Bolting to the surface...

[MXGratefulDiver]

Communication is the responsibility of both buddies.

What size tank was your buddy using? You indicate you were on a 130. If his was smaller, then it's a sure-fire indication that he will be first to reach turn pressure ... by how much depends entirely on the mismatch between the two of you with respect to differences in both tank size and air consumption rate. If either is unknown to you, then you should be monitoring not just your air, but your buddy's fairly regularly. You can do this by asking, or simply by positioning yourself to take a peek at your buddy's pressure gauge from time to time.

When diving with someone new to me, I'll often do an air pressure check before the dive, then another about 10 minutes into the dive. By having those two data points, you can get a pretty good idea how your buddy's air consumption compares to yours ... and therefore a rough idea how much gas you should expect to have remaining when your buddy reaches turn pressure (assuming they have either a smaller tank, greater consumption rate, or both). As you approach your expected value, give your buddy the pressure check signal ... sometimes divers, particularly newer or task-loaded divers ... simply neglect to check as often as they should. So don't assume ... ask.

Bolting to the surface is an indication that he faced a problem he wasn't prepared to resolve underwater. This isn't an uncommon instinct for a newer diver facing his first real failure outside the controlled environs of a class ... most of us aren't nearly as good at problem solving as we perceive ourselves to be. Given no one was hurt, I'd take it as a learning opportunity ... for both of you.

Equipment choices have nothing to do with it ... in your part of the world, lots of people learn to dive using long hoses and BP/W ... it's not a "technical" rig at all, it just happens to work well in the environment you dive in. The diver still will need to learn how to manage their gear and their dive properly ... just as they would in any other configuration.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[dytis-sm]

I am learning in every dive and was happy that nobody got hurt, unhappy with how it evolved. I blame myself for not paying close attention to his air. My personal reaction at around 700 psi if I ever reach that would have been to say goodbye and go for the safety stop if my buddy was not following... No depend on my buddy to signal for it. When I signaled safety stop, this thing started.

I tested the octopus on the surface but will check again on my next dive underwater. Thanks for all the input. This is why I shared as I wanted this to be a learning experience with no possibility of recurrence. Truth is that I dive often with very experienced people and that was indeed a reality check which I hope will make me more cautious with instabuddies.

 

[clownfish60]

I was on a dive with someone that I had not dived before. We did do the traditional dive planning and discussed our rigs, buddy checked and went in. We had agreed to communicate when the first of us will be half way through air since we were close to the boat and in a fairly calm and easy environment. We proceeded with the dive and everything was going great until we were getting close to our safety stop. That is whey my buddy signaled out of air. So I handed over the octopus and turned my head to check my air gauge. As I turn my head back to hold on to his BC (all happening within seconds), he is gone and bolting to the surface.

I had something like this happen to me once before. A friend who I had dove with several times... all on shallow stuff (30' wrecks, etc), and he had no issues. Seemed pretty comfortable diving, and had stories about diving deep, night diving, etc. One day he wanted to go out and hit some bottom structure I had mentioned that was at 80' or so. We went out in his boat... geared up, buddy checked and hit the water. He didn't really seem nervous or anything.. just another dive! We did a nice slow descent.. and started looking around. One second he was there (I was looking at him, and I saw his eyes go wide) and the next second he took off for the surface before I could move. I followed at a more sedate pace... and as I got closer to the surface, I could see him kicking toward the boat. We had been down just a few minutes, so I skipped the safety stop.. and surfaced to see if he needed help! He was on the boat already.. and he and his girlfriend were freaking out. When they saw me, they calmed down a bit... and as I got to the boat, I slipped out of my BC, hooked a lanyard to it... and crawled up to see what was going on. Apparently my buddy surfaced hollering "SHARK"... and said a shark got "Charlie" (me). As I asked him what happened, he said he saw a "big shadow" just outside of Viz range... and lost it, total panic. He thought it was a shark (and maybe it was.. if it was anything, lol!). He later admitted he had never been that deep before, and was starting to get nervous. He said he thought he could handle it, and that is why he wasn't honest with me. Needless to say, I wasn't really happy.. but at least he wasn't injured. We headed in, and he was fine. We did dive together again... but only about 30' or so, and only in decent viz. If it was murky or algae-ed up, he stayed topside. Wouldn't even try to work through it.

This did really freak me out... totally unexpected!

 

[Panama Jones]

I am new to the forum and a relatively new diver but I notice the term "insta-buddy" being used a lot. With all the diving in the world going on ( I myself travel lots and if I see a dive, I am taking the opporunty), are most people always diving regular buddies?

As a new diver, I know I am quite calm, will not dive in a situation that I have no expereence in or am wary about, and try to be as self sufficient as possibe with redundancy. I talk to my instabuddies, do the checks, hope that they are as calm and sensible as I think I am, then understand that I may have to be self reliant.

About 4 or 5 months ago I saw a video with some British diver talking the merits of solo diving. His take, we are actually all diving solo anyways. So why is everyone knocking the instabuddy. Just do the pre-dive routine and if the buddy appears to be a dork - request a new one or understand that you are going solo (but still lookout for him/her). My 50 - 60 dives worth (and counting).

