Bring your biggest knives to cut thru the testosterone on this one. At
least that's what I think. Here's his comments:

"In entry level scuba, the buddy system can make a lot of
sense............However, with experience ...the system becomes a
burden............if they have been trained properly to assess risk and
practise self-reliant skills, there is simply no valid reason to compel
their allegiance to the buddy system.......divers who zealously practice
buddy diving by the book are usually relatively new divers"

Is this guy just another macho techie with a death wish for writing
something like this? IMO opinion self reliance is the most important but
I wouldn't dive without a competent buddy for two reasons (1) having a
buddy once saved my life in a bad situation (2) I know personally a
diver who died while diving solo. Sure divers die with buddies but
perhaps a buddy could have saved him.

I know solo diving has been beaten to death on this ng but thought Bret
Gilliam's comments were worth mentioning.