Kuty wrote:
>She said that she had a
>liability problem because if something had happened to me while I was
>continuing my dive alone, she would have been held responsible because we
>started the dive together.

This raises another issue that I intentionally left out of my last
post.  If one agrees to be a buddy with a stranger, one arguable agrees to
assume liability for any negligence in acting as a buddy.  The dive
operator, DM and boat operator will protect themselves with a liability
release, but you have no such protection that my make you the ONLY target
of any subsequent litigation.  One more reason to insist the DM be
responsible for the novice diver.

I was recently talking about the solo issue with a diver and he advised
that he had developed a whole list of lies to tell DM's has he was getting
in with no buddy.  His experience was that if you give them any reason to
believe that you have a buddy they will basically look the other way.

Dive safe,

/Don