Solo class

[navyhmc]

Originally Posted by Irondiver

Ok, Im not the run of the mill diver. I am a solo diver but I tossed many dives under my belt for it. What is the deal with a class for everything? Is there a wetsuit class? A hood class? How about a drysuit class? I find it interesting when I started there were dive classes and then you just figured it out as you went along. Wreck diving class? I actually seen that one. had to chuckle. Ok, I got it off my chest.

I sort of agree with you Irondiver. But at the same time, a lot more divers died back in the good old days because they had no training programs for the various specialties.

Some of them make no sense to me and while I think others are a little odd, they do make sense.

Wreck diving? Absolutely-a lot of divers died doing penetrations without the right gear or training.

Deep: same thing. A lot of young divers died going too deep and staying too long, not to mention lack of the right equipment or mindset or skills to manage an emergency.

Solo: Can kill you faster that wreck or deep. You're guaranteed that no one will be there to help you if something goes wrong. The course does go over a lot of what you need to consider before going solo.

The fact is that there are a lot of divers that can go way outside their training and dive with no problem-as long as a crisis doesn't happen. If they have not had the training to deal with that crisis, bad things can happen.

[FishFood]

Ok, Im not the run of the mill diver. I am a solo diver but I tossed many dives under my belt for it. What is the deal with a class for everything? Is there a wetsuit class? A hood class? How about a drysuit class? I find it interesting when I started there were dive classes and then you just figured it out as you went along. Wreck diving class? I actually seen that one. had to chuckle. Ok, I got it off my chest.

If someone wants to reinvent the wheel more power to 'em. But how dare you poke fun at someone who wants to take a class so that they can be a safer diver? And furthermore, you drug up an old thread to do so.



*thread edited for politeness - FF*

[navyhmc]

Oops! I didn't notice the beperkins post date, sorry.

[Irondiver]

Hey I think looking at this, and several others, this is a good idea. I drug up an old post because it was at the top of the page. I saw a few video clips and agree. Get trained. I wasnt making fun of this guy. Hey if you need the training. Get it. However, it wasnt the norm when I started. I see there are a ton of deaths and take back what I had said. Not everyone knows what to do in this situation and that. So yes, get your training.

[navyhmc]

Originally Posted by Irondiver

Hey I think looking at this, and several others, this is a good idea. I drug up an old post because it was at the top of the page. I saw a few video clips and agree. Get trained. I wasnt making fun of this guy. Hey if you need the training. Get it. However, it wasnt the norm when I started. I see there are a ton of deaths and take back what I had said. Not everyone knows what to do in this situation and that. So yes, get your training.

When did you start diving iron?

[Irondiver]

Early 90s. I had dove for a couple years prior to the certs. I was a freediver prior to all this, of course I logged nothing of the freedives. So freediving I started at 1 yrs of age. Scuba was in the early 90s.

[navyhmc]

I started diving in 1974. There were no hard decks so to speak, no rec limits and no additional certs. You just dove where you wanted. The only golden rule was the dive buddy-don't leave home without one. As I noted, a lot of divers died when they went further than they should have. After a while, the industry got together and decided that we needed some constraints to make things safer. OW diving was recommended no deeper than 60', AOW: 90' and Deep cert 130'

While I was a fairly young diver, I made a few dives below 150' with planned safety stops but it was a NDL dive of 5 minutes. I did it with an AL80 and a staged 80 at 80'. The dives went without a hitch and there were no problems. BUT, if I had a regulator failure that deep, it's unlikely that I would have made it to my stage bottle, I would have been hurting if I had lost track of the ascent line and couldn't find my stage. Like I said a lot of things could have gone wrong but they didn't. Now, if I were to make that same dive, I would be using large volume doubles, redundant regs, redundant bouyancy, and a lot more training. The training keeps us alive.

I will agree that there are a lot of certifications available now: Dry suit, UW photo, UW video, Conservancy, Deep, Solo, Tec, Nitrox, Boat, Current, Night, UW Navigation, Peak Performance Bouyancy, Cavern, Cave, DPV and Altitude to name a few. The nice thing about those is that you now don't have to go into a new area of diving blind. You can get the basics and go from there.

[Dark Wolf]

Besides, I had done many solo dives before the class. The only reason I "needed the training" was so that I could dive certain sites without a buddy and not have someone up my nether regions about it.

DW

[wwdiver]

DW
That is EXACTLY the same reason I initially took the class: after driving an hour and a half to a site and being denied entry. Fortunately I learned a few things from it.

[Dark Wolf]

Yes, there was some good information covered in the class. Due to constant reading and studying, I was already doing much of what was in the class. Mainly just review, which is never bad.

DW