Solo for safety

[tkaelin]

Being a holiday diver, all I get are instabuddys.

I wonder if the practice of forcing buddy pairs on dive boats is slowly going away. In the past couple years diving in the Caribbean (Bon, GC, Provo), I don’t see the DMs pairing divers. The practice now seems to be that they ask if you have a buddy and if not they tell you can dive with them. Following a DM is my preferred option over a forced buddy when I am on a boat diving without a buddy. It works well. Particularly after or a dive or two or sometimes just in a couple minutes when the DM has had an opportunity to access your skills and ability in the water, you are essentially given wide latitude on your boat dive following the group, essentially allowing you to dive solo as long as you are in sight of the DM. When finishing up the dive under the boat I am almost always allowed to finish the dive by myself without being tethered to a particular diver.