Collapse of the "Buddy System"

[TMHeimer]

My first dives were solo (due to having to share one kid among us) as are about 95% of my dives today. There are few buddies I have dived with who would be in position to effect a rescue if something should happen. That is not entirely their fault as I focus on my filming when I'm under. The buddy I pay the closest attention to is my 30-year old son.

If I am doing anything other than a reasonably shallow (say 50 fsw) dive solo, I carry my pony. It is my real buddy.

I remember when I did rescue a second time (as a refresher after a few decades). I was heading back out to the float to get our gear when a woman nearby was calling for help. I assumed one of my instructor friends had set this up as a joke, but I treated it as a real event. I assisted her over to the float and let her rest for a while. Then I towed her in to the dive park stairs. As I approached the stairs, a guy swam over to us and said he'd take over. I asked who he was. He replied "Her buddy... and boyfriend." I replied "If you were her buddy, where were you when she was in trouble?"

A few years ago I counted up my incident rates with and without a dive buddy. I was 17 times more likely to experience a dive incident while diving with a buddy than I was while diving solo. Hmmm...

I agree with TS & M in that not all buddies are worthless, nor do I condemn solo diving. But your data seems to confirm what I said pages ago--the buddy system is not collapsing, it probably has always been what it is.

 

[Dive Right In Scuba 2]

A few years ago I counted up my incident rates with and without a dive buddy. I was 17 times more likely to experience a dive incident while diving with a buddy than I was while diving solo. Hmmm...

Now that is an interesting statistic, and completely believable. I don't think I've ever seen a number put on the likelihood of an accident with a buddy vs. without. Thank you for this.

 

[drrich2]

All the bad buddies I dove with had one thing in common: they had tendency of swimming and swimming a lot, like the water "over there" was different. So often I wanted to yell at some buddies - STOP SWIMMING!! For some reason some divers think that diving is underwater swimming; they'd just descend and swim swim swim. I don't even remember when I got separated from my buddies (well, the good ones), because I prefer to go and stay at some place exploring it. Once we're done exploring, we would point where we want to go, move towards that direction a little and stop and explore.

It takes good buddy to find a good buddy. Those who just swim and swim don't realize that they are bad buddies themselves. They often take off without looking, they get the buddy tired, they waste air, they don't see much and they don't let the buddy see much.

Ironically, some of those ex-buddies may be telling people you were a lousy buddy because you didn't keep up and 'stay together.'

I've noticed a tendency on the thread to assume that if 2 divers tend to move at different speeds, the slowest one is 'right' and the faster one is 'wrong.' Interesting viewpoint.

Richard.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I completely agree that divers should be as self-sufficient as merited by the dive in question. It's my opinion that, diving with reasonably trained and experienced people and in average recreational depths ( less than 100 feet) that doesn't require redundant gas. For dives in the deeper part of that range, or with novice divers or people who are entirely new to me, I do dive with redundant gas. My choice is doubles, but a well-configured accessory bottle doesn't bother me.
.

So.. in other words you too do NOT trust the buddy system (as commonly used in the recreational dive setting).. You don't trust the "system" even with divers who may have hundreds of dives (unless you already "know" them). You don't even trust it in shallow water.

You don't trust it for new divers and you don't trust it with unknown divers, yet you have far more experience than most divers... Are not all recently certified divers, by definition novices... If so, then why do you not advocate redundant gas for ALL novices? It seems you would advocate for training in redundant systems for all open water diver certifications?

 

[TSandM]

I have said over and over again that it is not difficult to be a good buddy. And it isn't. And the majority of the people with whom I have dived have been reasonable buddies, most of them good, in the sense that my basic request is to stay together, and they do. Honestly, I do all our Tweak dives, often with novices, in a single tank; I keep the dive shallow (60 feet or less) and keep it in an environment I know well. I dive single tank with OW students -- they are probably the least reliable teammates I dive with.

