MikeFerrara once bubbled...
A while back Rodales did a series of articles with titles like the dangers of the buddy system. They talked about everything from the legal liability of a buddy to how you could get injured being paired up with a bad buddy on a dive boat and how a buddy could ruin your photo session.
From the articles:
Is diving solo more dangerous than diving with a buddy?
"Absolutely yes," is the official answer you'll get from every
certification agency as well as from most instructors, at least when they
are talking from their lecterns. "Absolutely not," say many solo divers,
pointing out that they avoid the risk of a da ngerous buddy.
Some enthusiasts think solo diving is nearly always safer. Are they right?
Here are points they make: Solo diving fosters self-reliance, not
co-dependence. Groups have a leader and followers, and the instinct to
follow is especially strong when we feel threatened and unsure of
ourselves. Buddy pairs are, too often, two followers with no leader.
Solo diving makes it easier to back out of a dangerous dive. Solo divers
don't feel peer pressure to attempt more than they should. When buddies
are unequal, the stronger diver tends to lead and set the pace, often to
the other's endangerment.
No risk from a panicky, dangerous buddy. This risk is overstated, but
being a buddy does entail the responsibility to attempt rescue, perhaps at
danger to yourself.
A solo diver's attention is concentrated on his or her own dive, not
divided. Solo diving makes for clearer decision-making. It's easier to
change your plan mid-dive to match changing conditions, for example.
Diving the plan that's best for you. Buddy dive plans are often a
compromise, leaving one buddy unsatisfied and the other overextended.
Statistics don't answer the question either. The five most recent DAN
reports describe 474 dive fatalities from 1992 through 1996, 62 of them
(13 percent) involving solo divers. But is that percentage high or low? No
one knows what percentage of dives are
solo, or even how many dives are made each year.
In about two-thirds of the fatal buddy dives, the casualty became
separated from his buddy. Is this an indictment of solo diving or of the
buddy system? How often the separation contributed to the accident is
impossible to say. But the fact that buddy div ers, intentionally or
unintentionally, often become solo divers at the moment of crisis argues
in favor of learning to become a competent solo diver in case you have to.
Can the solo risk be minimized?
In diving (as in life) there are rarely absolutes like "safe" and
"dangerous." You can only enlarge or reduce the degree of risk. You can
reduce the risks of solo diving (or any diving) by improving your
equipment, your diving knowledge, your fitness, you r awareness of the
environment and your attitude. Equipment failure is actually the smallest
risk, so let's dispose of it first.
Equipment for Solo Diving
A redundant air supply. This does not mean an octopus, but either a pony
bottle or Spare Air, depending on depth and conditions. Insufficient air
was the primary cause of nine fatalities in 1996, 11 percent of the total,
and contributed to many others. High-performance regulator. You should not
be able to overbreathe your regulator during an emergency in the worst
conditions you plan to dive in. Not all regulators are created equal.
Properly maintained equipment. Consider overhauling your regulators at
least annually, whether you think they need it or not.Include a test of
your submersible pressure gauge as well: each year, fatality reports
include cases of empty tanks connected to g auges which still read several
hundred pounds. Take a close look at your BC, too--including the
inflation hose and its hardware. BCs which will not hold air occur
surprisingly often in accident reports. Cutting tools. Monofilament line
is nearly invisible, so you'll want effective cutting tools--a sharp knife
andmaybe shears. Mount both so you can reach them with either hand.
Surface signaling devices. You should carry a primary and a back-up for
both auditory and visual signals.One head in the water is less visible
than two.
Skills for Solo Diving
It's the basic skills that matter, the ones you already know. Or think you
do. Controlling your buoyancy, clearing your mask and regulator,
equalizing your ears, monitoring your instruments--all these skills you
must be able to do without stress, almost w ithout conscious thought.
The reason is that the real enemy in solo diving, even more than in buddy
diving, is panic. Panic occurs when a number of individually small
problems--a leaky mask, an entangled fin and fatigue, for example--combine
to raise your stress level, block ratio nal thought and spark fear. Here's
where a buddy diver has an advantage. The presence of another diver is
psychologically reassuring even if he does nothing helpful. Being alone in
a threatening situation, however, is always more frightening. That's why y
our basic scuba skills have to be internalized to the point of becoming
instinctive. That takes both training and experience. Some divers find
advanced training courses helpful in becoming comfortable with solo
diving. Some instructors even address solo d iving explicitly in advanced
courses. Advanced training is also an opportunity to rehearse the basic
skills again under new and increasingly stressful circumstances so that
you can perform them automatically when you need them. Certainly, diving
experienc e with a mentor is the best teacher.
Risk Assessment for Solo Diving
You need to assess the risks of a dive site differently if you are diving
solo. For example, wreck and cave penetrations are high-risk dives
considered off-limits to solo diving by most who specialize in them.
Depth, low vis, low temperature, strong current, kelp and surge all reduce
your margins for error and might cause you to scrub a solo dive you'd
undertak e with a buddy.
Wherever you draw the line, it's important to make a conscious, cool
assessment of the risks of the dive. Measure it against the amount of risk
you've already decided you're willing to accept, not against your
eagerness to dive.
The Right Attitude for Solo Diving
A self-reliant attitude may actually be the most important part of
reducing the risk of solo diving. You must recognize, and act on, the fact
that no one but yourself is responsible for your safety. No one else can
be blamed for the faulty regulator or th e unexpected current.
That's obvious, and should be true for the buddy diver as well. But it is
almost inevitable that when we join a group we surrender some of our
independence to the "herd instinct." The "co-dependent diver syndrome" is,
in fact, one of the strongest objecti ons to the buddy system. No one
intends it, but the buddy system can foster the dangerous idea that
somebody else knows better and will take care of you.
Making the decision to dive solo can, on the other hand, be a powerful
wake-up call. When you know you are diving solo, you assemble your gear,
listen to the divemaster's briefing, look over the site and enter the
water with a vivid sense that your life d epends on you--and you alone.
Whether you dive solo or not is ultimately your choice. But when you've
made the changes in your habits that reduce the risks of solo diving,
you'll be a safer buddy diver, too.
some further info at
http://www.scubadiving.com/training/instruction/solodiving/
http://www.ctaz.com/~bwana/article8.htm
http://www.skin-diver.com/departments/WaterWork/ClosetSoloDiver.asp?theID=705
Is it generally agreed that:
