thoughts on solo CCR diving.

[ljjames]

I'm going to make an attempt to split this from the Skiles thread.

this is probably beyond my better judgment and whatever, but I think there was a bit of confusion there regarding OC solo diving and CCR solo diving.

Yes, the thought process was sparked by a acquaintance (i had met him a few times, and we had diving plans for later this summer) passing away after leaving his dive buddies to do a solo ascent, but this isn't about him. His passing is still too recent, and as has been mentioned, 'public' knowledge of the incident leaves too much to speculation...

BUT, step back for a second and ask yourself, what if it wasn't wes we were discussing... what if it was one of us, here on this board? If we can have a reasonable discussion, talking about "what if's" that might influence one of us to get a FFM w/BOV, or give pause when we really want to go dive and can't find a buddy, then it was worth the keyboard time.

I know for a fact that there would be a lot of people who are very very dear to me who would be VERY VERY displeased if I chose to go dive the meg solo with or without bailout... I cherish their friendships. So, in addition to not being willing to take on the risk of solo diving a CCR, no matter HOW badly I wanted to go dive that day, I do listen to the people who love me from time to time, because i do want them in my life. I'm fine with them influencing my actions to a degree.

I do not have the same issue with OC solo diving. Anyone who actually knows _me_ knows that i have quite a colorful history of solo diving, from setting the hook on deep wrecks or target check whilst diving air to tethered work dives. I don't pass any judgement on people who choose to solo dive on OC. For some its quite relaxing... Its just something i don't choose to do recreationally anymore.

I do however stop and think a bit if someone likes solo diving on a CCR, or diving a CCR without Bailout (I've lost 3 friends in the last 5 years where lack of bailout and/or not having a buddy was considered a contributing factor in their death). Either they think their skills are such that THEY are going to be able to deal with a hyperoxia, hypercapnia, hypoxia event, where many people have not, or maybe they just got complacent, or perhaps they were just not scared enough of the machine (something missed in education?), or quite possibly a bit like the free soloist on el cap, they are willing to take risks that most of us are not.

if they have a FFM w/BOV is that better? I'm not really sure... that only means it will be harder for them to drown and easier to recover the body, a Full Face Mask with a Bail Out Valve and adequate OC gas to bail out on does not guarantee a return to the surface.

in the risk benefit ratio, free solo'ing with a rebreather (diving solo without a bailout) is beyond my comfort zone. It's cool if it's within yours, that's your business... Jeb Corliss' words in the beginning of this trailer for '20 seconds of joy' describing base jumping come to mind. (the movie was a-mazing by the way) http://vimeo.com/groups/16065/videos/4153533

I have a touch stone... if I look at something like the squirrel suit basejumpers in the alps and think "gosh i hope they don't have small children" or "I'll do this until which point i have a family, and then i'll probably take it down a notch", or "who will take care of my dogs if i bite it doing this".... then i question my reasons and see if there is a better/safer way to get the same thing accomplished.

Will i dive with someone who solo dives on a CCR? Yes, ask Cameron... Will I stand by and listen without comment if he tells me about his solo CCR dive? No, I will probably say something like "I'm glad you made it back, i do like those pink tanks, could you remember to leave them to me?" or "hope you used your ball gag holder".

Will I let my CCR or OC buddy head to the surface without me? Quite simply, No. because if something happened between XX feet underwater and the parking lot while i was continuing along blissfully unaware, I would feel absolutely horrible. There are divers who don't mind just waiving bye bye and heading up, but i'm not one of them, and my buddies accept that fact. If they want to do 'those' types of dives (every man/woman for themselves), they do them with dive buddies other than me. That is their choice... That is my choice...

I get that Bailout may or may not have saved Andy, or Zak or any of the other more locally known peeps like that guy in cove two more recently or a buddy would have helped things for that matter, but as i said before, it is wise to stack the deck in your favor. Was it complacency that killed them? depends on your definition... Read the 'almost' died threads on Rebreather world, they can be profoundly enlightening, and more often than not, the writer fully admits to something stupid that led up to the 'event'. Ron's story about caustic cocktail at 130' with almost no bailout comes to mind off the top of my head.
http://www.tmishop.com/causticcocktail.htm

<putting on flame retardant suit now>

[H20doctor]

I feel solo diving , either on a rebreather , or a scuba tank , is up to the diver... I know 2 CCR divers who solo, and they Both sling back up air . If its your time to die , then its your time to go.. I get the other thread and ive read it , and i understand your point here ..

[loanwolf]

Laura I solo dive most of the time and do deep dives as well solo. but i never dive without bailout that is just too risky for me to do. even if I am in Edmond's I carry bailout. Just like anything else you have to have redundancy. I know many CCR divers that also solo dive numbering into the many 100's world wide. It is a comfort level and trust of equipment. I trust my rig to a level that I have never trusted or would trust any other unit on the market or in the Military due to it simplicity and robust construction and having as many hours on the unit that I have. I also trust it with my life and I know my body and physiology in the water. Not so say I may head out and not come back some day but that was the same with solo climbing that I have done for over 30yrs. I have had many friends die on CCR over the years but have had more friends die on OC by percentage. Your unit is one of the most complex CCR units on the market. But it is still one of the better one out there. Take Eric he also does most of his dives solo on his Meg, I have never asked him his hours but I know it is close or over 1000hrs a year with the amount of diving he does. He also has a level of trust of himself and his rig as you know ever little thing it does. and he never dives without bailout. If something does not feel right or sound right then you stop and trouble shoot the rig and check it out. If something is funny dives done and you are on bailout.

It all comes down to your own individual level of skills and trust of your self and having redundancy, no different than on OC. I am much more comfortable diving solo on CCR than I am on OC. The safety margins on CCR are much higher than on OC.

