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antique diver
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Re: What the Hell is a "Self-Reliant" Diver???

Sat Oct 14, 2017 9:16 pm

couv wrote:
Bronze06 wrote:.......To answer Couv's question, Never had a class regarding this....
Then I refer you to 2a w. NO ONE WILL DIVE BEYOND HIS CERTIFICATION LEVEL, PERIOD!!!!!
How can you solo dive without a solo certification? :P
DANG, Russ... now I'm worried about you! How will you survive diving alone without that card? :shock:
The older I get the better I was.

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couv
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Re: What the Hell is a "Self-Reliant" Diver???

Sun Oct 15, 2017 1:10 am

A government inspector knock on Jean Breaux door Rap Rap Rap! Now Jean, he's watching the ball game, "Now who`s dat." He goes to see who it is, the man pulled out a card, stuck it in Jeans face, "this card allows me to check out your farm, Mr. Breaux. "Ok Ok you go do dat. Me I got a ball game going." Now Jean he forgot to tell him watch out for dat mean old bull. Den he heard some aufull yelling out back. He got up to go see, that government man was 2 steps ahead of that ole bull and hollerin, "Help- help-help!" Jean Breaux holler back, "Show him your card! Show him your card!"

Thank you and RIP Justin Wilson.
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Bronze06
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Re: What the Hell is a "Self-Reliant" Diver???

Sun Oct 15, 2017 5:01 am

couv wrote:
Bronze06 wrote:.......To answer Couv's question, Never had a class regarding this....
Then I refer you to 2a w. NO ONE WILL DIVE BEYOND HIS CERTIFICATION LEVEL, PERIOD!!!!!
How can you solo dive without a solo certification? :P
Then again I was diving "Solo" well before the Scuba Nazis made it into a "Certification", therefore I am "Grandfathered" as far as I'm concerned and the agencies can go SAFBD (Suck A Fat Baby's..D##k!........)..lol! :twisted: Great Cajun joke by the way!
"Where'd ya get that ol' thang, don't cha' know them thare things ill kill ya!"

Live From the Red Sea,

Russ

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ScubaLawyer
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Re: What the Hell is a "Self-Reliant" Diver???

Sun Oct 15, 2017 7:27 pm

Ok couv, dat's funny. I dove without a c-card of any kind from 1967 to 1976. One day a new guy at the LDS asked me for my card and wouldn't fill my tank without one. My dad suggested I take a class just to satisfy the establishment. Learned all kinds of unknown stuff like what a dive table was. Cool! I asked my dad if he wanted to take the class with me and he reminded me he was diving the reefs off Hawaii in 1944 using the small emergency oxygen bottles he and his buddies would temporarily remove from their B-24 Liberator. I never asked him what they used for a regulator, maybe just crank a hit into their flight masks whenever they wanted a breath? Anyway, he never did get an official certification card and dove for many years. Still have my original PADI c-card. The instructor was a J. Michael Perenboom, anyone ever heard of him? Ok, I've rambled on long enough. Mark
"The diver who collects specimens of underwater life has fun and becomes a keen underwater observer. .. seek slow-moving or attached organisms such as corals, starfish, or shelled creatures." (Golden Guide to Scuba Diving, 1968) :D

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couv
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Re: What the Hell is a "Self-Reliant" Diver???

Sun Oct 15, 2017 7:55 pm

^^^Dat funny too.

I only dove for about a year before getting certified. My first "instructor" was my roommate who had equipment and was certified-had a card-so he must have been an expert. After diving with him a few times I decided to go to the base library and read up on my new favorite sport. I read about "the bends" and air embolisms, some basic physics and how they related to diving. My "expert" never told me not to hold my breath while on scuba. When I asked about decompression (heard about it from Mike Nelson) he told me, "If you dive deeper than 35 feet, you have to decompress-so don't dive deeper than 35 feet." Shortly after figuring out my "expert" was lacking, I signed up at the LDS for lessons.

As the Dudleys like to say, "You don't know what you don't know."

Couv
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ScubaLawyer
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Re: What the Hell is a "Self-Reliant" Diver???

Sun Oct 15, 2017 10:12 pm

couv wrote:My "expert" never told me not to hold my breath while on scuba.
I'll always remember my dad's 5 rules of diving:

1. Never hold your breath unless you are aiming your gun at a halibut and don't want to spook it with your bubbles.

2. Always put your weight belt on last in case you have to ditch it.

3. Never worry about time or depth on a single dive, as you'll never get in trouble with the amout of air in a single 72.