I HAVE the ability to provide myself with redundancy whenever I feel at all unsure, so I do. And I've already said that I have no problem with people carrying redundant gas. I have a problem with people saying the only way to dive is solo because buddies are just a liability. It isn't so.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I have said over and over again that it is not difficult to be a good buddy. And it isn't. And the majority of the people with whom I have dived have been reasonable buddies, most of them good, in the sense that my basic request is to stay together, and they do. Honestly, I do all our Tweak dives, often with novices, in a single tank; I keep the dive shallow (60 feet or less) and keep it in an environment I know well. I dive single tank with OW students -- they are probably the least reliable teammates I dive with.

I HAVE the ability to provide myself with redundancy whenever I feel at all unsure, so I do. And I've already said that I have no problem with people carrying redundant gas. I have a problem with people saying the only way to dive is solo because buddies are just a liability. It isn't so.

I'm not against buddy diving, I just have issues with relying solely upon it to supply redundant gas supply. If I dove with you, I would bring a pony bottle..

 

[mrdre]

Ironically, some of those ex-buddies may be telling people you were a lousy buddy because you didn't keep up and 'stay together.'

I've noticed a tendency on the thread to assume that if 2 divers tend to move at different speeds, the slowest one is 'right' and the faster one is 'wrong.' Interesting viewpoint.

Richard.

And I think it's a very valid assumption. Because the fast, constantly swimming buddy keeps "breaking" the buddy system while the slow, "trying to keep up" buddy is trying to preserve the buddy system. So if the second diver finally wasn't able to keep up (got entangled, tired, legs got cramped up) and the buddies get separated, it was be the faster buddy's fault. It's the faster buddy who swam away and left the troubled buddy behind.

 

[TMHeimer]

And I think it's a very valid assumption. Because the fast, constantly swimming buddy keeps "breaking" the buddy system while the slow, "trying to keep up" buddy is trying to preserve the buddy system. So if the second diver finally wasn't able to keep up (got entangled, tired, legs got cramped up) and the buddies get separated, it was be the faster buddy's fault. It's the faster buddy who swam away and left the troubled buddy behind.

While I think that an overly "slow" trailer can be at fault somewhat, I tend to agree with you. The "trailer" is in a position to easily see the leader. The leader must turn his head at least a little to see the trailer. So most of the time it has to be the leader who is the main cause of separation. Of course, the trailer might not be so slow if a medium pace was agreed upon beforehand. But speaking of "cramped up", that is me. I was diving a couple of years ago with my younger brother (very shallow--20-30') and told him it's best we split up as he wanted to spearfish and I was of course looking for shells and prone to cramps after a lot of fast finning.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I think another big problem with the buddy system these days is the cookie cutter standardization mentality that a buddy is a buddy and it should all work the same, it doesn't. There are so many variables in people, dive styles, comfort levels, skill levels, risk tolerance, personalities, etc.
I say find people that dive like you and only dive with them. That goes for any style from strict buddy team to loose solo same ocean same day.
If you are going to only dive a strict very regimented buddy team style then find people like yourself and perfect your protocols, if that's your philosophy. This pretty much eliminates the insta buddy in most cases. Take your well oiled buddies where ever you go, plan your vacations with them, have those people in place where ever you might dive in the world. Many people do this.

If you are the independant type and have assessed the added risks of not being in a strict team environment and are OK with that, and the people that may be with you somewhere in the ocean on the same day and if they are OK with that, then have a great dive.
I agree that there is no in-between, it's either or, and it needs to made clear what it is so there is no confusion.

If you agree to be a buddy then be a buddy. All this need to be discussed thoroughly before you splash.
I agree that it's not fair to buddy up with someone under false pretenses. That's just wrong and does nobody any any favors.

I also agree that the "follow the leader" dive is not really a buddy dive. That is the number one style most prone to failure as far as a buddy team goes, in my experience.

 

[TSandM]

Yes! I've said over and over again, that one of the biggest values of being a GUE diver is that I can almost guarantee myself a good buddy anywhere I go, with just a little pre-planning.