[spatman]

(moved thread to No Bubble Zone)

[camerone]

Hey, I miss diving with you Laura. Frankly, at the moment, I miss diving completely, since all my gear is sitting in a warehouse in Aurora, CO, awaiting a new house (but I made an offer that got accepted yesterday...so I may get it back soon. Housing is insanely cheap out here in Denver...)

Solo diving isn't for everyone, CCR or OC.I choose to solo dive frequently on the rebreather for a variety of reasons, but I don't ever dive without bailout. Recreational dives are always at least a 40 cf bottle, and tech dives are significantly more...generous helpings of gas to get back to the surface. I'm not into the whole alpinist theory of diving, although I admit the thought of climbing in the water with less than a hundred pounds of crap on is a very appealing thought.

Diving can be a social event, for sure, but I would rather spend that social time decompressing at the zero-foot stop with a few beers and my fellow divers than necessarily underwater with them - with few exceptions. I'm not a people person, believe it or not, although I have to pretend I'm one all day long at my job. Mostly, I prefer the silence, the solitude, and the focus that comes with diving alone. I tend not to do crazy dives solo - definitely not caves, usually not anything past ~200-ish, and try to keep the deco obligations reasonable - 30 minutes +/- when I'm alone.

It's all about the risk you're willing to take, and the training that you have had. People diving rebreathers (or anyone diving any kind of tech diving, OC or CC) should have had training which imparts the core value that rescue is a self-directed activity. If you're there, and that's not your first thought, I believe your instructor failed you as a student. Your first and primary means of support underwater is yourself. Your buddy is not to be relied on as your primary rescuer, but rather your second or third level redundancy to get yourself out of trouble.

If you go in with that philosophy, then it's entirely up to you as to whether you take that second/third level backup along. It's a calculated risk, but one that I choose because I like the solitude.

But hey...I've flung myself several hundreds of times out of perfectly good airplanes, regularly buzz around in a piston powered helicopter, ride a motorcycle ten thousand miles a year, on and off road - though I no longer race, and ski black diamond hill runs like a bat outta hell. And if I couldn't/didn't, I'd rather not be alive, because I'd be bored completely out of my skull... each one has calculated risks associated with it, and the only way to move the needle in your favor is training, practice, and self-awareness.

[ljjames]

you bring up an interesting point... my instructor consistently taught us that when the chips are down on CCR, you may not have the mental capacity to save yourself. Of course he taught a million and one ways to try to prevent ever getting to _that point_ starting before we ever go near the water, but the bottom line, again and again, was that no matter how badass we think we are, in the end, if we 'go to sleep' we are not going to be capable of self rescue. Perhaps my difference in attitude is merely a difference in the instructors who trained us. I'm not saying one is better than another, just different thought processes/mindsets.

the "self rescue" i believe you are talking about (correct me if i'm wrong) are the moments leading up to that point... the edge of the spiral into incident pit so to speak.

If any of you have ever heard Leon Scamahorn speak at a dive show or conference, now raise that to the Nth degree and put yourself in a small room with him for days on end, and perhaps you'll understand where/why my thoughts are as they are. Being a manufacturer, i get the impression he has access to data we as lay people don't always get. He pours over incident reports... In some cases he has had access to the equipment. If anyone grok's the risks surrounding diving a CCR I think he probably does, and he's been successfully diving them as long as I have known him (1994) and several years prior to that by my understanding.

maybe he goes overboard... who knows... for now i'll just keep on rollin' with what i was taught, cause it seems to have kept him alive

and yes cam, its a bummer that you moved... i really did like those pink dubs *grin*

[camerone]

the "self rescue" i believe you are talking about (correct me if i'm wrong) are the moments leading up to that point... the edge of the spiral into incident pit so to speak.

Absolutely. One of the things that you learn flying (and Greg will tell you this, too...) and I know they cover in cave class - it's not usually the first thing that goes wrong that gets you. It's the bad decision making that follows that does you in.

I met a girl when I was down at the Robinson helicopter factory last year for the recurrent safety training in the helicopter. It's mandatory every six years to keep insurance coverage, to carry passengers, or to teach / instruct in the R-22 and R-44. She was flying another (non-Robinson) helicopter that has a very heavy control system, and the hydraulic assist failed on the controls. She probably weighed 98 lbs soaking wet and it was an absolute struggle for her to fly the thing without hydraulics. In fact, even the beefiest guys I've met would probably have trouble in that particular situation. She crashed it, but survived to tell the tale. Here's what happened: hydraulics failed, and instead of setting it down in a parking lot, park, golf course, etc, she made the first mistake of electing to fly back to the airport to get it maintained, even though she would have to struggle for a good while with the machine...but she made it to the airfield. Mistake two - when she crossed the airport threshold, she was at the far end of the field from her base. Instead of putting it down and trucking it back to the base down the ramp, she elected to try to fly it the rest of the way. She had to swerve around some parked planes/cars/whatever to get to the helipad, and that's where she ran out of altitude, strength, and ideas all at the same point, and balled up the machine into a scrap heap. Two or three good chances to save herself and she blew each and every one of them.

It's the same thing with rebreathers. By and large, there's almost always an out ahead of time, and you have to deliberately pass them up to get to the unrecoverable scenarios. There's a reason we're often called "rebreather pilots."

and yes cam, its a bummer that you moved... i really did like those pink dubs *grin*

I need them to pick up hot Colorado girls. Someone told me that Denver has the highest number of divers per capita in the country, and, judging by the number of dive shops for a land locked city, I'm believing it. Of course, we get chatting, and they ask me my favorite dive sites, and they can't fathom anything other than a tropical reef with bubbles streaming everywhere.