4. Never ascend faster than your smallest bubbles.

5. Check your J-valve pull rod throughout the dive to make sure it's still in the up position and didn't accidently get pulled down by getting caught on kelp or knocked on a rock

Mark
"The diver who collects specimens of underwater life has fun and becomes a keen underwater observer. .. seek slow-moving or attached organisms such as corals, starfish, or shelled creatures." (Golden Guide to Scuba Diving, 1968) :D

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Nemrod
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Re: What the Hell is a "Self-Reliant" Diver???

Sun Nov 19, 2017 9:46 pm

A solo diver is necessarily self reliant but a self reliant diver is not necessarily solo. PADI is playing a word or mind game. Unfortunately this mind game being played is upon themselves. They simply cannot bring themselves to admit that the accident rate for solo divers is, now that light is being shed upon the subject, now out of the closet, is actually lower than for buddy teams. Are two inept divers twice as likely to create mayhem upon themselves, well, maybe. But one competent solo diver, equipped for a planned solo dive I am quite certain is less likely to come to grief.

I did the SDI Solo Diver course several years back. If I recall we did four dives for the course. There was some written work and a oral test/discussion. All in all a decent course though nothing new particularly covered I did not already know, good practice I guess. The second dive was basic skills, buoyancy, navigation, planning, swimming without a mask, reading gauges without a mask, swimming with one fin, no fins and other silly easy stuff. The third dive we doffed gear mid water and carried it along and then donned the gear. We did a switch to our alternate air supply and shot a sausage. For these I dived double hose. The fourth dive we doffed the gear on the bottom in a sandy spot between the reef fingers and swam about and then donned the gear. I did this dive with my Titan LX long hose rig. I chose to switch to the Titan LX because the PMDSV was not a complete solution to preventing runaway airflow and the Gold Coast is known to have current even more better than Cozumel! Yeah, yeah, tuck the hose(s) away, that works in the pool, not so much maybe in 80 feet of water when the current is rolling the rig along the bottom and instructor and student are each chasing their rigs for dear life. Both with rather astonished looks upon their visages. The first dive was just a check out at the BHB and get to know each other. The naked wildlife in the bushes was perhaps the most notable recollection of that dive. Well, he did have a shirt, mostly, pants, not so much. That is the way I remember it anyways.

My super Nemrod powers having waned considerable over the last few years, I am glad for having done the course then and not now. Not sure I could have wrasssled that SCUBA back on to my back after chasing it across the reef now, pretty sure not. Not sure if I am any longer up to an 80 foot free ascent anymore either. Well, rather not find out.

So, PADI cannot bring themselves to use the word "solo" but it does not matter, the SDI course is better and well recognized. Yes, you can use your dh regulator but you will need a pony bottle. I used a 19 and a 30 cf on my cert dives, slung on my left side. I ran a Mark V clone first and I think one of my Conshelf XIV seconds, not sure. Now I use one of those generic pancake seconds on a Mark V first.

I should be going, y'all be safe out there.

N (James)

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Re: What the Hell is a "Self-Reliant" Diver???

Mon Nov 20, 2017 12:05 am

LOOK OUT VDH FORUM................NEMROD IS BACK... :D :D :D
Doing it right should include some common sense, not just blindly following specs and instructions. .Gary D, AWAP on SB

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couv
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Re: What the Hell is a "Self-Reliant" Diver???

Mon Nov 20, 2017 11:39 am

Bryan wrote:LOOK OUT VDH FORUM................NEMROD IS BACK... :D :D :D
A combination of Nitrogen and Tequila brought him back 8)
A sincere THANK YOU to all at VDH who make this wonderful resource available and to all the thoughtful contributors.

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Re: What the Hell is a "Self-Reliant" Diver???

Mon Nov 20, 2017 7:04 pm

couv wrote:
Bryan wrote:LOOK OUT VDH FORUM................NEMROD IS BACK... :D :D :D
A combination of Nitrogen and Tequila brought him back 8)
Or he's still in a daze from daily intake of coconut ice cream.= :lol:
Doing it right should include some common sense, not just blindly following specs and instructions. .Gary D, AWAP on SB

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Re: What the Hell is a "Self-Reliant" Diver???

