commercial diving is solo diving

Nothing better than walk around the haven of a new town and search for the local dive center. With a bit of luck a chat can be stricken. How’s the diving? one might ask. The certifications that a diving center shows at the door mean something, but answers to questions as simple as “how’s the sight changing this year” gives me a better measure of a master diver than the many stars at his door. Perhaps as important, even as I like to show (off) some of my brevets, to tell about diving in The Netherlands does tell my counterpart who I might be underwater. This time, eventually, I did feel like asking for a place and hey! he feels comfortable enough to invite me into their next planned dive.

Indeed the next day starts as promising as possible. It is raining, but after 40 minutes in a rib at open sea the rain is the less interesting thing going on. A fou de bassan (Morus bassanus) crosses our prow. The group smiles and the hand of the captain is steady at the wheel. The shore recedes and the sky is opening, the temperature remains around the twenties. Eventually we lay anchor above the Laos, a shallow wreck with promising spaces to get into and lots of fauna to see around. I am assigned to an elder lady and a young man and the three of us exchange okey’s at the surface before following the line towards the promise. Another wreck dive starts and I can’t be happier.

Yet one never knows what is to be expected, even in the recreational setting of a dive in Bretagne. After the 11 meters mark I was happy of wearing my dry suit, because a sharp thermocline improved the sight but made one of my buddies shake. I didn’t know that thermoclines occur at sea, but here we are. I check and she gives me a ok, but her bare hands curl at her sides. Hum. Bare hands and a thin wetsuit, shouldn’t I have noticed that before? And where is our third companion? It takes us few minutes to locate his bubbles and to signal him not to swim away. I end up being more busy with my new acquaintances than with the wreck itself. The thought, never too far away, does cross my mind: would any of this kind yet unprepared people be capable of rescue me, if anything happens? seeing the thrilling of one and the disorientation of the other, I know the answer. For all practical purposes, I’m diving solo. This time nothing went wrong, besides me signaling the hidden conger heels (Conger conger) to my buddies, and preventing them to bother a ray that might or might not have been a common torpedo (Torpedo torpedo), given than an electric shock, or a sting, are both nasty things to get in your hand. Needles to say, I left the wreck penetration for some other day, with more experienced companions. Once at the surface, we thanked each other meanwhile I (silently) thanked my luck. Nothing went wrong, so my buddies capacities at the face of danger remained untested.

What I describe is the reality of whoever dives with commercial outfits. Have a couple of hundred divings under your belt and go on your own in a commercial dive, and you know what I am describing. Even if the organizing outfit ticks all the checkboxes, nobody guarantees the capacities of your buddies. In most cases, underwater you are on your own. Yet, discounting few opinion articles here and there, solo diving remains taboo diving. One or two agencies offer the so called “self sufficient diver” specialties that frequently are completed with a talk and a dive. But specialty or not, solo diving is considered wrong. Most of my underwater companions repeat to themselves the mantra of “a buddy might save your life”, refusing to acknowledge that to save a life, first of all, you should be able to save yourself. After all, the solo diving that I practice with some frequency is nothing more than having redundant and independent equipment, being fully aware of the dive location and strictly follow a plan that does recognize and minimize the intrinsic risks of the dive I’m doing. Being what I just mentioned the basic security requirements of any dive, after all. But how frequently do we dive with full redundancy? When diving in your “house reef”, do you really device a diving plan and follow it?

I tend to believe that the fear of diving solo is the fear of recognizing that most of our accompanied dives are just badly prepared. That divers, just like anybody else, find safety in numbers knowing that a buddy can be as much as a problem as a solution. Wanna dive? go right now! the most important part of our own planet is waiting for you to discover it. But prepare yourself as if you would be on your own… because you might as well be. Only feeling safe and prepared will you be able to enjoy what the underwater world has to offer.

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