I've always typed out my own solo certification on an index card. It indicates that I did my first solo dive in 1963, long before most agency certifiers were born, even before some of their parents were born. I did my next approximately 200 dives solo, most at night in NJ inlets for lobster. I did my first buddy dive during an interesting but lengthy NASDS certification in 1972, when shops began requiring the card before they'd fill your tanks. I subsequently dived now and then with a group of friends, most of whom are either dead or the recliner chair grandkids picture showing equivalent.
Most of the more than thousand dives I've done in my life were solo. Even the cattle boats I mostly dive on now when on holiday are semi-solo because I refuse to be paired and frequently swim off on my own, not where the dive master leads. I'm paying, so I do what I want. Too many divers act like children being watched over by an adult, afraid to get scolded. I just laugh at post-dive unkind words. They conclude I must be suffering from a touch of senile dementia and sometimes assign a young assistant to follow behind me. I usually surface with more air than these kids.
I'll be damned if some twentysomething whose been diving for a few short years is going to tell me it's ok to do what I've been doing since back when the Caribbean was still beautiful and uncrowded. All my inlet and jetty dives up north are solo, every one. I can go diving whenever I want to, and not have to get involved with anyone's issues, schedules, forgotten gear, clumsiness, air consumption, car problems, or spousal disputes.