...which just implies I'll have a lot more solo diving here in the reservoirs than I did in Seattle...

[ArcticDiver]

What you are really asking is if it is OK to make your own decisions and rely on yourself and to live or die with the consequences. That is a decision each person must make for themselves.

For me, the first time I soloed an airplane my training to handle problems came to the fore. When I flew my first jet powered fighter it was solo. There were no models where an instructor could come along to bail me out. Over my life I have routinely been in positions where there may have been someone I could talk to but there was no one who could physically intervene if circumstance brought a problem.

Routinely I have ventured into geographic areas where I had no backup. I either survived or perished on my own. I am not unique in these activities. There are many just like me,probably including some on this forum.

The fact is that although more than one person can be a social benefit and sometimes be a convenience if a problem occurs that person also brings a doubling of the possibility of poor decisions and mechanical problems.

I say all that only to say that whether you do something solo or rely on another fallable human to assist depends on your thought process, your emotions and your comfort level. It is your life. It is your right to decide who will be ultimately responsible for living that life.



Oh yes, I totally believe in the Rule Of Threes. If you have one serious problem and then a second it is best to abort and find safe ground before number three kills you and those depending on you.

[lamont]

What you are really asking is if it is OK to make your own decisions and rely on yourself and to live or die with the consequences. That is a decision each person must make for themselves.

no, i'm pretty sure that's not what she's asking since she's okay with the risks of solo OC diving but not with the risks of solo CCR diving.

the point is that since a CCR can immediately immobilize you with very little warning that it is fundamentally more risky than doing all those other activities while solo. when you're hiking the things that will quickly immobilize you without much warning typically involve newton's laws and g-forces which we've got thousands of years of evolution giving us fairly good natural instincts to be able to avoid those kinds of situations. we didn't evolve to suddenly notice the absence of a little ticking noise and take emergency action.

[ArcticDiver]

I don't know how well your post reflects the OP. But it really misses the point. Solo or not has more to do with a person's thought process and willingness to be resposible for themselves than other factors.

Certainly technology has evolved many times faster than our species. In point of fact if we relied on our evolution to protect us from the hazards of modern life rather than on training and practice casualty rates would be much higher.

[ljjames]

his post perfectly reflects the OP's thoughts.

I'm not asking for anyones permission, nor am I necessarily "judging" anyone per se for their choice/actions. This is not so much about solo or not solo but about the risk factors surrounding diving solo on CCR vs. OC.

I was hoping for some dialog from people on both sides... I've stated why I personally don't do it, it doesn't have to do with trust or whatnot, it has to do simply with my personal calculation risk analysis.

everyone has a different modifier for risk it seems.

I don't buy the flying analogy (except perhaps the fighter pilot one where you have to wear supplemental O2) because nothing in the plane is gonna render you unconscious with little or no warning. There are sudden things that happen, I've hit windshear in a small plane and dropped a couple thousand feet like that *snap*, but i was awake at the console.

I personally don't think that its as simple as y'all are saying with regards to "I trust the machine and accept the risk". I agree that there is a level of trust that has to be there to do any of the things y'all are mentioning, from a climbing rope, to your own brain, but none of the other risky behaviors i've participated in have the exacting ability to render me incapable of self rescue in the blink of an eye.

in reading the near-death threads, yes, most people did some thing stupid leading up to the event, most if not all rebreather fatalities are operator error to some degree (maintenance, not bailing out when things were going bad, etc..), but not all of them. Sometimes something went catastrophically wrong and went from one breath of happy gas to the next breath of "oh (%&# me, mommy I don't wanna die".

quite simply on the edge of the incident pit, you may already be incapacitated enough to NOT realize things are going as bad as they are going, and NOT bailout soon enough.

hence starting this thread.

[loanwolf]

the point is that since a CCR can immediately immobilize you with very little warning that it is fundamentally more risky than doing all those other activities while solo. .

This is a false statement that is made about CCR's, They will not immobilize you with very little warning. CO2 is not something that just comes up and hits you it takes time to build up, Even if you are pushing way past your scrubbers recommend time limits as many of us do. You get Symptoms of it long before it hits you. What you need to know is what those symptoms are and that takes experience and time in the water with your unit. If you at all start to feel funny, STOP and trouble shoot the rig with all the different tools you are taught in your classes.

The two things that can immobilize your are CO2 and lack of O2, caustic cocktail is not going to immobilize you and you would have noticed the water in the loop almost always before you get a taste of very strong tums.

Lack of O2 - If you get hit by that then you are just an idiot that deserves to die that is not paying attention to their rig. Almost all of the incidents of this are on eCCR's. The pilots get too accustomed to the computer running their rig and they get complacent about it so when something does go wrong (very rarely) they are not watching their PO2 and get smoked. I can shut off the O2 valve on my rig and breath off it for 5 to 10+ minutes depending on what my work load is at the time before the PO2 will drop from 1.3 to below 0.16. Plenty of time to get what ever the problem is figured out and to go onto bailout.

CO2 takes time to accumulate but it does have one unfortunate side. That is what we call the toilet bowl effect. Once you get to a certain level of CO2 in the body no matter what you try to do you are done. You can be put on pure O2 and it will not bring you back the blood is too saturated. But long before you get to that level you will have passed out and long before that you will be feeling really crappy. If you have ever breathed into a bag and you start to feel shitty that is the same thing. It takes a while even on a small bag before you get to feeling like shit.

