SOLO Diving

[tbrown]

It always amazes me how often this topic comes up. I find it interesting that the more dives and training I have, the more I don't like the idea of diving alone. I have to disagree with Punkie that NAUI/PADI should teach this class. The old timers used to think that deep air was a perfectly acceptable practice as well, but practice has shown this is not a good idea either. PADI is there to train recrational divers, and I think most instances of "blow bubbles and look at the fishies" are perfectly fine, but anything else should be left alone. The whole dive conserativly thing. Read GP's post about what happened to him. Doing EVERYTHING right is still no guarantee, so why take chances. I look at solo diving like walking across a street without waiting for a light. Can it be done, sure. Have many people done it, yes. Is it a wise practice, probably not. Should it be encouraged, I would say no. And of course there will still be people that do it, but that is their choice. Statisics have shown that diving has gotten much safer,(I beleive you are more likely to be injured bowling) so I am not going to go off on a "You'll DIE if you dive solo" speil. But it is certainly not diving conservatively, and besides sometimes you will need a buddy to carry gear for you.