Bill Mee's comments in the Florida Dive Journal article are a rather extreme version of Rule 1, because he includes gear configuration into the statement. I don't think any of us would argue that it's unreasonable to avoid diving with someone who doesn't share your view of how buddies should behave toward one another, or how gas should be managed. If you refuse to maintain gas reserves that will get both of us to the surface safely, in my view, you ARE an unsafe diver, and I would refuse to do that dive with you. But with respect to gear, I think most of us (DIR/GUE divers) would evaluate someone's gear configuration with an eye to whether it appeared to be safe, rather than whether it appeared the same as ours. But I'm sure people become more sticklers as the magnitude and risk of the dives increases.
Hi Lynne,
I would like to put some perspective on Bill's article....this was written in the late nineties, and it had a "purpose" as an article. At this time, there were next to no bp/wing divers, and if you saw a long hose on a diver, 99% of the time it was "stuffed" into some form of holder where it would have to be extracted to get at it, and could take from a few seconds to a minute to actually donate.
At this time, the tech agencies and recreational agencies, were pushing people into very bad gear configurations.
Bill was attempting to give a thinking diver a new criteria to consider--that if a diver is supposed to be buddied to him/her ( like what we call insta-buddies) , then this instabuddy needs to meet at least a few criteria: the configuration should not be completely retarded, or the person cant really be a buddy....the person needs to feel similar buddy responsibilities....the person should not be a swimming accident waiting to happen ( their were alot of these on charter boats in florida back in the nineties).
If you had to be litteral with Bill's article today, it would seem unreasonably restrictive of who you could dive with. However, in the time period, what was considered essentially similar gear, was much looser than it is today--at least for recreational single tank diving outside of the WKPP. If Bill had been on a charter boat in 1998, and a diver with a stuffed hose and pressure guage dragging on the ground as he walked, wanted to buddy with him, Bill would have said NO...But with the configurations of 95% of the people on the tech lists of scuba board today, Bill would have said "fine, that would be great", and then he would have talked briefly about his expectations for the dive.
Today, if Bill Mee or I go out on a charter boat for a recreational dive, Bill and I would be buddies, and we will let practically anybody buddy with us, unless they look like a swimming accident ready to happen. There are divers like this, but these days it is more of the exception than the norm. In the nineties, it could have been 40% of the boat that looked like they were a swimming accident waiting to happen.
One other issue I would have to address....If the typical tech diver I have met from scubaboard wanted to put their gear on and dive in a pool by themselves--without a buddy, I would be inclined to say fine--if they can't survive in the pool without help, they are not a tech diver....In any event, I would expect them to be very safe.
On the other end of the spectrum, when any of us perform a real tech dive, with deco creating a virtual overhead, all buddy and gear issues are dramatically more important than in the pool. If you were in the pool with your buddy, the possibility of one of you going OOA is not going to injure either of you---on the tech dive at a virtual overhead, the gas issues are life threatening. Buddy awareness, proceedures, and familiarity with each other's gear are all very important to the safey of this dive.
And there all the dive profiles more challenging than the pool, but less challenging AND much less dangerous than the virtual overhead tech dive, in a continuum.
New tech divers are going to need to drill more than long time tech divers, to be certain they have the "reflexes" they need for the virtual overheads. Long time tech divers are already going to have the reflexes, and as long as they continue to do tech dives with some frequency, they will keep the reflexes, and not need to drill them every dive. This will also account for why new tech divers are always drilling and not really enjoying the dives like we do--and why us long time divers can have more fun on most dives
So my point here, is that on a recreational "baby dive" to 50 or 60 feet, a good tech diver CAN buddy with a diver using different but not unsafe gear, on this single tank baby dive. Bill was not discussing this issue, the way that it will happen TODAY.