Signed
A frequent instabuddy

 

[bbarnett51]

I know these situations happen fast. It's important to take control in a situation like this and let the diver know that YOU are on it! Grab his bc and never lose eye contact. If you can get eye contact then your buddy is much less likely to bolt to the surface. You can actually communicate better than one would think with just your eyes. Plus you will quickly see if the diver is having trouble getting air. It will relax the diver, make the exchange more efficient, and make surfacing more efficient.

However its easy to respond with text book answers on a forum. I have been in several situations like this and one time I did not perform the way I had hoped. Evening worked out but I did a poor job in my opinion.

Glad everything is ok! Oh and if my partner bolts he is on his own until I get there safely.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

About 4 or 5 months ago I saw a video with some British diver talking the merits of solo diving. His take, we are actually all diving solo anyways. So why is everyone knocking the instabuddy. Just do the pre-dive routine and if the buddy appears to be a dork - request a new one or understand that you are going solo (but still lookout for him/her). My 50 - 60 dives worth (and counting).

Signed
A frequent instabuddy

No ... we are not actually all diving solo anyway ... just the folks who haven't made the effort to learn how to be a dive buddy are doing that ... or anyone unfortunate enough to dive with them. There are perfectly good techniques for diving with another diver ... one just has to make the commitment to learn them and use them.

The solo hype is gonna get somebody killed. There's nothing wrong with solo diving if you are physically and mentally prepared for self-sufficiency ... but what I see happening out there is that new divers are seeing these videos and reading the "self-reliant" articles and thinking they can just go jump in the water with nothing more than the training and equipment they used in OW. It takes a bit more than that ... not least of which is the experience to develop adequate control of your skills and awareness to not put yourself in a trouble situation out of pure ignorance.

Last week I saw a guy gearing up without a buddy. Since he was using what was obviously rental equipment, and didn't have any semblance of redundancy, it raised some red flags. But I decided not to say anything, and he got in the water while I was waiting for my buddy to show up. About 20 minutes later I was briefing my buddy on the dive site ... him being new to the area ... when this solo diver breached the surface at a rather high rate of speed. I said "oh crap, here we go" ... anticipating this was going to be either a rescue or body recovery. But a half-minute later the diver re-descended, and we watched his bubbles as he headed in. After he got out of the water I asked him if he was OK. He didn't seem to understand why I was asking. I asked if he had any solo training ... he said no. I asked him how long he's been diving, he said "since March 18" ... that's about six weeks ago. I asked him what he would do if for any reason he had a problem with his air source while diving alone. He said he would CESA. I asked him what's the deepest CESA he's ever done. He said 20 feet. I asked him how deep he went on that dive. He said about 60 feet. I asked if he thought he could make it to the surface on a CESA from that depth, having never tried it before. He shrugged his shoulders and said "but I didn't run out of air." At that point, I figured it's in Darwin's hands and went on about my business.

Hopefully I won't be around when somebody has to pull his body out.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[dytis-sm]

As noted during training a diving accident typically follows a sequence of events/errors. In this case i failed to be vigilant about air checks past the half way point of my buddy. That could have saved the OOA situation. Then at the safety stop was multitasking when was asked for air and may have had tunnel vision and may have failed to calm him down...possibly being too procedural and checking my air next.

I diagree with diving solo vs being prepared to dive solo and this event hopefully taught my buddy something too. Ironically just today i was stating at another post the importance of diving experience versus pilling certifications. Real emergencies look different than the training environment. This incident taught me a lot about the rescue scenarios i practiced...

Cheers and thank you for your input

 

[chrpai]

IMHO, unanticipated air-depletion can never be an individual failure (unless solo diving). Monitoring and communicating gas throughout the dive is a team/buddy-pair responsibility. More than one diver has to be negligent in those responsibilities for gas to zero without everyone being aware of the issue in advance.

Hold on a minute, "negligent" is a strong word there. Makes me want to solo dive more to avoid the lawyers.

 

[Panama Jones]

I agree. I don't think solo diving is good for any new diver. And I am a long way for even attempting that. I am on this site to learn. The point is, the site seems to really knock the idea of instabuddies. Read through all the forums. Without outright saying it, first time buddies are bad. Instabuddies are ridiculed.. When I dive with someone I just met, and that person is an experienced diver (or so they say), I go out of my way to try and make them feel comfortable with me because I always get get the feeling that in their mind, they are saying "Oh my god, I get the new guy". I always demo a good pre-dive check. I did this before I even heard of this forum. This forum fully reinforces my belief that that is exactly what experienced divers are thinking.

Note to self...when I reach the point that I am as experienced as all of you, don't forget where I came from and treat my instabuddy wtih the respect a new diver should get in order to keep him/her in the sport.

Mexico..Spetember 2012. On a boat and partnered up with a woman that has all the experience in the world, fantastically expensive kit., telling everybody how to load up, checking their gear and tanks, reinforcing the pre-deive etc. (not a DM or dive operator). I feel bad as hell that she gets me as her buddy. 10 minutes in the water, the DM passes me off to his buddy to team up while he spends the next forty minutes keeping her from floating to the top. BTW. - DM told me that it people like her that keeps his job from becoming routine.

Sorry...this is a really great learning site.

 

[chrpai]

PJ- Here's a good watch for you:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ad...-closet-mark-powell-presents-lids-2012-a.html