Interesting webpage.
See my earlier post about not entering a cave with a CharlieFoxtrot buddy and 95% of those issues disappear. The others are eliminated by following basic cave training. Drop your OWN arrow or cookie at a jump, maintain continuous guideline, follow rule of thirds, carry your own jump and safety reels/spools.
That pretty much sums up the BS on that page.
While the examples are definitely those of CF buddies the basic psychology of the herd instinct, the desire to impress, panicked buddies, buddies with a poor sense of direction, vanishing buddies, being too far apart, etc., are all part of real world diving and not the perfect world of internet diving or the lies divers profess.
Since I know you hold the DIR crowd in high esteem, let's use them as a collective example.
Why would a DIR team have a debrief like any other good cave team at the end of a dive if everything they did was perfect? Do you not think a debrief of a DIR team would not be addressing issues such as buddies too far apart, team confusion, directional confusion, team stress, etc.?
No DIR diver has ever felt the need to impress another diver, instructor or mentor? Because the majority of DIR divers out there are trying to impress one another, they play into that very danger of buddy diving. I'm sure there are many DIR divers looking good and in the correct position in the team, but psychologically they are experiencing enough peer and self imposed pressure to warrant an ABC After School Special.
DIR divers would never buy into the herd instinct? HELLO! They've so herded themselves into the herd instinct in general that it has almost become a religion! So, now you've got a group of divers who are the epitome of the herd instinct hitting the water and they already have proven that they will just go along with the crowd. Is it too much of a stretch to think they'll just go along with the crowd underwater too?
No DIR diver would ever panic? Untrue! I know of cases where it has happened.
Diving has risks. There are different risks when diving in a team than if you're solo. Different risks for backmount than sidemount. Different risks for the timid diver than for the adventurer.
Life has risk. The sad fact, today, is that the media's fear industrial complex, insurance companies, lawyers, polticians, activists and others are eradicating the human spirit and making us afraid of everything for their own gains. Freedoms are vanishing and everyone is willing to give up freedom for protection. As Benjamin Franklin is credited for saying, "Those who are willing to sacrifice their basic liberties to assure their security deserve neither."
Rather than condemn a man for diving solo in a cave, give him props for his courage. Courage is an admirable trait. A diver may build his courage by diving solo and later give back to society through that courage. Maybe there is a young diver out their diving solo who is building the type of courage that will allow him or her to save someone's life someday? Experiences are the brick and mortar upon which we build foundations for greatness.
Also, there are some divers who are not team players and would make bad team buddies, but are exceptional in their solo accomplishments. There are the incredibly brave and skilled who survey distant passages alone and there are the incredibly foolhardy who go too far, too deep, with not enough respect for the environment and not enough intelligence to know all the risks. There are the highly brave and skilled who personally believe that team diving is for them and the incredibly foolhardy who also dive in teams.
At the end of the day, statistics (show me the stats that scream solo diving is insane) all lie because they don't tell the real story about who a diver was, how skilled, and the reasons for diving, or why that person died. For example, wouldn't most people commit suicide by themselves and those deaths would be recorded as solo divers?
I respect your views on team diving, but please respect the fact that I can "Cowboy Up" and go it alone.
Besides, I may end up drowning some day, but, my friend, you're going to worry yourself to death.
~ Trace