It takes time to recognize the feelings of both of these and one should not be solo diving a CCR unless they can recognize the feelings. But if one is paying attention to their rig you are almost never going to have either of these issues become anything but an annoyance that makes you have to go onto bailout. Now on some rigs such as the Meg and KISS that has a very complex head with lots of very intricate o-rings that can fail or be installed incorrectly and still pass the Positive and Negative tests but allow CO2 to bypass the scrubber their is a very remote as hell chance that you can take a CO2 hit quite fast. I know several of my friends who will remain nameless on this board that have screwed up on those o-rings and are still with us today as they were paying attention and when they started feeling like crap they when to bailout and called the dive.

Just as with OC no one should be solo diving unless they have redundant systems and know how to use them.

[lamont]

This is a false statement that is made about CCR's, They will not immobilize you with very little warning. CO2 is not something that just comes up and hits you it takes time to build up, Even if you are pushing way past your scrubbers recommend time limits as many of us do. You get Symptoms of it long before it hits you. What you need to know is what those symptoms are and that takes experience and time in the water with your unit. If you at all start to feel funny, STOP and trouble shoot the rig with all the different tools you are taught in your classes.

Actually that is precisely what I'm talking about. You have to be watching yourself for _symptoms_ on a CCR and be constantly vigilant about them. Those are things that humans are notoriously poor at doing or else we wouldn't have issues with drunk driving or with all the threads on scubaboard about "i've never been narced before but yesterday at just 130 feet i got totally hammered with narcosis".

That is different from suddenly dropping 1,000 feet in an airplane, where everyone's inner ear is going to go nuts about it and immediately let them know that they need to fix something quickly. You don't have to be a highly trained and vigilant fighter pilot to know there's something going on you need to pay attention to.

You may feel that you've trained sufficiently to deal with those differences and/or that you've reached an acceptable level of risk so that you'll solo dive CCR. I won't argue about that. I'm not interested in trying to convince you to not dive a CCR solo since you know the risks and have lots of experience and you can come to your own assessments. I'm more interested in the 24 year old kid taking up CCR diving and I think its doing them a disservice to equate the risks of solo CCR diving to the risks of solo airplane flying. I also think its perfectly rational to draw a line between the relative risks of solo flying and solo CCR diving and decide to do one and not the other. I definitely don't think its obvious that Arctic Diver's argument that both activities occupy the same risk bucket and that you can argue away treating them differently holds true -- and the argument in this case is not about the philosophy involved in doing something dangerous by yourself.

Arctic Diver in his first paragraph there tried to drag the discussion onto this philosophical discussion about the risks of doing anything solo, which is not an argument that I'm interested in. I don't care what you or Arctic Diver do, and I don't care about what choices you make, and I don't think Laura cares about that discussion either. I find it totally pointless and trying to frame the discussion that way is just shifting the topic. I'm actually fairly hard-core that I don't care how
you dive, I'm not your Mother and you are a big boy.

However, I'm going to make an argument that I think what you're doing is inherently more risky than flying an airplane solo and that the skills necessary to safely do your activity are skills that many people strongly believe they have, while demonstratively not having them. So, when it comes to the hypothetical 24-year old just taking up CCR diving, I'm going to advise them that solo CCR diving has a substantially different risk profile than solo flying, and not to emulate solo CCR divers until they're all grown up and really get what all the differences are. And I think when it comes to the risks that we're talking about that all of us, including you, started out as being "idiots that deserve to die" and its only through a whole lot of experience and training and understanding and vigilance that you can even attempt to mitigate all the risks.

...

And BTW, I'm consistent in this in that I think that all scuba diving is inherently more dangerous than, say, snowboarding. With snowboarding the problems have to do with really basic physics of motion, inertia, momentum, speed, g-forces and such that we've come to understand through years of evolution. With scuba diving its inherently more dangerous since there's no feedback you get that your tissues are ongassing and that you're crossing into a decompression dive -- or you can swim obliviously into a gin-clear cave without noticing the silt disaster that you're creating behind yourself if you aren't trained to have non-silting kicks. I see CCRs as yet another step up the risk ladder from there -- I don't equate all those risks together (any risk being the same as any other risk seemed to be the argument that Arctic Diver made).

Since we can't measure relative risk very well, though, I doubt we'll wind up with any kind of agreement. But the overriding point I'm trying to make is that Arctic Diver's framing of the discussion was completely wrong and was just putting words into Laura's mouth. The argument is not about solo-activities-vs-not-solo-activities of any kind but about relative risk. We can disagree about the relative risk, but at least the argument is back on track.

[loanwolf]

This is a false statement that is made about CCR's, They will not immobilize you with very little warning. CO2 is not something that just comes up and hits you it takes time to build up, Even if you are pushing way past your scrubbers recommend time limits as many of us do. You get Symptoms of it long before it hits you. What you need to know is what those symptoms are and that takes experience and time in the water with your unit. If you at all start to feel funny, STOP and trouble shoot the rig with all the different tools you are taught in your classes.

Actually that is precisely what I'm talking about. You have to be watching yourself for _symptoms_ on a CCR and be constantly vigilant about them. Those are things that humans are notoriously poor at doing or else we wouldn't have issues with drunk driving or with all the threads on scubaboard about "i've never been narced before but yesterday at just 130 feet i got totally hammered with narcosis".

That is different from suddenly dropping 1,000 feet in an airplane, where everyone's inner ear is going to go nuts about it and immediately let them know that they need to fix something quickly. You don't have to be a highly trained and vigilant fighter pilot to know there's something going on you need to pay attention to.

