Madiera this Saturday

[ScubaDiveandTravel]

Dear gillenvy,

I am glad you feel comfortable expressing your OPINION. That's what this site is for. First of all, Solo diving as a PADI instructor is not against their standards. In my humble opinion, some people should not be solo diving. For others however it can be conducted quite safely. With the proper equipment, training and experience it can be much safer than buddy diving, especially when your buddy is less experienced than you are. In this particular situation, it seems to have been a bad call. I do believe it is important to examine the cause of this problem. It was not solo diving. I have conducted hundreds of safe solo dives, and feel very confident in my abilities to deal with almost any diving situation. In the technical community, we call the examination of diving accidents "Accident Analysis"

Here we go.

Gear:

1. Scuba freak did not have the right equipment for the dive. He was diving a single tank with no redundant air supply.

2. He was diving with Scuba Pro regulators. In my humble opinion and from experience with these Self Contained Underwater Free-flowing Apparatuses (SCUFA), they have no place in cold water environments.

Training:

1. Inadequate solo diver training

Conditions:

1. Possibly unsafe solo diving conditions due to waves

Let's all take a lesson home from this and hopefully it will make us more conscientious divers.

Happy Diving,
Richard