nova:
have you read the accident analysis from mexico?
Of course I have if you mean the one where two teams for a total of something like nine divers went in, one team got lost and a couple of those didn't make it out. They did too many things wrong to even shake a stick at but how does a buddy cause that?
Each diver is responsible for navigation and gas management. As each diver goes along he/she must reference the cave. The line is only one aspect of navigation. Each diver should inspect the line condition, placement, tie-offs and any markers that may already be there. If at any time you are not satisfied with what you see, you fix it or turn the dive. Each diver is responsible for checking any markers the team places at intersections, jumps or gaps and in some cases it makes sense for each diver to place their own. We've done that in really low vis caves with lots of T's. That way if you do get seperated you know who has passed an intersection by who's markers are still there and don't have to worry about going back in to look for some one who may have already left.
These are cave diving 101 skills and you can't blame any one else when you screw it up. Well, you could try but I won't believe you. When mistakes are made because of intentional visual gaps, or unintentionally passing a gap because you blindly followed the diver ahead of you, it's no one's fault but your own! For this unaware diver, I doubt that solo diving is going to increase their chances. The diver who blindly follows is doing worse than a "trust me" dive which is something else that's warned against in entry level cave training.
You always have to think twice about sharing reels with another team. However, even if you're diving alone you have to consider that some one may remove you're reel leaving you to figure things out without it. Especially in some of the heavily dived caves we have today and the HUGE and rapid increase in the number of people packing a cave card.
In any case there are numerous things that can happen to complicate navigation. There are procedures for addressing them. Should you get off the line and lost from it, there are lost line procedures. At the same time you're using lost line procedures to try to save yourself, your buddy, if you have one, should be employing lost buddy procedures. It can kind of double your chances of getting back to the line. On the other hand if your buddy leaves, you are no worse off than if you had been alone to start with. If your buddy grabs you, blind folds you and drags you off the line intentionally leaving you in a silt out I guess you could blame him for getting you lost. I have to admit though I've never had another cave diver try something like that. LOL
I've been in several of these stuations personally and no one ever caused me to get lost. As an example, once my wife and I were going to follow another team on what they call the godzilla ciruit in MB. It was our first time there. What they didn't say was how fast they were going to go. Following them and on the line, my wife and I dropped through the floor into a room. I don't remember which room it was but I momentarily lost sight of the line dropping through the hole. We could still see the other divers and the temptation is to assume they are on the line a follow. What do you do? you stop, relocate the line, verify it's the correct line and then continue. To do otherwise is to willingly violate the requirement for a continueous line to the surface and no one is responsible for that but you. As it turned out my wife never lost sight of the line but I did. I wasn't satisfied that I had a continuous line to the surface and we stopped until I was. Again it's cave diving 101 stuff. The only risk to doing it right (no pun intended) is that you may fall behind the other team and who cares? If you would willingly violate such a basic principle you are in danger on any dive whether alone or with some one else.
The mexico accident is a good case for the study of lots of things but not the dangers of buddy diving, IMO.