You may feel that you've trained sufficiently to deal with those differences and/or that you've reached an acceptable level of risk so that you'll solo dive CCR. I won't argue about that. I'm not interested in trying to convince you to not dive a CCR solo since you know the risks and have lots of experience and you can come to your own assessments. I'm more interested in the 24 year old kid taking up CCR diving and I think its doing them a disservice to equate the risks of solo CCR diving to the risks of solo airplane flying. I also think its perfectly rational to draw a line between the relative risks of solo flying and solo CCR diving and decide to do one and not the other. I definitely don't think its obvious that Arctic Diver's argument that both activities occupy the same risk bucket and that you can argue away treating them differently holds true -- and the argument in this case is not about the philosophy involved in doing something dangerous by yourself.

Arctic Diver in his first paragraph there tried to drag the discussion onto this philosophical discussion about the risks of doing anything solo, which is not an argument that I'm interested in. I don't care what you or Arctic Diver do, and I don't care about what choices you make, and I don't think Laura cares about that discussion either. I find it totally pointless and trying to frame the discussion that way is just shifting the topic. I'm actually fairly hard-core that I don't care how
you dive, I'm not your Mother and you are a big boy.

However, I'm going to make an argument that I think what you're doing is inherently more risky than flying an airplane solo and that the skills necessary to safely do your activity are skills that many people strongly believe they have, while demonstratively not having them. So, when it comes to the hypothetical 24-year old just taking up CCR diving, I'm going to advise them that solo CCR diving has a substantially different risk profile than solo flying, and not to emulate solo CCR divers until they're all grown up and really get what all the differences are. And I think when it comes to the risks that we're talking about that all of us, including you, started out as being "idiots that deserve to die" and its only through a whole lot of experience and training and understanding and vigilance that you can even attempt to mitigate all the risks.

...

And BTW, I'm consistent in this in that I think that all scuba diving is inherently more dangerous than, say, snowboarding. With snowboarding the problems have to do with really basic physics of motion, inertia, momentum, speed, g-forces and such that we've come to understand through years of evolution. With scuba diving its inherently more dangerous since there's no feedback you get that your tissues are ongassing and that you're crossing into a decompression dive -- or you can swim obliviously into a gin-clear cave without noticing the silt disaster that you're creating behind yourself if you aren't trained to have non-silting kicks. I see CCRs as yet another step up the risk ladder from there -- I don't equate all those risks together (any risk being the same as any other risk seemed to be the argument that Arctic Diver made).

Since we can't measure relative risk very well, though, I doubt we'll wind up with any kind of agreement. But the overriding point I'm trying to make is that Arctic Diver's framing of the discussion was completely wrong and was just putting words into Laura's mouth. The argument is not about solo-activities-vs-not-solo-activities of any kind but about relative risk. We can disagree about the relative risk, but at least the argument is back on track.

Lamont everyone is going to have their own onion on any subject. The age does not make any difference at all it is the individuals ability to utilize the tools that are in their toolbox that they learned in class. I know kids that their parents let them dive solo even CCR. It all comes down to the training. Now their are some people out their who you just cannot train, trust me I have tried and it just will not happen. Those individuals should not solo dive. But it is still their choice if they want to, saylavee at your own risk.

Myself and just about everyone else I know who dive CCR all feel that CCR is far safer than OC especially if you are solo diving. The advantages outweigh any of the disadvantages.

1) no air clock - you are not having to worry about a spg that is running down. So if you have a problem you have literally hours to figure it out. You can stop and take the time to think of what tools you need for the situation.
2) you are breathing 90deg air so your are not as thermally stressed, both for comfort and time if something should happen that is going to take a while to get out of. Caught in a fishing line or net, got into someplace and silted it out just sit down and wait for the silt to settle out. Caught by the current just find a place to chill and wait for the current to settle down. you may have several hours you can wait depending on how much time is left on your scrubber. This all references back to #1 as well as #3.
3) Overall Stress - Most of us are far less stressed when on a CCR and are much more aware of what is going on with us and what is going on around us. This comes with time in the water. I love it when we are doing classes and we do the first open water dives. I have a hard time swimming as slow as everyone slows down to. And after the dive and you ask them well what do you think, and they say wow I have never noticed so much stuff. I never knew I was just swimming over so many different things that I was aware of now.
4) Extended no deco bottom time limits - You have more time if something happens to get your self out of trouble as you are running the best PO2 for any given depth.

Some people will argue the complexity of the equipment that is true in some cases but not in all. Several of the units are less complex and easier to manage than a typical OC tech rig. The mechanical components are the same for the most part, less the scrubber. And some units are easier and less time consuming to set up and dive.

As I read what Arctic Diver had written in essence you are responsible for yourself. I have to say that I agree with that whether you are Diving CCR or OC, Flying a plane or chopper, or if you are solo climbing a rock wall, frozen waterfall, or Mt Everest. The choice is up to the individual. Hopefully they will make the proper choice and have the proper tools in their toolbox if shit hits the fan. If they do not and they get smoked well nature has run it course.

[Chris Borgen]

[/quote]I'm more interested in the 24 year old kid taking up CCR diving and I think its doing them a disservice to equate the risks of solo CCR diving to the risks of solo airplane flying.[/quote]

Damn, good thing I waited till I was 25 to do a solo ccr dive. I wouldn't do it now that I'm 26:)

[ljjames]

*sigh*

ya ya, whatever. This is coming from the only CCR diver i've personally been on the same beach with, much less dove with with that uses his halfmask regularly (or so it seems). I have not dove with your other buddies, but i have seen a goodly number of CCR dives getting in and out of the water at assorted dive sites.

