Posted by kelphead on September 21, 2000 at 18:35:40:
In Reply to: Re: Defining Buddy/Solo posted by MHK on September 21, 2000 at 15:05:04:
"What has been troubling me about these discussions is the cavalier attitudes about the rights of a diver to kill themselves, and
more often that not, it's the *it can't happen to me because I'm experienced * attitude.."
mike, before i start, i want to make it perfectly
clear to you that i do dive w/a buddy and i intend
to continue to dive w/a buddy, so that's where i stand
on this issue; but what i don't understand is why you
feel that other divers can't and shouldn't use their
experience in their arguments.
w/all due respect, the posts that i've read on this
bbs by those very same experienced "intentional"
solo divers is that a buddy IS!! a good thing if
that buddy is trained well and is to their level of diving
(so it seems we have reached a consensus btwn you
and 'them' in that there is agreement that training
needs to vastly improve, and you can take that issue
up w/the instructors of this board). when those same
divers cite their own diving record--decades of diving
THEIR way--it's only fair to view their experience as
data, solid evidence to support their contention that THEIR
way of diving has worked for them for literally
DECADES (since before i was freakin' born!!!!!!!!).
so, i have to look at all this input and come to
a reasonable conclusion that these so-called 'dino'
(or should that be 'dyno') divers have been doing
SOMETHING right to keep themselves alive all this time--and
i wouldn't attribute it to just dumb luck.
in one particular case, i don't believe it's valid
to take the highly experienced and very well known
diver who past away recently (sorry, i can't remember
his name right now) while using a home-made rebreather
and lump all other experienced divers w/him.
i think it's safe to suspect that his supposedly
experimental rebreather is what may have killed him.
now, i don't intend to speak ill of the dead, but
one does have to wonder why this particular diver
did not take a buddy along under such new and
extremely different circumstances than he was used
to. perhaps it was a case of being blase about
the potential dangers (or maybe he just had way too
much faith in his contraption), but i wouldn't
use his tragedy to argue against the experiences of
other divers who have been diving for 30-40 years
using what style/profile of diving they have adapted.
there may be some misunderstanding in the tone
that some divers use when posting, but i certainly
would never disqualify one's decades-long experience
just b/c that experience did not utilize a technique
that a minority of relatively young divers has
more recently designed for specific types of diving.
kelphead.