Went diving with a few acquaintances today. I was teamed up with a couple of guys. Both (like me) are relatively new to the hobby, one of them is very inexperienced (20 dives) while the other has about 30-40 dives. The shore dive site had very low vis (1m) with a strong current today - max depth is around 10-12m.
In the briefing by the DM (who partnered another newbie) who split us into two groups, it was explicitly stated that if we lose each other in our group of three, that we do the standard lost buddy procedure. Circle for one minute and surface to wait for the other/s to come up.
We lost the guy with 30 dives after just 2-3mins into the dive (10m distance from shore -2m max depth). We surfaced and waited (for 40mins) but he never bothered to surface. We didn't know whether to alert the authorities and waited till he finally surfaced.
I gave him a piece of my mind when he did eventually return to the shore where I was waiting still in all of my gear (floating in the water)i.e. our dive start position
Should I have called the authorities and perhaps wasted their time?
In the briefing by the DM (who partnered another newbie) who split us into two groups, it was explicitly stated that if we lose each other in our group of three, that we do the standard lost buddy procedure. Circle for one minute and surface to wait for the other/s to come up.
We lost the guy with 30 dives after just 2-3mins into the dive (10m distance from shore -2m max depth). We surfaced and waited (for 40mins) but he never bothered to surface. We didn't know whether to alert the authorities and waited till he finally surfaced.
I gave him a piece of my mind when he did eventually return to the shore where I was waiting still in all of my gear (floating in the water)i.e. our dive start position
Should I have called the authorities and perhaps wasted their time?