If you indeed wear your halfmask regularly, by extrapolation, does that mean you are more chicken and less trusting of your machine than some of the other CCR divers who have posted here? or are you doing it to merely stack the deck in your favor buddy or no buddy..

anyhow, again, i don't care whether people solo dive, fly, climb... thats not my business, i'm just interested in what seems like an increasing trend. I _get_ that for dives where gas supply is going to be a limiting factor the CCR is at times a 'safer' option. I don't buy that CCR is safer than say a set of doubles at the edmonds underwater park. But then i guess more OC divers die there annually than CCR, so some could argue the opposite

It is a trend that i myself have been tempted by, especially when all but 2 (well, one who actually DID come out diving with me on it, Thank you Lamont!) of my regular dive buddies basically said "we won't dive with you on that device". Overnight, i was without my standard cadre. So more than once i was sitting there, looking at a canister of fresh scrubber, thinking... hm.... I was quite sure i'd be fine if i went and played in my backyard, i even talked to alex about snorkeling around above me so 'in the event' of an event, at least he could inflate my bc. But in the end, i decided not to. not out of 'fear' of the machine or whatnot, mostly just practicing what i preach (and not wanting Leon to take my birthday away). I'm curious how many of you solo dive the breather cause thats just the way you play, and you'd be solo OC'ing it too, or the fact that the CCR allows you to go to many places (depth/time/location/whatever) that most regular divers don't go, so pretty soon you become a solo diver due to 'lack' of a buddy. Seriously, i GET it. I get the beauty of being able to go diving anywhere, anytime, any place without having to arrange it around another persons schedule... Pack your CCR in the carry-on and just GO! How do you think i managed to rack up 400-450 dives a year a few years in a row?

If i had such abject fear of the machine as some of you are implying, i never would have bothered to take the class in the first place, or spent the time to take an 8 month break from the diving i 'wanted' to do, so i could get up to speed on the 'breather, and not be one of those yokels who blasts down to a wreck in 270' the first dive after training... which is exactly what i did after mixed gas class, mind you... first dive when we got back from class was in fact the bunker hill... i think that qualifies as young and stupid, or more balls than brains or whatever.. ya.. a 23 year old with a compressor, some O2, some helium and just enough training to get into trouble... Sometimes we make our own luck, sometimes the angels watch over us...

I'm more interested in the 24 year old kid taking up CCR diving and I think its doing them a disservice to equate the risks of solo CCR diving to the risks of solo airplane flying.[/quote]

Damn, good thing I waited till I was 25 to do a solo ccr dive. I wouldn't do it now that I'm 26:) [/quote]

[Joshua Smith]

(Why? Why am I getting involved with this thread? ](*,) )

Look, people: This is pointless. People do what people do, above and below the water. Arguing about what people *should be* doing on the internet is just "sound and fury, signifying nothing." I've dived with several CCR instructors, and I'm friends with several more of them. Without exception, they all teach safe practices. Not one of them will tell a student that it's OK to dive without OC bailout, push training limits, or do anything stupid. They are all good, safe divers with a pasion for our sport. Since it's fairly difficult to buy a CCR without training- not saying it can't be done, just saying it's difficult- then the vast, overwhelming majority of CCR divers are trained to some pretty rigorous standards, and exposed to the correct information and training they need to stay alive.

Diving fatalities, as well as the subset of CCR diving fatalities, lump broadly into two groups: Rookies pushing the limits, and veterans who have grown complacent. The "veteran" problem is a sticky one. It's hard to know what you can say or do about a guy with thousands and thousands of deep, risky dives, who dies on a relatively benign profile. I've seen the seeds of this complacency in my own diving, when I caught myself saying something to the effect that 200' dives were "pretty routine" for me, these days. That's a bad way to look at things, and it really made me think about some stuff.

As for rookies pushing the limits? That's a tough one, too. I pushed quite a few limits. I did some stupid stuff. I also learned some things along the way.

Anyway- yeah, people die on CCRs. 12-14 a year, on average. Since nobody knows with any accuracy how many people are actively diving CCR, we don't have a clue what percentage of the total population this represents. But, it seems pretty clear to me that every last one of them knew that they were doing something riskier than diving OC, but less dangerous than driving to the dive site. I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement, but it's not like AIDS, or drug addiction, or alcoholism, or heart disease, or smoking cigarettes, or 1,000 other far more prevalent, and largely preventable, ways to die. Why does this topic always cause such an uproar? The 24 year old meathead who is denied his chance to kill himself on a rebreather will find another way to get the job done, I wager.

[loanwolf]

I'm curious how many of you solo dive the breather cause thats just the way you play, and you'd be solo OC'ing it too, or the fact that the CCR allows you to go to many places (depth/time/location/whatever) that most regular divers don't go, so pretty soon you become a solo diver due to 'lack' of a buddy. Seriously, i GET it. I get the beauty of being able to go diving anywhere, anytime, any place without having to arrange it around another persons schedule... Pack your CCR in the carry-on and just GO! How do you think i managed to rack up 400-450 dives a year a few years in a row?

Laura I can only speak for myself. I solo dived OC but with the breather it basically takes the limits off my solo diving. I can do things like scooter from Alki Pipeline to Cove 3. Or scuttle down to the base of Leschi wall and play around and collect bugs on the way up and not have to worry about the time. I guess one of the other reasons I like solo diving is that other than this last year I had always been busy with students and helping with classes or on organized dives so getting in the water and just enjoying myself and not having to be worrying about others is very nice. It was the same for climbing for many years all I did was guide and teach on my off time. To get my stress relief I would go out solo. Hell I got my ass chewed out several times when wintering over at Mucmurdo for throwing on the skies and taking off for a day or two when I had time off. My liver needed a break as that is all their was to do was drink yourself into a stupor and try to forget about where your were. It is nice to just get in not have to worry about anyone but yourself and just be a fish. I love to go into Edmond's and swim out to the Triumph and just hang out with the fish and not make bubbles and see how many school up with you. Then drift with the currents up to the north end of the park then move into shallower water and drift back to the jetty zigzagging the whole way. Or scooter out to Alki Reef and get a big school of fish swarming you as you go from rock pile to rock pile and spend several hours just drifting and looking for things. Even just jumping into the Lake or the sound and try to see how good my navigation skills and head out to one of the deep wrecks that have no lines on them and sometimes find something new that we have never seen before and other times see nothing but mud for hours and be happy as a hell.

