Buddy vs solo

Good points. I know excellent solo divers that make crappy buddies and excellent buddy divers that are not comfortable diving solo (although probably are qualified and able).

I love diving, do it a LOT, and feel perfectly comfortable diving solo. I also enjoy the company of buddies. My attitude is "I am prepared to get you out if you get in trouble, but I'm not going to count on you getting me out." That's not a put-down to my buddies (most are WAY more qualified than me!), but rather my way of self-rescue and prevention....so I don't get into a situation I can't get myself out of.

That being said, I'll dive with almost anyone. The "almost" means 1) if you want to dive above your training....no. 2) if you bust the gas plan (break thirds or sixths or whatever was the plan)...never again 3) if you're an ass regarding safety (ie the guy who immediately upon surfacing yelled at me "Why the F... did you turn? I was just starting to have fun!") ...never again.

Heck, I even dive with Vince, even if Mark won't :smt081

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gary

The ideal buddy is one who is as self sufficient as a solo diver (whether or not they ever solo dive) but has excellent buddymanship skills.


However:

Very few (if any) "buddy divers" reach the level of personal and equipment self-sufficiency expected of a solo diver. More solo divers reach that goal but not all do.

Not all solo divers achieve good buddymanship skills (though most can).


Not all solo divers dive solo because they are capable of doing so safely. Sadly some do it because no "buddy" feels safe diving with them - either because they have poor diving skills, poor buddymanship skills, inadequate equipment, unrealistic estimates of their own skills and abilities, or are too aggressive in their risk taking (or in some cases multiples of these).

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Good points Gary!
Like anything else you have to have an open mind to improve yourself.

Agreed

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I hope I have the skills to get myself out of most situations I can get myself into. But I hope that having a buddy or buddies will help keep me OUT of situations where I have to save myself . . . I've had buddies catch my errors more than once, and I've been part of discussions where two of us outvoted the third on significant questions.

The biggest piece of redundancy my buddies bring with them is their brains.