A note from Graeme Gourlay publisher & editor-in-chief, Dive International Magazine "We all know people do it but we tend to turn a blind eye. Solo diving is strictly against the rules and no responsible body will even discuss the subject. Clearly the arguments in favour of the buddy system are well known. Buddy diving is the cornerstone of all dive training and for most of us, in most circumstances, it is an enjoyable and safe way to experience the underwater world. This month we carry a Polemic taking a different point of view. While we don't necessarily endorse the arguments raised, we do accept the need to raise them. If you have an all-encompassing rule but a small, probably tiny, minority of people are flouting it, you have a problem. Especially if the deviants are often people such as instructors or famous photographers who are the role models for other divers. Of course you can continue to pretend solo diving never happens. You can believe all is well as long as divers enterf the water together and surface together. But isn't this just a conspiracy of silence? Any regulatory system which doesn't deal with behaviour which is in direct contradiction of fundamental principles is at risk of becoming an irrelevancy. This can be a greater threat than the oringinal rule-breaking. Perhaps there are circumstances where specific people would be safer alone, and to acknowledge so would make diving safer for all of us. It is up to those who dive alone to argue their case, the rest of us consider their case, and for a real consensus to be reached."

The diving industry is on a slow, but inexorable, course to confront what is perhaps its most divisive issue. Division is nothing new. The arrival of new equipment such as computers, and new training philosophies such as those of PADI, initially sparked debate, dispute and even open hostility from some quarters of the old guard. With time, the soothsayers have been proven to be scaremongers; and life went on and, many would argue, progressed. The tilting at windmills is over on those scores, the fears unrealised and forgotten.

Solo diving is an entirely different issue. It encompasses personal rights and responsibilities, and conflicts directly with many vested interests. It is a debate that has been building for some time and is far from running its full course. While solo diving has always gone on, it has largely been low-key and officially frowned upon. Now diving alone is up for discussion - largely because more people choose to do it than is realised - and ultimately it may become accepted diving practice.

There are numerous attractions to diving alone. There is none of the bureaucracy that so often surrounds group diving. Briefings and debriefing times do not exceed time spent underwater. One can look out and if it's a nice day, just do it. It's not necessary to miss a dive because you can't round up a partner. Underwater freedom is conferred to wander where you will and surface when you want. The pressure and distraction of looking after another person is removed. It's easy diving.

Along with the reasons of convenience, there are other more practical benefits. Certain higher risk dives may be safer carried out alone. The tight confines of a wreck or tunnel may be more safely explored without a buddy becoming entangled in guideline, blocking return or escape routes and further reducing precious visibility.

For some divers, maintaining the buddy system contradicts why they dive at all. A diver at work must concentrate on the job, often to the exclusion of caring for a buddy. A diver salvaging a small boat, for example, will be engaged in trying to place lift bags, fill barrels and set lines, usually in low to nil visibility. To even see his buddy, the buddy must be virtually on top of him - and so, in the way. For underwater photographers and film-makers, a buddy is also often unwelcome. Not only are they a distraction, the additional commotion they generate can make wildlife much less approachable and impossible to photograph.

In reality, solo diving is a way of life for many divers. Instructors and divemasters are often required to work with people with very limited rescue skills - in effect they are diving alone since the much vaunted reason for buddy diving, the safety net of a trained rescuer, does not exist. Many buddy pairs are too distracted, dive too far apart, or have personal skills so poor that they probably contribute nothing to each other's safety and may in fact endanger one another.

Does this mean diving alone is risk-free? Absolutely not. Here, the issue of personal freedom enters the debate. Should the individual be allowed to choose an increased level of risk themselves? Choosing to dive, dive deep, dive without an independent air source, enter a wreck or swim with sharks - all involve a choice by an individual to do so. All involve some risk and in the buddy system often some peer pressure. None is especially controversial. Why should the line be drawn at the decision to dive alone?

I believe a major inhibitor is legal liability. While most additional risks encountered by diving alone can be tempered with training, caution and the correct equipment, solo divers will still die. In the aftermath of a fatality, questions will be asked. The training agency, club, resort or charter boat that condones diving solo and breaks ranks with the consensus will have much to defend. In the dive industry, presenting a unified front on safety issues is a baseline for fighting lawsuits. As in other walks of life, recreational freedom is often sadly restricted by the ever-present threat of litigation, often by individuals or their dependents who have only themselves or the involved family member to blame for their straits. It is the nature of solo diving fatalities that there are no witnesses. Whatever mistake the diver made, or whatever events overtook him that might not have been avoided by having a buddy at all (might in fact have lead to a double tragedy), these events are unlikely to be known to anyone, let alone the jury. The issue will be fought on solo diving. The unfortunate diver's instructor, certification agency and anyone else remotely connected with him or her may find themselves in the dock and on trial for providing inadequate standards of care. If they can be shown to have countenanced solo diving and it can be shown that the vast majority of the diving community strongly disagrees with them, the will be very hard-pressed to defend their position.

Another problem is the question of whether divers are adequately trained in the first place. Everyone knows of divers who they feel should never have been qualified (although it's always someone else - our own skills are impeccable, of course!) I would argue that diving alone may well prove safer than buddying up with such individuals. This conflicts with the standard supervisors' practice of pairing up weak with strong to ensure the best possibility of the poorer diver surviving the accident, most likely of their own making at the cost of compromising the senior diver's safety. How much of our dependence on the buddy system is a crutch for our fears for a diver's skills? Are we relying on the buddy to bail out the diver that some instructor, somewhere, issued with a C-card against all common sense and agency directives?

Or the diver whose skills might have been adequate once, but aren't now. If so, it is easy to predict the outcome when such people are allowed to dive alone. Again, will the real issue of individual competence and ensuring training standards are met, be lost in making a scapegoat of diving alone?

There are also adrenaline junkies who through machismo, an inflated view of their own abilities or sheer bloody-mindedness, are going to place themselves at increased jeopardy by seeking out especially high-risk diving experiences beyond their, or possibly anyone else's limitations. Again, while being alone is unlikely to be the main factor in the ensuing accident, it is likely to receive the greater share of the blame.

The dive industry is sensitive to the image that diving has. Great effort and much money have been invested in trying to move diving away from its early, macho, derring-do status to a Nineties vision of the perfect recreation for all the family, bereft of any great hazards and suited to everyone from schoolkids to pensioners. The industry likes to draw comparisons showing it to be safer than other activities like skiing and horse-riding. In the new order, a rash of solo diving fatalities especially if the people involved were making outrageous dives (or 'pushing their luck', depending on your viewpoint - one man's pioneer is another's suicide jockey), could clearly be most unwelcome.

If solo diving is to receive mainstream acceptance - not to be confused with widespread promotion - then the industry will need to set standards to protect itself. These could require a minimum level of certification, experience and equipment self-sufficiency. The environmental conditions under which solo diving is acceptable could also be considered.

Such guidelines could be designed to make solo diving a possibility for those who want to do it, but with sufficient restraints to exclude those individuals unwilling or unable to to commit do doing it as safely as possible.