If you don't know the answer to the question, then the answer is
certainly no. Inexperienced divers should never dive alone. In
fact, the position of all of the major international recreational
dive training agencies (PADI, NAUI, SSI, BSAC), is that divers
should ALWAYS dive with a buddy, no matter what their experience
level.
Having said that, there has been a great deal of interest of
late in solo diving. It began in the technical diving community as
an extension of the "self-reliance" philosophy that is such an
integral part of tech diving. The interest increased as a result of
recent lawsuits against dive buddies accused of negligence during
diving accidents. The tech-oriented recreational dive agency SDI
now offers a Solo Diver specialty training course.
It is fair to say that most divers with technical training equip
themselves to be self-sufficient and consider an unknown dive buddy
to be a liability. Safe technical diving is all about controlling
risk and a dive buddy of questionable capability increases risk. To
a highly trained technical diver, an unknown buddy is treated as
someone who is likely to get you killed while you're trying to save
them.
If, however, you have not been trained as a self-sufficient solo
diver, and you don't posses the redundant dive equipment required
to dive safely on your own, including alternate air sources such as
pony bottles, you should always dive with a buddy. This also means
you should act like a buddy during the dive. Stay close enough to
save your buddy in an emergency. They should do the same for
you.
