tie onto the mainline and he comes back and motions me to just follow him in. I ignore him, finish tying on and start following him running a reel.

I'm not going to comment on the solo thing as most people on here know my thoughts on the matter

However, I did want to commend you on your actions. Too many idiots die in caves because they play "follow the leader" instead of "thinking for themselves". You did exactly the right thing not to follow your "buddy" blindly and take the time to run your own line.....

Safe diving,

Rich

I too commend you for doing the right thing. No one I know or dive with would be put off by such a thing nor would be annoyed by an intro-level diver sticking to an intro-level plan. Please continue to look for buddies. I suspect you won't have much trouble now.....


Angie

[BgDadddy]

Thanks again everyone... You've talked me out of it. I'm going to keep diving with a buddy for a while, rack up some more experience and reevaluate things at a later time (maybe after apprentice).

For those of you who PM'd me offering to go diving and those of you on the board that responded, thank you all very much... I'll be in touch.

It's funny. I got in a disagreement with a very good friend over this yesterday (who said I was out of my mind) and initially posted yesterday so I could show her that it wasn't all that big a deal. Guess I was the one who needed showing.

Thanks guys (and gals)!! You all are the BEST!!

Rick