“Solo diving” sounds like exactly the kind of thing your instructor warned you about. Diving alone, no buddy, no backup — reckless, surely? But the Self-Reliant Diver course (and its equivalents across the agencies) isn’t really about diving alone at all. It’s about not depending on anyone else to save you. And that turns out to make you a safer diver whether you ever dive solo or not.
It’s part of a bigger shift in diving toward redundancy, independence and self-sufficiency — away from the assumption that a buddy will always be there when it counts. Here’s what self-reliant training actually teaches, and why even committed buddy divers benefit from it.
The uncomfortable truth about the buddy system
The buddy system is genuinely valuable — we’re not knocking it. But it has a weak point everyone quietly knows about: buddies get separated. Visibility drops, someone gets task-loaded, a current pushes you apart, and suddenly the backup you were counting on is gone. If your entire plan for handling a problem was “my buddy will help,” you now have no plan.
Self-reliant training takes that scenario seriously. It asks a simple, sobering question: if you were completely on your own down there right now, could you handle a problem and get yourself out? For a lot of divers, honestly answering that question is a wake-up call — and building the ability to answer “yes” is the whole point.
What the course actually teaches
Self-reliance rests on two pillars: redundant gear and the skills to use it.
Redundancy in equipment. The course covers carrying and managing backups for the things that matter — a fully redundant air source (such as a pony bottle or an independent supply) so a gas problem isn’t an emergency, a backup for your computer and other critical kit, and the reasoning behind what to duplicate and why. The principle is simple: no single failure should be able to ruin your day.
Skills and self-rescue. Just as important is the ability to solve your own problems — managing a gas issue independently, dealing with equipment trouble without a second pair of hands, and planning your dive and gas so you always have the reserves to get yourself out. And a big part of it is mindset: the calm, methodical self-reliance that means a problem is something you handle rather than something that handles you.
Why buddy divers benefit too
Here’s the part that surprises people. You don’t take this course to abandon the buddy system — you take it to be better within it. A self-reliant diver is a far better buddy, because they’re not a liability waiting to happen; they can look after themselves and genuinely help you. Two self-reliant divers make a much stronger team than two divers each silently assuming the other will save them.
And the independence is freeing. Photographers who want to focus on a subject, divers who occasionally find themselves without a reliable buddy, anyone who wants to dive with genuine confidence rather than quiet dependence — all of them get something real from it. It’s a cornerstone of the more safety-minded, redundancy-first culture that’s taking hold in diving, and for good reason.
Is it for you?
Self-reliant training isn’t a beginner course, and it shouldn’t be. It builds on solid experience, good buoyancy and real comfort in the water — you want the fundamentals to be second nature before you add redundancy and independence on top. If you’re a reasonably experienced diver who wants to be genuinely self-sufficient, though, it’s one of the most quietly transformative courses you can take.
It also pairs naturally with the path toward technical diving, where self-sufficiency isn’t optional. If that’s a direction you’re curious about, this is a logical step along the way.
Learn to rely on yourself
If the idea of being able to handle your own problems underwater appeals — and it should — take a look at what we teach, how it connects to technical training, and our calendar. We’ll help you build the redundancy, the skills and the mindset to dive with real independence.
The best backup you can have underwater is a diver who doesn’t need one. Become that diver.