Self Sufficient Diving
Posted By Christian Gerzner on 14 January 1998
I usually carry a camera when underwater and probably because of the highly significant lack, almost to the point of extinction, of the species "gorgeous curvy female diver/model with maxi glass mask and lots of costume changes to perfectly match what I am about to photograph", I tend to dive alone. I do so because I don't need bits of fellow divers in my viewfinder, kicking up the silt, frightening away what I want to photograph and/or putting bubbles just where I don't want them, amongst a few other things. Normal divers (IMO u/w photographers can scarcely be described as normal) often have little to no idea of the way they can intrude when placed near an U/W photographer, which can seriously peeve the photographer.
I therefore have, by my standards, a legitimate reason for diving alone and my diving friends (I have at least one) respect this. Note that I do not here mention "Solo Diver/ing", I really dislike this term and much prefer "Self Sufficient Diver" (or Self Contained?). To tell the truth, even when I do not have my camera with me I prefer to dive by myself. This is not selfishness on my part. It is rather that I do not wish to have responsibility for others as in the conventional so-called buddy system. More importantly I have no wish to inflict myself on another if I were to get into trouble because that would also put that other person at risk. I believe that I do not have the right to do this, to put someone else at risk just because I have a problem. I consider that any problem that I have is my fault, be it equipment failure, running out of air, whatever. The only time it would not be my fault is if, say, a Great White decides to have me for lunch (when a buddy would be singularly unhelpful anyway) or if, say, I decide to have a heart attack, which could just as easily happen when I am driving a car immediately adjacent to a cliff or, probably worse still, approaching a busy intersection.
I would like to embellish that point "Self Sufficient". If you are driving a car and it gets into a slide, do you hand the controls over to your passenger? Yet you can currently do this underwater using the buddy system. Bear with me: the analogy is valid, those of you who would now point out that an out of air situation is not the same as a car slide had better remember that this is not the only emergency that can happen underwater, how's about the turkey who grabs their buddy as that turkey is going ballistic, as just one example? If you have stuffed up are you, at least from a moral point of view, correct in enlisting the help of your buddy having regard to the car scenario? I point out here that in a car you are likely to damage very much more than yourself, leave alone that people often drive their cars alone. I also point out that if you were to learn to fly, going solo (a requirement, NOT an option) is usually a highlight of your flying career. Underwater if you are a self sufficient diver you are unlikely to damage anything other than yourself, certainly not other people.
Is any of the above wrong? Let me put it another way:
I enjoy, I very much enjoy, looking after novice divers on their first dives (when I would happily go without my camera). I take the greatest pleasure in the size of the eyes if I am able to show them something which they (as novices) consider extraordinary but which I may find perfectly ordinary. My pleasure is in their pleasure, yet during this time, I would be discussing their techniques with them: how to navigate, use of lungs for buoyancy control (rather than the BCD), pros and cons of equipment and in so doing I would be working up to when they would gradually accept (for themselves!) that it is up to them to look after themselves.
Let me put something else to you: if you, fellow diver, are insecure if you are placed in a minor emergency such as getting low on air with no other diver immediately available, if you are equally insecure if someone comes up to you gasping for air then you are simply an accident waiting for somewhere to happen. Hell, I know at least one diver who gets paranoid if someone tries to take off their mask on the safety stop in the bluest of blue (warm) water! This person has a swimming pool, I just wonder how s/he handles that?
In my opinion if you can't swim around down there without a mask you have absolutely no right to be there! It will surely be accidentally kicked off your face sooner rather than later, probably with a stoved in nose (especially if it is the size of mine) and a kicked out of mouth regulator to add insult to injury. Wouldn't you be better off getting used to this kind of abuse beforehand?
Yet there are at least a couple of divers with whom I really like to dive. This liking however has nothing to do with the "buddy system" yet it also has everything to do with it. How can this be so?
- Bookmark with :
- what are these?