[loanwolf]

(Why? Why am I getting involved with this thread? ](*,) )

Look, people: This is pointless. People do what people do, above and below the water. Arguing about what people *should be* doing on the internet is just "sound and fury, signifying nothing." I've dived with several CCR instructors, and I'm friends with several more of them. Without exception, they all teach safe practices. Not one of them will tell a student that it's OK to dive without OC bailout, push training limits, or do anything stupid. They are all good, safe divers with a pasion for our sport. Since it's fairly difficult to buy a CCR without training- not saying it can't be done, just saying it's difficult- then the vast, overwhelming majority of CCR divers are trained to some pretty rigorous standards, and exposed to the correct information and training they need to stay alive.

Diving fatalities, as well as the subset of CCR diving fatalities, lump broadly into two groups: Rookies pushing the limits, and veterans who have grown complacent. The "veteran" problem is a sticky one. It's hard to know what you can say or do about a guy with thousands and thousands of deep, risky dives, who dies on a relatively benign profile. I've seen the seeds of this complacency in my own diving, when I caught myself saying something to the effect that 200' dives were "pretty routine" for me, these days. That's a bad way to look at things, and it really made me think about some stuff.

As for rookies pushing the limits? That's a tough one, too. I pushed quite a few limits. I did some stupid stuff. I also learned some things along the way.

Anyway- yeah, people die on CCRs. 12-14 a year, on average. Since nobody knows with any accuracy how many people are actively diving CCR, we don't have a clue what percentage of the total population this represents. But, it seems pretty clear to me that every last one of them knew that they were doing something riskier than diving OC, but less dangerous than driving to the dive site. I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement, but it's not like AIDS, or drug addiction, or alcoholism, or heart disease, or smoking cigarettes, or 1,000 other far more prevalent, and largely preventable, ways to die. Why does this topic always cause such an uproar? The 24 year old meathead who is denied his chance to kill himself on a rebreather will find another way to get the job done, I wager.

[Chris Borgen]

*sigh*

ya ya, whatever. This is coming from the only CCR diver i've personally been on the same beach with, much less dove with with that uses his halfmask regularly (or so it seems). I have not dove with your other buddies, but i have seen a goodly number of CCR dives getting in and out of the water at assorted dive sites.

If you indeed wear your halfmask regularly, by extrapolation, does that mean you are more chicken and less trusting of your machine than some of the other CCR divers who have posted here? or are you doing it to merely stack the deck in your favor buddy or no buddy..

anyhow, again, i don't care whether people solo dive, fly, climb... thats not my business, i'm just interested in what seems like an increasing trend. I _get_ that for dives where gas supply is going to be a limiting factor the CCR is at times a 'safer' option. I don't buy that CCR is safer than say a set of doubles at the edmonds underwater park. But then i guess more OC divers die there annually than CCR, so some could argue the opposite

It is a trend that i myself have been tempted by, especially when all but 2 (well, one who actually DID come out diving with me on it, Thank you Lamont!) of my regular dive buddies basically said "we won't dive with you on that device". Overnight, i was without my standard cadre. So more than once i was sitting there, looking at a canister of fresh scrubber, thinking... hm.... I was quite sure i'd be fine if i went and played in my backyard, i even talked to alex about snorkeling around above me so 'in the event' of an event, at least he could inflate my bc. But in the end, i decided not to. not out of 'fear' of the machine or whatnot, mostly just practicing what i preach (and not wanting Leon to take my birthday away). I'm curious how many of you solo dive the breather cause thats just the way you play, and you'd be solo OC'ing it too, or the fact that the CCR allows you to go to many places (depth/time/location/whatever) that most regular divers don't go, so pretty soon you become a solo diver due to 'lack' of a buddy. Seriously, i GET it. I get the beauty of being able to go diving anywhere, anytime, any place without having to arrange it around another persons schedule... Pack your CCR in the carry-on and just GO! How do you think i managed to rack up 400-450 dives a year a few years in a row?

If i had such abject fear of the machine as some of you are implying, i never would have bothered to take the class in the first place, or spent the time to take an 8 month break from the diving i 'wanted' to do, so i could get up to speed on the 'breather, and not be one of those yokels who blasts down to a wreck in 270' the first dive after training... which is exactly what i did after mixed gas class, mind you... first dive when we got back from class was in fact the bunker hill... i think that qualifies as young and stupid, or more balls than brains or whatever.. ya.. a 23 year old with a compressor, some O2, some helium and just enough training to get into trouble... Sometimes we make our own luck, sometimes the angels watch over us...

I'm more interested in the 24 year old kid taking up CCR diving and I think its doing them a disservice to equate the risks of solo CCR diving to the risks of solo airplane flying.

Damn, good thing I waited till I was 25 to do a solo ccr dive. I wouldn't do it now that I'm 26:) [/quote][/quote]

Well Im not sure if your post was meant to call me out or not, but considering I have done 1 dive with you, everything went well, we both had fun, and both were still breathing at the end I will take it as you were just asking about my ffm. I was merely just making a friendly joke about the comment of being a 24 yr old ccr diver as I was when I got started. But to leave it where it is...I like my ffm, it works for me, just like everything else I dive. And yes I trust my ccr as much as any other piece of dive gear, oc or cc.

