DAN missed the boat ...

[OceanicFan]

I agree that good buddy skills are not usually taught in OW. That really should be done. I also agree that self reliance is very important. I do think DAN did not really cover all the bases on this incident.

I have had buddies just take off on me. One time I was chasing, and chasing, and because I was low on air, I had to give up the chase and surface. Another time, even after I specifically discussed staying together on the dive, the buddy took off. I kept up with her and basically did not enjoy my dive. But I didn't dive with her again.

I dive because I enjoy it. If a buddy is going to impede my enjoyment, I will not dive with them again. But I will attempt to be a good buddy to them for that one dive.

As for diving shoulder to shoulder, I find that a bit difficult unless you are doing a square profile and you know where the boundries are. I always discuss where the placement is and try to stay there. If I am the leader, then I make the turns, etc. and my buddy is right where I expect them to be; close by but not at my shoulder. Usually, just about a foot behind on whatever side we agree on.

Shoulder to shoulder, in my experience, has just not been that practical. I usually dive with the same person on a regular basis. I will often turn down dives that he cannot make it to. He and I work very well together and it's just understood that he leads and I follow. We never have to ask questions or wonder where the other person is. Shoulder to shoulder means we have to swim farther apart which can lead to separation.

Every now and then, if he doesn't notice me or hasn't felt me brush up against his fins, he will check to make sure I am still there. I have a tank banger *dodge sticks and stones* and if I need him, and he's out of reach, one click and he turns around to see whatsup.

I never get ahead of him, he never has to wonder where I am or how far away I might be. In my experience, limited as it may be, when I have done shoulder to shoulder, especially with newer or untrained divers, I'm constantly looking to see where they are, and my mask has no side panels, so it's a noted effort to look and find them.

If I just let them lead, I can easily keep track of them, and I will make an effort to bump their fins from time to time to let them know I am still there.

I would never let someone new lead me around in open water like the ocean, where poor navigational skills could find us lost at sea, and in that case I always like to lead or I will suffer through shoulder to shoulder if I have to. But I much prefer to have my buddy in plain sight and within reach should I need them or visa versa.

OF

EDIT: I can totally understand, after reading my own post, how the same things I said could be said in reverse as positive arguments for shoulder to shoulder. I guess it's just a matter of personal preference. Guess I spoke too soon. =/

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

...

As for diving shoulder to shoulder, I find that a bit difficult unless you are doing a square profile and you know where the boundries are. I always discuss where the placement is and try to stay there. If I am the leader, then I make the turns, etc. and my buddy is right where I expect them to be; close by but not at my shoulder. Usually, just about a foot behind on whatever side we agree on.

This has been a really good topic, with lots of good discussion and good opinions.

sea nmf and others: I understand what you are saying about shoulder to shoulder, and here in Hawaii with good visibility I'm not so close that I'm "bumping shoulders" with my buddy; however I do dive "line abreast" formation with my buddy, to steal a term from flying

Line abreast the leader only has to look to the side to make eye contact with his/her buddy, and vice versa. And diving line abreast allows the "leader" / "follower" roles to change with a quick hand signal (but we have all that worked out pre-dive). And we do stay quite close: close enough to reach out and tap each other.

Works well for us, even following the up, down and arounds of the reef, but then again I know my dive buddy REALLY well: we've been married 16 years

 

[shadragon]

The buddy system is like any other piece of gear. Sometimes it can fail. Make sure you have a backup plan for that failure or just stay really shallow, just in case.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I seem to have shot a sacred cow this morning when I commented on the potential perils of relying on the buddy system. I am however not exactly apologetic even if it was a pre-coffee post as the facts remain the same even if the attitude could have been cranked down a notch or two.

I do think the point was missed by a couple of the responders that I am not opposed to the buddy system, I am just opposed to reliance on it as your sole backup. Just like social security, I don't want to do away with it, but I sure do not plan to have it as my sole source of income - especially given that I am at the tail end of the baby boom and will retire about a year after the system potentially goes broke.

Much more importantly I am opposed to a "search one minute then surface" lost buddy procedure. It is a procedure that was developed in an era of 60 ft per minute ascents and no safety stops and was optimized for basic or open water shore dives to 60 ft or less max depths. It is in my opinion, much less than optimal for deeper diving, offshore diving and more modern deco procedures such as very slow ascent rates, deep stops and safety stops. All of the above serve to greatly delay the time between buddy separation and potentially rejoining on the surface and both make rejoining more problematic and greatly increase the time it would take you to come to the aid of a non breathing buddy if he wereon the surface. Assume your buddy came up not breathing, you missed him 30 seconds after he went missing, did one minute on the bottom, 3 minutes of ascent at 33 fpm and a 3 minute safety stop. That puts you on the surface 7.5 minutes after he went misisng and probably close to that long since he stopped breathing. Just how much good are you really going to do at that point with in water rescue breathing or CPR? A lot less good than you would have done 25 years ago with a 90 second ascent and no safety stop.

