About two minutes later they surfaced at the exit about 200 yards away.
We surface swam over and by the time I reached the dock I was livid! I took a few minutes to gather my wits and de-briefed them and pointed out that the lost team members were to search no longer than one minute as discussed then surface.
A couple wanted to argue that they knew I was fine but when I asked what was planned pre-dive they were silent. PLAN THE DIVE DIVE THE PLAN! It just does not get any more plain than that. When dive practices are not followed safety is compromised and risks not managed thus allowing for accidents to happen.
When I was fresh out of OW, I coupled with a fellow who had several hundred dives under his belt. We got separated a couple of times and each time he kept on diving while I floated on the surface worrying to death. Each time his excuse was "I knew that you were OK."
How the heck did he know that I was OK? I had five dives under my belt, for heaven's sake. Not to mention how did I know that he was OK?
Anyway, after the second time, I found new buddies.
There was one that kept swimming all over the place heedless of direction and won't acknowledge me when I tried to signal her to stay with me instead of going willy nilly (she was heading toward blue water with no safety sausage, no plans to do so). The next dive, I refused to go with her.
A couple of spearos keep sweeping me with their spearguns' muzzles and so fixated on hunting that they didn't bother to pay attention to their gases and refused to heed my warnings. I signaled them that I headed back and went to the surface and got back to the boat. One of them ran out of air and needed a rescue.
I will not jeopardize my safety because my buddies are inconsiderate.
Can't stress enough about plan your dive and dive your plan. Talk it out. Talk not just about emergency procedures but about the dive's objectives. How long are we going to be under? What depth? Directions? What's turn-around gas? What are we trying to see? Maybe some prefer to look at corals and some prefer to chase after fish. This is the time to find out and plan for the objective of the dive. Not when you jump into the water and one wants to go this way and the other wants to go the other way and end up resenting each other.