Bob,I get it. I'm an early riser ... my weekday normally begins at 3:30 in the morning. So on week-ends, when I don't need to get up early, my body clock won't let me sleep in. Sometimes I'll wander down to my local mudhole ... 5 minutes from my home ... and jump in the water by around 4:30. It's still dark. There isn't another human being in sight. No other cars in the parking lot. I have the whole place to myself. It's the ultimate in peaceful. I've had some amazing dives that way ... just me and the critters. Sometimes by the time I'm done with my dive and packing my gear in the car another diver or two will show up. They're used to me by now ... all they ask is "how's the vis" ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Ever see the phosphorescence? Usually diving in the dark in Puget Sound can be really nice. I did that once, long ago, on a buddy dive. We dove with regular flashlights (they sometimes work), and saw a small dogfish shark just before the light went out. Then we had some phosphorescence as we made our way back to shore (1970s).
I dive almost exclusively solo, and if I had not done that, would have given up diving years ago. I dive locally too, in local water (the Clackamas River, in my case). I very much enjoy seeing the aquatic life, and simply being weightless. I have been diving since 1959, and so am very comfortable diving alone. You can see one of my dives here:
(A GoPro camera was my Christmas present a few years ago, so I can share my dives.)
If I were to go aboard one of those boats, and some divemaster challenged me about diving solo, I would probably respond with asking whether he (usually, I suppose it is a "he") has ever made a parascuba jump out of a HC-130 aircraft on an Apollo capsule? If he says he has not, then he has no reason to lecture me about diving alone. Parascuba jumps, and subsequent diving as an USAF Pararescueman, are basically solo dives. We were taught to be self-sufficient in the water (actually, in any environment on earth). I could have some fun with that.
I will be turning 71 years old in a few weeks, and probably have another decade of solo diving to go, at least. I test old diving gear (see the video), new underwater swimming techniques, etc., and would not take kindly to someone lecturing me on diving.
SeaRat