Knew it would happen eventually

[cudachaser]

Some people are just impossible buddies...."Same day, Same ocean"...I'm a photographer...Me and spearfishing don't work well together

 

[TSandM]

If somebody pulls that on me, they can expect to surface to find a full search for their body(living or not) taking place...

We actually just had this happen at a local dive site. OW student got separated from her instructor and somehow didn't remember she was supposed to surface if that happened. Came up to EMS everywhere.

 

[Underwater Ogre]

I think most everyone is in agreement. A commitment was made to be buddies on the surface and the commitment should be kept.

I have dived with the OP and he is a very diligent reliable dive buddy. He knows his abilities and states exactly what how he wants to dive. I am sure his insta-buddy knew this before he jumped in the water.
He is not the type of diver that would be real happy with his buddy deviating form the dive plan...come to think of it wouldn't either.

Dive safe.... U\O

 

[Leejnd]

Wow, very interesting thread. (And I don't mean the troll stuff - that was just some bozo who likes to stir the pot and see what shyte rises...not worth the effort to respond to him, although I was glad to see all the regular members rise to the occasion and make sure any new divers reading that bunk would recognize it as the bunk it was.)

But back to the actual topic - it always bothers me in threads about insta-buddies when people say "Oh I would never dive with an IB". First, let me say I am not a solo diver - while I believe in self-sufficiency and fully agree one should be able to self-rescue, I learned to dive with a buddy and feel safer doing so. And for non-solo divers like me, the reality is unless you are an extremely infrequent diver, or such a creature of habit that you never branch out from your narrow zone, I don't see how you can AVOID diving with an IB at some point in your dive career! And this is coming from someone who has a built-in buddy - my husband and I do most of our diving together. Even so, I can't even count how many IBs I've ended up in...sometimes anticipated, sometimes not. There are so many situations in which IBs happen...here are just a few:

I travel a lot, sometimes with just my mother (I've been kind of taking her around the world to make up for what a horrible teenager I was! ). Many of those trips have been to places with fabulous diving, so I've taken the opportunity to go out on dive boats completely by myself, knowing that I'd be IB'd with someone. Fortunately I've had great experiences with all of my IBs in those situations (so far anyway). I've also done dive trips with hubby, and occasionally he has decided not to do one of the dives while we're on a boat, so I've ended up buddying with someone else on the boat. And then there's our local boats - I almost always go out with hubby, and several times we've been asked to take a third party with us who didn't have a buddy (or whose buddy was sitting out that dive). I'm actually not particularly fond of diving in teams of three -- it often means I spend more of my bottom time ensuring I know where both others are -- but we usually agree to do it because, well, we're nice.

Then there's the all the times I've gone to dive gatherings at local beaches to meet new dive friends, and buddied up with someone I've never dived with before. That's how ya make friends!

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that I find it disingenuous to suggest that we shouldn't ever dive with instabuddies. Sometimes it's the only way you're going to get down there, and besides, how else can you develop new dive buddies if you don't ever dive with someone new?

As for how to keep them from bolting on you...I agree with the many comments that it's all about pre-dive communication and clarifying expectations, and a plan in case you get separated. Which clearly didn't work in the OP's case!

My final comment is, had what happened to the OP happened to me, you can be dang sure I would NOT have kept my mouth shut. That was flat-out, indisputably wrong, incredibly rude, and staggeringly inconsiderate. In fact, I might have been inclined to ask the doofus to reimburse me for the cost of my lost dive that I spent looking for and worrying about him after he completely disregarded our agreement!

 

[victor]

I dive with a camera and have a huge problem with insta buddies.
When the dive is led by a divemaster the situation is even worse.
I have aborted dives on occasions when I look around to find my buddy and the group have disappeared into the distance. Asking afterwards I get the usual excuses, I did not notice, I thought someone else was staying behind, etc. Now I don't even bother to ask.

If I know the site and it is shallow, good vis, etc then I will tell the DM not to worry if I get lost, I will catch up or meet back at the boat.

Some ops have a lead and tail DM, thats fantastic, I just ask the tail DM to notice if I fall behind and either stay with me or fall behind so he can watch me and the group, normally this works fine.

As I travel to dive the option of a pony bottle is not available, mores the pity, then I would feel much more comfortable when I look up to find my buddy has disapeared.
I think in the future I will book my own DM where costs allow, as a photographer I know I go very slow and may stop for some minutes at a site that has no interest to the rest. When the wife is with me she is happy to hang around, but I don't lie to keep oters waiting so I push on when I would rather stay and get some extra shots.
In

 

[Leejnd]

Victor, you're talking about two different diving situations: instabuddies, and DM-led dives. Both must be handled differently.

I've been diving at many awesome locations around the world, including quite a few that are dive destinations where the standard on the local dive boats is to have DM-led dives. But I live in an area where the standard is that the DM on the boat doesn't even go in the water - you are expected to dive with a buddy, on your own - no DM leader, and each buddy team can go where they want. Personally I much prefer our local way - hey I'm a certified diver, I don't need a babysitter!

But when I've been diving in resort-type areas, the DMs want you to dive in groups, and stay together. Sometimes it's one DM with several divers, sometimes it's a larger group with a lead and tail DM. In some DM-led dives, the DMs have buddied everyone in the group up...but in many of them they don't, which I find to be improper. In those cases, if I wasn't with my husband, I made a point of choosing a buddy and doing a proper pre-dive check, and held a discussion about buddy practices.

