Posted by Jerry on December 04, 2001 at 13:22:12:
In Reply to: backpack diving and solo diving posted by SeaSerpent on December 03, 2001 at 14:32:13:
You are somehow assuming solo diving is more dangerous than buddy diving -- not necessarily true. When you are on a boat, with a group, at a resort...etc, and you pair with a diver you don't know, not only are you solo diving, but you are accepting responsibility for someone who might endanger you. I would much rather admit that I solo dive, and prepare for it than look for a buddy at the last minute and delude myself into thinking I'm being a safer diver. And no, I do not accept the responsibility for someone else in the water unless I am sure about what risk and responsibility I am assuming. But all the time we see people doing this. On the other board is a trip report about a beach dive in which the reporter had to drag his so called buddy through the surf to get him to the dive site. He did not know this person and had no clue as to capabilities nor a common dive plan and objective.
When you take students in the water for OW training dives, you are solo diving. How many instructors really think that their "buddy" in an OW training dive is really capable of helping them in an emergency?
The only kind of buddy diving that is clearly safer than a prepared solo diver occurs when you have a buddy that you know, train with, practice emergency procedures with, plan the dive and dive the plan with, and stay together through the dive...not one taking pictures while the other hunts for lobster 25ft away. On this Mike Kane is right, buddy diving is superior to solo diving, if you train and dive together. How many who deride solo diving and who are not DIR aficionados actually do this for all of their diving?
The simple fact is that buddy diving can be safer and buddy diving can be less safe than solo diving. We each need to assess the level and kind of risk we are willing to accept and dive accordingly.
Jerry