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Sorry to pick up on an old thread, but...

Mark Lenhart <scuba@uc*.be*.ed*> wrote:

>I was curious if there was any good reason such obviously dangerous diving
>is done solo.  The only reasons I can surmise would be to reduce the risk
>of accidental causing zero vis. (silting out), but wouldn't the redundancy
>of a competently trained, discipled buddy be much safer than solo cave
>diving?

following some remarks by David Doolette about Australian practices.

I can't speak for the common practices in South Australia but have some
experience in some of the New South Wales caving areas.  Most of the NSW
cave dives are sump oriented.  In some instances the sumps are too constricted
to allow a buddy to be of any assistance.  So the norm, even when diving
with a team, is to treat all the sumps as solo experiences.

In other cases, the sumps being dived are quite remote, requiring
substantial dry caving to reach them.  As a result, most of these dives
are exploratory, and it is more usual to only transport one push diver's
gear to the sump being explored.  The need for cave conservation, and the
effort required, requires transport of equipment and group sizes to be
kept to a minimum.

I expect these practices might be quite in line with UK cave diving.

				Greg Ryan	gregr@cs*.su*.oz*.au*

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