#2242
MDW - 1/12/2012 3:37 PM
Here are some situations I’ve had related to solo diving (in case anyone cares).
Once on a shallow reef dive in Bermuda, I was assigned a dive buddy who seemed in good shape but was in his 50s and was used to warmer waters (FYI, Bermuda is not tropical, the water is about 70F). We had a nice dive, but it was kinda short because he got cold and wanted to get back on the boat. I swam with him back to the anchor line at 15’ and watched him ascend and go up the ladder. I then, being solo certified and confident in my abilities and the fact that the max depth was 25’ all around the area, continued my dive (because it was shallow, I had over half my air left). I went back to several areas that I wanted to see a bit more of, all withing 20 or 30 yards of the boat in clear water (the crew could most likely see my body, much less just my bubbles). I surfaced and boarded the boat about 20 minutes later, and the crew told me I was not allowed to solo dive. I told them I would not when I went out on their boat the next day. Moral: even if they have a policy against it, you might get away with it the first time if you do it first and ask about it second.

Second story:
I was diving in the quarry with a good sized group of about 8 or 9 divers. All of us are very familiar with the site and we just all got in together without discussion of pairing off (this often happens here... I like to call it "herd diving"). We all arrived at a particular attraction at which time I chose to do a swim-through and while I was out of sight, the group moved on. When I emerged 30 seconds later, they were gone, and I was not sure what direction they headed. I took a guess and headed to the next attraction I figured they would head to. I was mistaken because I got there and they were not there. I figured it was pointless to surface as one would normally do with a lost buddy, as no particular individual was my buddy and it was somewhat unlikely that anyone noticed one person was missing from the group. So I took a leisurely swim around, keeping my eyes peeled for the group in case I happened to stumble upon them. I did not, so I puttered around near the exit point until some other divers were getting out and I exited with them (because the staff will give you grief for solo diving if you have not registered with them before the planned solo dive). It was really no big deal because I am solo trained and always dive with a setup suitable for solo diving even when planning to dive with others. So I was all ready to switch from "herd diver" to "solo diver" when that situation was thrust upon me. No problem.