[ArcticDiver]

his post perfectly reflects the OP's thoughts.

I'm not asking for anyones permission, nor am I necessarily "judging" anyone per se for their choice/actions. This is not so much about solo or not solo but about the risk factors surrounding diving solo on CCR vs. OC.

I was hoping for some dialog from people on both sides... I've stated why I personally don't do it, it doesn't have to do with trust or whatnot, it has to do simply with my personal calculation risk analysis.

everyone has a different modifier for risk it seems.

I don't buy the flying analogy (except perhaps the fighter pilot one where you have to wear supplemental O2) because nothing in the plane is gonna render you unconscious with little or no warning. There are sudden things that happen, I've hit windshear in a small plane and dropped a couple thousand feet like that *snap*, but i was awake at the console.

I personally don't think that its as simple as y'all are saying with regards to "I trust the machine and accept the risk". I agree that there is a level of trust that has to be there to do any of the things y'all are mentioning, from a climbing rope, to your own brain, but none of the other risky behaviors i've participated in have the exacting ability to render me incapable of self rescue in the blink of an eye.

in reading the near-death threads, yes, most people did some thing stupid leading up to the event, most if not all rebreather fatalities are operator error to some degree (maintenance, not bailing out when things were going bad, etc..), but not all of them. Sometimes something went catastrophically wrong and went from one breath of happy gas to the next breath of "oh (%&# me, mommy I don't wanna die".

quite simply on the edge of the incident pit, you may already be incapacitated enough to NOT realize things are going as bad as they are going, and NOT bailout soon enough.

hence starting this thread.

Haven't read any of the following posts because it doesn't matter what they say or what they argue. The OP has serious doubts about the wisdom of solo CCR diving. The OP has given reasons why the risk is not worth the reward. So, the decision has been made. Comments about what decisions others should make really have a paternalistic flavor and should be disregarded. Each person deserves to have the facts presented and the decision left up to them.

My posts have been criticized as being too philisophical. The fact is that the best decisions are made based upon a person's philosophy. All rational decisions and certainly those that stand a chance of being the best decisions, are based on the individual's personal philosophy as modified by training and perception of the circumstances. The fact that a person may not survive the situation doesn't mean they didn't make the best decision. Some situations are just not survivable. History tells us that very often people who lead adventuresome lives sooner or later get into such a situation. In my philosophy, considering that unless a person is part of Heinlein's Lazarous Family that event is not to be mourned. It is to be celebrated and learned from.

To the OP's question: It is up to the individual. Each individual needs to make their own decision.

[ljjames]

Well Im not sure if your post was meant to call me out or not, but considering I have done 1 dive with you, everything went well, we both had fun, and both were still breathing at the end I will take it as you were just asking about my ffm. I was merely just making a friendly joke about the comment of being a 24 yr old ccr diver as I was when I got started. But to leave it where it is...I like my ffm, it works for me, just like everything else I dive. And yes I trust my ccr as much as any other piece of dive gear, oc or cc.

I was actually not calling you out, and did not mean it in a negative way, i was actually impressed to see you show up with it, as you are the first CCR diver i've dove with who used one. I am mildly curious as to what lead you down that path to get one, quite simply because i don't see them very often.

And yes, i know, only one dive... but hopefully if i didn't piss you off in this thread accidentally, there will be more

[Chris Borgen]

Well Im not sure if your post was meant to call me out or not, but considering I have done 1 dive with you, everything went well, we both had fun, and both were still breathing at the end I will take it as you were just asking about my ffm. I was merely just making a friendly joke about the comment of being a 24 yr old ccr diver as I was when I got started. But to leave it where it is...I like my ffm, it works for me, just like everything else I dive. And yes I trust my ccr as much as any other piece of dive gear, oc or cc.

I was actually not calling you out, and did not mean it in a negative way, i was actually impressed to see you show up with it, as you are the first CCR diver i've dove with who used one. I am mildly curious as to what lead you down that path to get one, quite simply because i don't see them very often.

And yes, i know, only one dive... but hopefully if i didn't piss you off in this thread accidentally, there will be more

Okay no harm done then:) There aren't alot off ccr divers using them locally, but on rbw I see them quite often. Some people feel like you have to have the nato pod to use it with a dsv/bov(they are expensive and very bulky), but as you have seen it works fine without it. I feel that it adds some safety benefits, and along with a good breathing bov, could buy me time in a bad situation. I also like being able to take my mouth of the mouthpiece from time to time, having a warm face, protection from those lake union waters, etc, etc. Alot of people think the Draeger Panoramic ffm is better, but I found it to be the opposite. There's actually more people locally who have owned ffm and they didn't work for them for one reason or another, either fit was bad, vision, or they just didn't like it.

[ljjames]

Yah, i've heard that about ffm's... and that the panoramanova is the 'best of the batch' with regards to fit for midget faces, although still bulky... All that considered I will be borrowing one for a while to see if it fits my mug before dropping the cha-ching on something i don't end up using... forgive my ignorance, but what model is yours?

I don't mind FFM's in general, have quite a few dives on the AGA, but always had sealing issues with any but the old grey version or new black for whatever reason. so know an ill fitting one can be royal pain in the arse...

[Chris Borgen]

Yah, i've heard that about ffm's... and that the panoramanova is the 'best of the batch' with regards to fit for midget faces, although still bulky... All that considered I will be borrowing one for a while to see if it fits my mug before dropping the cha-ching on something i don't end up using... forgive my ignorance, but what model is yours?

I don't mind FFM's in general, have quite a few dives on the AGA, but always had sealing issues with any but the old grey version or new black for whatever reason. so know an ill fitting one can be royal pain in the arse...

Mine is the KM-48