Posted by Ken Kurtis on June 18, 2002 at 22:41:50:
In Reply to: Re: Daily Breeze posted by ., on June 18, 2002 at 17:53:34:
As one who solo dives and feels it may be appropriate in certain situations, I still cringe when I hear people make the old "Solo is safer" claim.
It's not.
A buddy may be essentially no different than diving alone, especially if they're not paying attention to you, but at least with a buddy nearby, you've got an option that is absent when you/we choose to dive alone. And the notion that the buddy will do something to cause your death is simply NOT supported by any facts or statistics.
By the same token, having a buddy around is no guarantee of survival in a life-and-death situation and anyone who says differently simply doesn't know what they're talking about.
There are instances where a buddy couldn't save a diver, and instances where they did. There are times when a solo diver survived a life-and-death situation and times (like this past weekend) when they didn't. There's no hard-and-fast rule.
But to say "Solo is safer" is (to me) about as ludicrous as saying "You can't die if you have a buddy."
All diving contains risk and it's up to us as individuals to evaluate that risk, mitigate it as best we can, and make decisions that will not put us in a life-threatening situation. Hopefully the decisions we make are good ones.
But IF someone should make a bad choice and it costs them their life, hopefully the rest of the diving community will objectively analzyze what happened and try to learn from it, rather than pouncing like ghouls to push a personal agenda and proclaim, "See??? I told you so!!!"
Ken Kurtis
NAUI Instructor #5936
Co-owner, Reef Seekers Dive Co.
Beverly Hills, CA