1. All of my diving is with a buddy, however some of my scientific diving barely skirts what you'd call "buddy diving." Some of our tasks are independent so we're not sticking close, in fact, so "not close" that I'd call it solo diving.

I'm comfortable with my skills (and overall cardiovascular health) to be OK with solo diving in this capacity. Would I grab my gear and beach dive alone? No way. Nor would I dive alone if the conditions included currents and other difficult conditions.

I prefer diving with a buddy but I'm OK without. Besides, I find most buddies aren't very good at staying close, therefore what's the point?

Posted at 6:14PM on Aug 29th 2005 by Eric Brodeur

2. Then I'd say you need to find a new buddy.

On the few occasions that I've been buddy-less going into a dive, I always choose to dive with the dive master. I don't feel like I'm copping out and playing it safe; (s)he knows where all the goodies are underwater anyway.

Posted at 9:28PM on Aug 29th 2005 by Willy Volk

3. I did my first proper solo dive in June and it was spent photographing a wreck of a fishing trawler. OK, so the wreck isn't very dangerous (other than a peak inside there's no real penetration). It's between 11 and 25m and I've been down there many times with or without scuba gear so I know what to expect.

It was a great dive. Certainly better than any other I did on this wreck earlier. It felt a bit weird at first but I started enjoying it immediately. Perhaps it was just the idea of being down there alone that made it fun (because the wreck certainly isn't anything special).

So far I only had one buddy problem. It could perhaps result in his death but thankfully two of his friends got him out. I definitely wasn't prepaired to risk what they did for someone I've met and hour ago. They severely pushed the limits of getting DCS themselves.

He was certainly lucky not to have been diving alone. It was near the end of the dive to 45m, we were at 15m, he started panicking and sank 10m in the 20-30s since I last checked up on him. When we got to him the three of them catapulted themselves up. I was following them for a while, my computer beeping like mad and when I took a peek at it and saw 250-300% with a couple of minutes for deco still left I thought it would be wiser to stay down for a while longer. I think what they did was dangerous for all of them. I wouldn't go up as fast as they did and I'd try to sort things out underwater. But it worked and they were fine so...

Is solo diving safer? I guess it depends on your buddy. I would do anything to get my brother or a few other friends out of a situation but risking my life for strangers is something completely different. In those situations I'd rather pretend I'm down there alone.

Posted at 3:50AM on Aug 30th 2005 by Jernej