Another reality of the era shortly after the buddy system and lost buddy procedure was borrowed from Red Cross surface swimming courses is that BC's, octos and redundant air sources were uncommon or unheard of. Few people dove with a redundant reg and tank then as the costs of doing so would have represented a significant increase in the total equipment expense. Today that is not the case as a pony bottle and reg costs as little as $300 and is a small percentage of the total cost of equipment. I can't think of a good reason not to invest in that additional level of safety after a few months saving the money to do it even for someone on a modest budget.

I agree staying together even in low viz is theoretically not hard, but it requires both buddies to excercise a great deal of discipline. The key is for the lead diver to stay as predictable as possible regarding course, check their 6 frequently and get eye contact with and the attention of the buddy prior to any change of course or speed. In 5 or 10 feet of visibility however even a brief stop or slight deviation right or left by the non leading buddy can be missed by the lead diver and can result in a separation.

So in a sense with the buddy system, you are asking the non leading diver to devote his or her entire dive to maintaining close formation on you. You can share the lead and switch mid-way, assuming the other diver knows his or her way back to the anchor or exit point, but both divers are then spending a significant amount of time just following the other diver. That works pretty well with a diver who is scared witless and sticks like glue to the more experienced buddy, but as their confidence grows so does their desire to stop or deviate to look at something of interest and when you consider the human factors involved it is not surprising that separation often occurs with recreational buddy teams.

It is very different when compared to techncial dive teams as situational awareness, signals and techniques to maintain contact even in low viz or total darkness are integral parts of the curriculum. And in most techncial dives, the dive plan is much more concrete and mission focused. But at the same time every member of the team has redundant euipment and contingency planning to return to the surface on their own should the need arise. A need to truly rely on a team member only arises in very rare situations of mulitple failure or serious entanglement.

What I am suggesting is that reliance on the buddy system as a sole source of redundancy is antiquated and that we may want to consider that it may no longer be something we should regard as an acceptable procedure all by itself. I experienced the closing stages of a similar period of change when the common use of the octo finally displaced buddy breathing as an acceptable method of sharing gas. It was painful and many people resisted just because it was change, was not the way they were trained and/or cost them $75 for a new octo.

Another thing I am suggesting is that there are better alternatives to the "search one minute and surface" procedure. For all of us divers who are less than candidates for saint hood (or who are at least pragmatic enough to realize that separation is as inevitable as peeing in a wetsuit) and for whom separation is inevitable it makes sense to consider a more appropriate lost buddy procedure that is perhaps better suited to modern equipment trends and wide array of conditons divers may encounter today.

In the case the OP mentioned with the DAN article, a pony would have given the diver a lot more time to connect with the buddy and advise him of the problem and include him in the solution and would have eliminated the need for him to feel compelled to re-decend to contact the buddy.

What is maybe more controversial (and again I find myself encroaching on sacred cow territory with a 45-70 in hand) is that if the injured diver had not felt compelled to follow the buddy system he would have stayed on the surface and avoided the accident. In this case I think it may be reasonable to assume that misplaced loyalty to a buddy and a buddy system created a conflict between the smart thing to do (stay on the surface) and a perceived obligation to a buddy that contributed to his bad decision to leave the surface. You could argue that the other diver failed by not ascending when he noticed the buddy was missing, but it remains a bad decision for the surfaced buddy to re-decend with a partial tank and a known free flow prone reg.

A pony also would have given the free flowing diver other options. The OP does not mention that the dive was in a high mountain lake - which I can tell you from experience are almost universally cold at depths of 100 feet - often below 40 degrees even in summer. The description of the reg failure is classic for a not quite foolproof cold water reg like the Mk 25 S600- a freeflow at depth that resolves on the way to the surface. With a pony bottle, the diver could have switched to the pony, turned off the valve on the freeflowing reg saved the gas, and rejoined the buddy on the bottom. After a couple minutes of either air sharing with the buddy or staying on the pony while beginning a slow ascent, the diver could have turned the now thawed reg back on and aborted the dive normally or perhaps even continued the dive at a shallower and warmer depth.

In short, deep diving in a cold alpine lake with at best 20-30' fresh water visibility is a situation that just screams for redundancy above and beyond a buddy and relying only on a buddy in this instance is pushing the envelope.

In regard to my situation last week, I seem to be viewed as some sort of uncaring heel for not feeling the need to surface to find the lost buddy. Had I done so, I'd have found my self alone on the surface a couple hundred feet from the boat and rapidly drifting away 10 minutes into a 45 minute dive as the wandered off buddy turned left, reconnected with the wreck and tagged on to some of the other 10 divers in the water (a few of them solo) as he felt no need to surface either. So I'd have been greatly displeased and would have drifted for at least 30 minutes before the boat (and it's equally greatly displeased captain) could have pulled the hook and came after me. I had a really big SMB, two lift bags, a signal mirror, strobe and dye marker, but I am quite happy not having had to use them - especially for my half of an unreciprocated "surface to find the lost buddy" procedure. Like I said, I don't know anyone who actually does a lost buddy procedure in an offshore situation with seas and current. As it was, I kept an eye out for him on the wreck and reconnected about 5 minutes later in the dive. In that situation executing a "surface to find the lost buddy" procedure would have generated far more problems than it solved.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Agreed. I'd rather KNOW I'm alone than THINK I have a buddy.

