Diving with unfamiliar local strangers?

[NYCNaiad]

I've been on dive boats in Hawai'i, Costa Rica, Puerto Vallarta, Playa del Carmen, Isla Mujeres, and Cozumel and only once did the DM tell me I had to have a buddy. I'm under the impression that this is not the norm. That one time I was paired-off was with a guy that I had met the year before so he wasn't exactly a stranger. The way I looked at it was there were usually a few other divers in the group so It's not like I was diving alone. More recently my girlfriend started diving so I almost always have a buddy now. In all of the locations mentioned it was "follow the DM" anyway.

The only place I've been that you have is Cozumel, but I've been a ton of other places. But Cozumel & every othe place I've been has been a buddy dive. I'm surprised that's not your experience. This might be a good polling question to ask in a new thread.

 

[rjack321]

I dive with "new to me" people all the time. But not people I coincidentally meet at a dive site. I meet them via a facebook group, our local board, even here on SB. (I've met more than one buddy here). For whatever reason, I am much more comfortable having some back and forth banter and discussion about the plan days or even weeks before the dive. Recreational, cave, deco I have made all kinds of dive and trip plans by IM and text.

I don't feel like I just met them at the dive site, even if we haven't met face to face before. So I answered "other".

 

[Divegoose]

I guess I would say "it depends".

I have had good experiences and not so good experiences diving with unfamiliar buddies.

I have been on liveaboards where I have been paired up with someone I had never dove with before. Generally the experienes have been good.

On trips to Cozumel, especially when travelling by myself, I have been buddied up with divers I had never dove with before. I have had some very good experiences, and made a lot of friends. On one trip to Cozumel I was buddied up with a mother and her 15 year old daughter. The 15 year old was a great diver, even with limited experience. The mother was a very good diver as well.

Locally on a recent dive I met my buddy at the dive location. He told me he had invited a diver he had just met and dove with a couple of days prior.The new diver had moved to the coast a few months prior, and according to my buddy, the other diver claimed to have over 100 dives, and was comfortable in the water. We geared up and head out as a group of three. Part way into the dive my buddy signalled he was getting low on air, was going to head back to shore, and that I would be buddies with the other diver. I checked the other divers air supply, and determined that we could spend a few more minutes exploring before we headed back to shore. Suddenly the other diver was right on my back, trying to hold on. We made a somewhat uncontrolled ascent (I was dumping air out of my suit and BC as fast as I could) from about 50 feet. Once on the surface I made sure the other diver had gained positive buoyancy and had his breathing under control. Once he had calmed down he was able to explain that he had forgot to put on his ankle weights, he had become buoyant in the legs, and was headed for the surface. He had grabbed me from behind trying to stay down. We descended again and made our way to shore. A couple of days later, after relating to my buddy on what had transpired, he politely advised the other diver to take a dry suit course to gain more experience prior to diving with us again.

A couple of years ago, I was asked to take a couple of divers on a tour of a popular dive site. They assured me that they were experienced, and were good on their air supply. About 10 minutes into the dive both signalled they were low on air - if I recall correctly one was down to around 500 psi. I immediately signalled for all of us to ascend. Once on the surface I directed them to surface swim to the exit point. I will not dive with them again.

From now on, I will be more careful on who I dive with, asking more questions to get a better understanding and feeling for their experience.

Divegoose

 

[NAUI Wowie]

One time a guy I met at a dive site turned out to be X-Navy Seal. We ended up being regular dive buddies. However, most of the people I barely knew and decided to go diving with I ended up having to rescue. For some reason I thought that if they had a C-card they had the same training I did. That turned out to not be the case most of the time. Eventually I ended up diving alone while diving locally.

Most of the people you dove with you had to rescue? What? How deep would you go? Did you plan dives where others are taking open water courses? No offense but that sounds pretty scary.

 

[boulderjohn]

Most of the people you dove with you had to rescue? What? How deep would you go? Did you plan dives where others are taking open water courses? No offense but that sounds pretty scary.

I find this amazing as well.

Not only have I never had to rescue an instant dive buddy, in all my dives I have never seen anyone who needed true rescuing, except for the diver who had apparently put her gear on a used tank, had gone OOA near the beginning of the dive, and had calmly shared air with her buddy.

 

[Landlocked123]

I will not dive with anyone I don't know. Meaning if one of my dive buddies vouches for that person I will dive with them. If not I will not. The types of diving I have been doing do not allow much room for error. Similarly I do not go up to people and ask them if they will dive with me unless a mutual dive buddy has put us in contact with eacother. I mostly do deep dives on air and NDL's are in the low single digits. I cannot assume any more risk than I do already.

 

[DennisS]

No thanks, nothing like diving with a well meaning diver that keeps you in sight, two foot above and a half body length behind.

 

[JackOfDiamonds]

Depends on how they are.
If all of their gear is rented from the dive shop and have almost no dives or don't even know to assemble their own gear then sorry but that's a no from me.. at least not only 2 of us.

I want someone i can trust in the water, and not someone ill need to look out after. i learned this the hard way after i stupidly picked up 2 divers who just 30 minutes before i pulled them out of the water after seeing both of them (with fully rented gear and a lot of stupidity) hover around at 70 feet with no dive computers or any clue on what the hell is going on. No timers or Deco Tables as well, they were basically guessing everything.

The amount of **** that i had to handle on the dives after that was so annoying, from problems of clearing the mask, to losing the fin (god knows how the hell she managed that), all out bad buoyancy control and problems breathing from her regulator (as she was giving me the problem singal and pointed at her regulator i immideatly pulled my main and gave it to her to keep her from panicking, as i fixed the problem on her reg [she played with the adjuster knob for air flow underwater....] i wanted to give it back to her, she just looked at me and shakes her head no... took me 2 minutes to get her to give my my damn regulator back and take hers.)

After the 2nd dive with them my regular buddy finally showed up and we just picked a really rough location (deep, remote and some currents) and told them that so they wouldnt tag along. was the only way to get rid of them, as they were extremely clingy and didin't seem to understand any of my hints of wanting to dive alone with my buddy.

And all of this because i felt bad for them after they told me they cant find someone to dive with them... never again.

 

[wnissen]

No thanks, nothing like diving with a well meaning diver that keeps you in sight, two foot above and a half body length behind.

Sorry, can you elaborate on this? I'm not understanding why it's a problem. Thanks!

 

[JamesBon92007]

Most of the people you dove with you had to rescue? What? How deep would you go? Did you plan dives where others are taking open water courses? No offense but that sounds pretty scary.

I'm just talking about typical California beach diving with moderate surf and surge. If you are accustomed to it it's easy and enjoyable. If not, it can be quite messy. I remember one guy in particular who, about half-way through the dive, was out of air, panicking, bleeding in two or three places, and appeared to be close to hypothermia. Meanwhile, my ex-wife and I were having a lovely time in exactly the same conditions. I took him back to shore, made sure he was OK, and went back out and continued my dive. Perhaps I used the word "rescue" too liberally, but any time I have to assist someone and get them back on the sand or the boat and they appear to be incapable of doing it themselves, I would call that a rescue.