Is solo diving safe?

First, let's define solo diving. Solo diving is NOT leaving your buddy as soon as you get in the water and wandering around by your self, nor is it "same ocean" buddies. Solo diving involves special training and additional equipment.

I'm sure we can all relate to being on a dive boat and getting "stuck" with an in experienced diver. The dive master says " you have to dive with a buddy", what can you do? You know in your heart (even if you like the new buddy) that he will not likely be able to assist you in an emergency and will probably consume his air quickly and shorten your dive. Granted this is Guam, few dive operators require the buddy concept to be practiced. I'll bet you've seen the "daisy chain" of tourist divers heading down the decent line at the blue hole, some 10 divers (or more) to a dive master/instructor (how much supervision is happening with that ratio?). The non-tourist divers are pretty much left to their own devices. I guess the charter boat captains rationalize this as "they're certified" and "i got them to the dive site safely", Do they care about your safety in the water? I'm certainly not against solo diving, many of my dives are solo. What you need to understand is that unless you have solo training, you're probably incurring more risk on your dive than you know. Even the most use-less buddy serves as a redundant air supply. Let's look at what it takes to solo dive safely.

First and foremost, at least be certified to the level of "rescue diver" before considering solo diving. why? rescue diver develops skills that make you more aware of the problems associated with stress. Stress can lead to "perceptual narrowing", making it difficult to be fully aware of your environment, situation, and mental status. Sounds complicated? Well lets assume you're on a dive at the Tokai Maru. You packed your dive bag quickly because you got up late, and realized that you didn't bring enough weight. You found a couple of pounds on the boat and headed down. You're not weighted properly so you're constantly swimming head down to keep yourself at that depth. Swimming head down, the little bit of water you get in your mask sometimes now goes up your nose, causing you to clear your mask often. "It's ok, I'll just keep diving". You’re heading aft on the Tokai constantly swimming head down, clearing your mask often, trying to enjoy the wreck, all of of sudden your gauge console gets stuck in a crevice on the wreck (in your hurry to find weights and gear up after you realized what you'd forgotten, you didn't clip off your console). Now you're starting to get "flustered". "What else can go wrong with this dive". Yet you keep on diving. You reach the aft portion of the shipwreck and notice that you have only 300psi of air left in your tank (if you hadn't been dealing with that mask, swimming head down, and properly suited up you would've noticed this long before now). Your at 70fsw, frustrated, and almost out of gas. I hope you chose to ascend and surface swim back to the boat. All of these problems were minor (except for being that low on air) yet they cascaded into a major safety issue, being out of air. The rescue diver certification teaches you to identify stresses in yourself and others and to deal with them appropriately. I've seen people almost die because of a leaky mask, stress turned into perceptual narrowing which turned into panic.

Second, (and i guess second most), Have the proper gear to solo dive. Dive equipment these days is very reliable, but it's not prefect. Regulators still fail, spg's give inaccurate readings, bc's leak, and sometimes you might get bad gas from your dive shop. These are far from common occurrences, but they do happen. In a solo diving certification class you will learn that to safely solo dive you need "redundancy". On a dive similar to the one discussed earlier you may chose to bring an additional "buddy" bottle. A "buddy" bottle is usually at least 30ft3 and has a regulator first and second stage and an spg on it. This provides you with a redundant air supply in case your primary regulator fails, or you have a catastrophic gas leak from the tank on your back. (30ft3 minimum provides you with enough gas to ascend and complete your safety stop or minor decompression stop. "spare air" systems are just about useless because they don't have enough air to get you to the surface and complete your required/recommended safety or decompression stop). For you Nitrox divers, MAKE SURE THE GAS IN YOUR "BUDDY" BOTTLE IS USUABLE AT THE DEPTH YOU PLAN TO DIVE.

You may also want to bring redundant buoyancy. This can be achieved by bringing a lift bag. A lift bag can be used in instances where your bc will not hold air due to a major leak or failure of your corrugated inflator hose. Why would you need it? Well let's assume you're diving the "crevice". You pull down on your inflator to descend and all of a sudden you're holding the entire hose in your hand because a 5 cent zip tie failed. Your bc now will not hold any air, your in 200fsw, and kicking hard to keep from going to "davy jones' locker". A certified solo diver would simply whip out his lift bag, exhale into it, and slowly ascend so he could dive another day.

There are other gear considerations to address, but you get the point. Get the proper training, and you'll likely survive the "oh shit" moments that will occur. There is only one certification agency that i know of that has a solo diving class, that's TDI/SDI. Other training options would be technical training, cavern and cave training, or an IANTD wreck diver course.

Solo diving has not been proven to be unsafe for the properly trained, but is it safe for you? Only you can answer that. Remember : "Training plus experience equals judgment".