Mon Nov 20, 2017 7:16 pm

Back in 1960, My Dad got a copy of DIVE by Dick and Barbara Carrier and taught himself to dive with Voit equipment purchased via mail order. We lived in northern Minnesota with no dive shop nor compressor. So, he would send his tanks down to Jack the Frogman in Minneapolis to get them filled. Sent and received via Greyhound bus! He dove SOLO because he didn't have anybody to dive with. Back then that was no big deal.

When we moved to St. Paul in 1964, the NAUI officials just let my Dad get certified without taking a course. I think they must have given him a written test at least. When I took the course in 1969, he gave me the DIVE book with markings and underlines like "Important... Memorize".

I read in Bill Matthies book that he dove SOLO a lot for the same reason... Didn't have anybody to dive with. Bill is the owner of MN School of Diving up in Brainerd... Started diving in late '50s I think. He's 83 now and still doing fills and hydros at the shop. Solo was no big deal back then.

And, I've heard from instructors here and on the forum that they consider themselves ALWAYs SOLO due to the fact that they are baby sitting students and nobody is watching out for the instructor's safety.
SurfLung
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ScubaLawyer
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Re: What the Hell is a "Self-Reliant" Diver???

Mon Nov 20, 2017 8:04 pm

My dive buddies gave me the nickname "lone wolf" back in the 70's. Not sure why i was singled out. We all backrolled off the boat at the same time and individually headed off on all points of the compass to hunt using the "same ocean" buddy system. Mark
"The diver who collects specimens of underwater life has fun and becomes a keen underwater observer. .. seek slow-moving or attached organisms such as corals, starfish, or shelled creatures." (Golden Guide to Scuba Diving, 1968) :D

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Re: What the Hell is a "Self-Reliant" Diver???

Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:15 am

couv wrote:
Bryan wrote:LOOK OUT VDH FORUM................NEMROD IS BACK... :D :D :D
A combination of Nitrogen and Tequila brought him back 8)
The Tequila was to down the 16 Ibuprofens I was taking a day to dull the pain of Shingles. The only time I ever wanted to be narced. :shock: Hades but I could have been bent and would have never known. :mrgreen:


I understand there is a third now alleged solo course? Independent Diver or some such as that? I think SSI it is.

Look, it is pretty simple, Padi can like it or not with their self induced schizophrenia. All the old guys are croaking off one at a time from mostly natural causes and Gen WiFi does not do anything but whine. That leaves the durable (beginning to question that part) remainder of us so few in numbers that solo is not a luxury but a necessity. All my buddies got old, what is a fellow to do but dive alone :twisted: .

crimediver
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Re: What the Hell is a "Self-Reliant" Diver???

Wed Nov 22, 2017 6:21 pm

I began scuba diving in 1967 in the Philippines when I was 12. My first dive was with a Voit 50 Fathom on a snugpack rented from the navy base recreation center. I got the same class that Mark did abou tnot coming up faster than my smallest bubbles, etc. and after that it was checking out books on diving from the base library. To my knowledge there were no scuba courses available there in those days.

I dove for another 20 years in the states without a C-card and never had a problem getting air or gear. I am pretty sure everyone assumed I was certified since I had all my own gear and went diving a lot.

I only got a C-card because I was going to St. Thomas on my honeymoon and people told me I would not get on a dive boat without a card. A buddy who owned a dive store and was in charge of a police dive team gave me a SSI open water card for 5 bucks and a pony bottle he wanted. That c-card got me past the dive police for years. Later I got all my dive training paid for by the state and now have a bunch of cards including the Solo Diver.

I found out you can dive safely if you have basic knowledge of the physics and abide by some simple rules. But getting advanced training is a good thing and I have become a better diver as a result.

I did get accosted by an off-duty lifeguard at the Outer banks in NC after a solo beach dive to the wreck of the USS Huron. He tried to berate me for "Breaking the cardinal rule of diving" in front of a bunch of divers that he was getting paid 35 bucks a head to guide them to the same wreck. I think he did not like the fact the divers were wondering why they were paying him to take him to a wreck marked by a buoy off the beach when I just did it for free.

He told me he was an off-duty lifeguard and that if he had been on duty he would have 'Yanked me!" I told that Bay Watch wannabee exactly what he could yank.

Fifty years after my first dive I know that I am not as self sufficient as I used to be as I am not as aerobically fit and not as skinny as I used to be and my knees are beat to hell so I have to be more careful of the conditions I dive in. But the majority of dives I have done in the past 5 years have been solo and I still feel pretty comfortable doing them.

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