At 29/05/02 06:56 -0500, Mike wrote:
>It has been my experience with the boats that I frequent in the Gulf, mostly
>Panama City and Destin areas that the Capt's are not as anal about
>requiring buddies.

CUT

>The last time that I was asked who my buddy was, I told the DM I was
>diving with Mike today. He nodded his approval and in I went. Before the
>second dive, he asked Mike was and I told him he was looking at
>him. He nodded his head, smiled, moved on and did not mention it again.

Don wrote:

>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.

Well, you guys live in a different world.  Diving around here in Israel and
in a few places in Europe that I visited (France, Turkey) is a lot
different.  The whole thing is less commercialized.  You will get a
briefing before boarding the boat, the DM will match you with a buddy and
if you insist on diving alone, you don't even get on the boat.  You can't
get away with something like the examples you both gave.

In Turkey, where money REALLY talks ;-) I had an interesting experience.  I
refused to be buddied up with a novice, on the second wreck dive, because
on the first one, it forced me to ascend a lot earlier than I
preferred.  So the head instructor who was supposed to lead the dive
mumbled something about going with the group.  I insisted that I was going
to do a longer dive and that I was going to do one or two deep safety
stops.  They didn't want to lose my business and they didn't want to settle
for less than their strict rules so they just added another DM who was
supposed to dive as MY buddy :-)  I think this DM never did such an
interesting profile before :-)



Regards,

                    Kuty