Have to agree with these statements. Hmmmm think I might just check out the spare air option tho before our next trip away.

 

[Geoff_H]

I understand what you're saying but I don't see a "sensible" middle ground, we either have to train divers to be effective buddies or we need to train them to be effective solo divers, anything else is just playing Russian roulette which is how I feel about most diver training today.

I am not saying I completely disagree about modern training methods... but I recognise that they are here and I don't think they are going to be changing anytime soon. The commercial pressures and the demand from the non-diving public are going to keep the market for quick open water courses regardless of what you or I may feel about it. The reality is the number of serious or fatal accidents is not large compared to the number of dives per year. Of course it is not zero, and we would all like it to be lower.

Even if PADI and NAUI up their open water training requirements to a higher level it will simply create a niche in the market for someone else to come in and exploit. We should recognise the advances in equipment technology have alleviated some of the need for advanced training and we can all argue about the exact level needed, but that is another thread for sure.

This is why I am in complete agreement with DA Aquamaster that we need to look at the reality of diving and think what we can do to make the majority of divers safer - and that simply isn't using the internet moan about how all these problems could be avoided if they dived in a unified team and spent thousands of dollars on equipment and a Fundies course.

 

[Thalassamania]

I am not saying I completely disagree about modern training methods... but I recognise that they are here and I don't think they are going to be changing anytime soon. The commercial pressures and the demand from the non-diving public are going to keep the market for quick open water courses regardless of what you or I may feel about it. The reality is the number of serious or fatal accidents is not large compared to the number of dives per year. Of course it is not zero, and we would all like it to be lower.

Even if PADI and NAUI up their open water training requirements to a higher level it will simply create a niche in the market for someone else to come in and exploit. We should recognise the advances in equipment technology have alleviated some of the need for advanced training and we can all argue about the exact level needed, but that is another thread for sure.

This is why I am in complete agreement with DA Aquamaster that we need to look at the reality of diving and think what we can do to make the majority of divers safer - and that simply isn't using the internet moan about how all these problems could be avoided if they dived in a unified team and spent thousands of dollars on equipment and a Fundies course.

So what do we do? $300 is not much to spend and a pony will help. But frankly I do not think that most of the divers that you are concerned about can, in a crisis, with panic a'rising and sanity gettin' low, can switch regulators, take one breath, and turn on their pony. And, as has been pointed out, a pony (even if it works) only solve OOA, not any of the other problems that mortal flesh is heir to. What do you propose? For me, fortunately, I don't tend to dive with or around the folks your talking about.

Btw: A great aid to buddy awareness: I sometimes wear a small plastic mirror on the back of my left hand. That makes it real easy for me to see my buddy whilst navigating with my compass, which is an easy time to loose him or her.

 

[Geoff_H]

Btw: A great aid to buddy awareness: I sometimes wear a small plastic mirror on the back of my left hand. That makes it real easy for me to see my buddy whilst navigating with my compass, which is an easy time to loose him or her.

GUE would describe that as an unnessecary equipment solution to a skills problem

But frankly I do not think that most of the divers that you are concerned about can, in a crisis, with panic a'rising and sanity gettin' low, can switch regulators, take one breath, and turn on their pony.

I don't have all the answers, but I feel the criticism of DAN in this thread is unwarranted. This has been a fascinating thread with both sides stating logical, coherent and well explained arguments.

 

[SPG3K]

Btw: A great aid to buddy awareness: I sometimes wear a small plastic mirror on the back of my left hand. That makes it real easy for me to see my buddy whilst navigating with my compass, which is an easy time to loose him or her.

I like it.

As far as myself is concerned, my buddy and I have a concrete rule.

Anytime one or the other is relegated to compass navigation in absence of navigable terrain landmarks or well known territory, we are within arms reach, if not touching.

That totally frees my buddy to do what he needs to do to get us on track, or visa versa, without worrying about whether or not he or I is following or becoming more and more separated and lost.

When one of us decides it's time to re-align, or sets a heading to swim on to get somewhere or get back, we just tap our compass twice and the other buddy falls in line, usually hovering just above the navigating diver in the water column, or slightly above and behind.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

But frankly I do not think that most of the divers that you are concerned about can, in a crisis, with panic a'rising and sanity gettin' low, can switch regulators, take one breath, and turn on their pony. And, as has been pointed out, a pony (even if it works) only solve OOA, not any of the other problems that mortal flesh is heir to. What do you propose? For me, fortunately, I don't tend to dive with or around the folks your talking about.

If a diver really cannot deal with a freeflowing or suddenly OOA reg by simply switching to a pony, they should not be in the water as they almost certainly cannot manage a gas share with a buddy.

So what do you propose? Since you won't dive with divers like that if you have any other option, two of them will hook up and dive together and that has "disaster" written all over it. I can envision one mugging the other for their reg and both panicking and bolting for the surface with airway firmly closed. My take on it is that a pony would at least reduce the chance of a double fatality.