I carry a camera too. Hence, I make a point of ensuring that my photography activities will not disrupt the dive for either my buddy, or the group at large. I will let the DM know that I'm taking photos and discuss how to deal with it. I also try to choose a buddy who either is also carrying a camera, or who is fine with my photo activities and promises to not abandon me. In other words, I talk about it up front. I've never had a buddy abandon me while I'm taking pictures, because my buddy always knew up front that I was going to be doing that. Sometimes the DM and larger group abandoned the two of us, but that's because we'd agreed up front that that was okay.

Same thing with IB's in non-DM-led dives. If I'm carrying my camera, I will discuss that in detail before the dive. I don't just insta-buddy with someone, and then surprise him underwater by hanging around one rock for 10 minutes shooting a nudi! That's just unfair.

As has been said before in this thread, it's all about pre-dive communication.

 

[fjpatrum]

No ... it is not. But if you believe that's the case, then it will be.

Getting separated is completely avoidable. All it takes is to decide to BE a dive buddy and put some effort and self-discipline into how you approach the dive.

Buddy separation almost always boils down to one or both of the following ...

1. You never really learned how to dive as a buddy ... you only learned that you should be in the vicinity of another diver at approximately the same time.

2. You don't have, or don't want to use, the self-discipline it takes to dive with the other person. You're not really interested in being a dive buddy in the first place.

Skills can be learned ... if the diver wants to learn them. But if there is a lack of will to either learn the skills, or the belief that they're not important, then that diver will always make a poor buddy, no matter what their skill level. The OP's description suggests that the latter was the case.

So how can you know ... when you choose an instabuddy ... whether or not they're going to fall into one of these roles? Keep in mind that diving with a buddy is all about predictable behavior. So talk through the dive, and establish what each of you should expect from the other. Remember, once underwater you can't really discuss these things. So do it beforehand. And judge from your buddy's responses whether you really want to be in the water with this person. Make it a dialogue ... if they're not contributing to the conversation, chances are they're not taking the whole notion of being a dive buddy very seriously.

Some things to discuss ...

- Positioning ... don't lead/follow unless there's no other choice. Side-by-side swimming makes it easier to keep an eye on each other. Anytime you lead-follow, the person in front is "trusting" that the person behind is doing what you expect. If they stop or change direction for any reason, you won't know it until you look behind you. That style of buddy diving places the burden of staying together on the trailing diver ... the leader is on a "trust me" dive.

- Communication ... buddy diving is more than just being in the water with another diver. You should be sharing your dive. Eye contact, hand and light signals, body language ... all of those are ways to communicate with a buddy. When you don't communicate, you leave your buddy wondering what you're doing, or why you're doing it. This often becomes a distraction that takes away from the enjoyment of the dive. So put some effort into interacting in a way that makes the dive "ours" rather than "mine".

- Goals ... you should REALLY talk before the dive about what your goals are ... because if they're different, the dive inevitably turns into a "push-pull" situation where both divers are trying to impose their goals on the other diver ... and that becomes stressful after a while. Make sure you're on the same page, and going down to see and do the same things. Staying together then becomes much easier.

Some tips for staying together ...

- In low-vis conditions, use lights. A good, focused beam becomes an extension of your arm. You can use it to give signals to your dive buddy, or just shine it every few seconds on a spot where your buddy can see it without effort ... if he can see your light, he knows you are there.

- Slow down ... the slower you go, the harder it is to lose each other. As a bonus, you're far more likely to see stuff that you otherwise might have swam right past without ever noticing it was there. Diving slowly also helps you reduce your air consumption, which can extend your dive.

These are simple things ... they reduce the stress of diving with another person, enhance the enjoyment of your diving experience, and minimize the risk that you'll have to distract yourself from the goals of your dive by spending time looking for your dive buddy.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

If there were still a thanks button, I'd thank you 3 or 4 times for this. As someone with only my cert dives, this is invaluable because during my cert dives I was the "follow behind" buddy while my instructor gave more personal attention to the other student doing the dives. I wasn't sure if I was in the right position or what the best place to be was, so I just followed. Your description of "good buddy" diving is very helpful.

 

[DennisS]

One of the choices was let the insta buddy lead. The last thing you need as an insta buddy is the other insta buddy putting you in the lead. I've had insta buddies that thought they were doing a great job keeping me in sight. I'd circle and they would hold position. They were three feet directly above and two foot behind me. They couldn't figure out why I kept swimming in circles and rolling over. Insta buddy was doing a good job of keeping me in sight, I kept making sure I didn't lose insta buddy, we both kept track of each other but it wasn't a fun dive.

I really enjoy solo diving where it's not necessary to keep tabs on another diver.

 

[victor]

Boy do I know how that feels. I had one buddy on a vacation that I could not break from this habit. It did not matter how often I said something, half way through the dive they would disappear only to be revealed when I rolled on to my back.

One of the choices was let the insta buddy lead. The last thing you need as an insta buddy is the other insta buddy putting you in the lead. I've had insta buddies that thought they were doing a great job keeping me in sight. I'd circle and they would hold position. They were three feet directly above and two foot behind me. They couldn't figure out why I kept swimming in circles and rolling over. Insta buddy was doing a good job of keeping me in sight, I kept making sure I didn't lose insta buddy, we both kept track of each other but it wasn't a fun dive.

I really enjoy solo diving where it's not necessary to keep tabs on another diver.

 

[tregrrr]

So just to necro the thread..... I had opportunity today to dive with the op... solid guy.
We are diving again tomorrow.
Is there any clearer testament among divers??