A total noob question that I should know the answer too but...

[ianr33]

Very much depends on who my buddy is. If it's one of my tech buddies they can look after themselves for a few minutes while I do a stop. (Dive plan is sometimes to carry on solo in the event of separation.We often dive very bad viz. ) If it's my wife (minimal experience OW diver) I'm heading straight to the surface from any reasonable depth.

 

[TMHeimer]

I respectfully disagree. The more experienced your buddy is, the less likely it should be that he or she becomes separated from you without being in real trouble. Also, if you are at the end of a dive, your buddy will have less air, and less ndl time left, giving him/her less time to be rescued if there is a problem.

Well, yeah I guess that could be the case too. Two sides to that coin. Anything can happen. Either way, I'd still be more worried about a newer diver.

 

[windapp]

So what are you talking about here ... deco stops or safety stops? One is mandatory, the other optional.

Recreational divers are not trained to do planned deco stops. Unplanned deco stops should ocurr so rarely in recreational diving that the idea of blowing them off over a lost buddy is moot. You may, in fact, have to seperate from your buddy intentionally over an unplanned deco stop if he/she is low on air. In the case of tech diving, it is generally not a matter of decompression sickness risk. Rather it is a certainty that if you blow off a decompression stop, you will get DCS. Tech divers accept more risk.They mitigate this risk by being more skilled and more trained, but it is still there.

 

[DevonDiver]

As this is the Basic Scuba forum, I assume (hopefully) that we're talking about safety stops, not planned deco.

The first rule of accident response is to not make yourself a casualty - further stretching rescue/medical resources and lowering the survival chances of the initial victim. That'd preclude skipping mandatory/emergency deco, for the dubious benefit of arriving a few minutes earlier on the surface.

 

[Quero]

I would skip the stop. My buddy is my husband. If we're separated I'm worried about him and he's worried about me. I want to find him as soon as possible and make sure he's safe. I also want him to find me so that he knows I'm safe. Staying underwater for three minutes doing an optional safety stop only adds to both our levels of stress.
This would be entirely different if it was a required decompression stop but it's not. On a no-stop dive, our lost buddy protocol is to look for a minute and surface. If I don't find my buddy on the surface, I start worrying that something has happened.

This is pretty much my procedure as well. No matter who I'm diving with--whether it's a family member, a customer, or somebody I just met, I cannot seem to turn off the 'dive leader switch' and I have to go check the surface. I can always redescend for a safety stop once I hook up with my buddy on the surface because the computer will count an ascent followed soon after by a descent as the same dive, so I'll get the whole benefit of the computer algorithm's calculations anyway.

In the specific hypothetical example the OP offers, a dive to 18 meters and a buddy separation, I'd surface without a stop in most instances, but I'd follow the ascent rate indicated by my dive computer, which means it would take me a couple of minutes to reach the surface anyway. Add three minutes to that for a safety stop, and it would seem interminable.

 

[Bombay High]

If I get separated, I deploy an SMB immediately. That way my buddy will know where I am immediately IF he is on the surface. He can meet me at the safety stop. If he doesn't, I surface without the safety stop.

 

[TSandM]

Bombay High, that works great if you can grab the SMB and get it launched in less than a minute.

The first dive my dearest dive buddy and I did together, we got separated . . . and I surfaced, and he delayed underwater to shoot a bag. Problem was, neither of us was very good at bag shooting, and it took forever. I would estimate it probably took him nearly five minutes to get the thing out and get it inflated . . . and since he was only in about 18 feet of water, it was a pretty limp bag on the surface, and didn't help me see him. We did have swells that day, and I was pretty frantic by the time he surfaced.

I don't like shooting a bag as a way of reuniting buddies, unless there is a strong likelihood of significant distance of separation, or there is a need to let the boat know they have a separated pair, and then only if the divers are good at shooting bags.

 

[ADeadlierSnake]

Can we alter this scenario a little to make it a bit more grey? I think its pretty obvious that if you are only at 60 ft that you can blow off a safety stop without an issue. But lets say that you and your buddy are doing a dive to 100ft on air, and the plan is to stay there for 15 minutes to look for sixgill sharks. At 13 minutes, you see the shark!.....but your buddy spooks and bolts to the surface (I know, its cheesy, but roll with me here ). You start heading straight up at a safe ascent rate. And for additional greyness, lets say there is current. Blow the "safety stop"? I know it is not technically a deco stop at this point (air tables allow 20 min @ 100 ft I believe). However people HAVE been bent on recreational dives, especially deeper ones. This question should be obvious, I agree. Although I will admit that I have never been too clear on the "right" thing to do in grey areas such as this.

EDIT: I will add that theoretically you should be able to ascend at 30 fpm (or 60 then switch to 30 depending on how you do it) from that depth having spent that amount of time down there. But when you hear about people getting bent on recreational dives, its not exactly something you want to try for yourself. At least forme. So part of the confusion on my end comes from never having gone straight up with no stops from any significant depth (and time) before

 

[Quero]

Hmm, ADS, in the first place the OP really is a total newb, and so his question is completely reasonable in regard to maximum depth in view of his lack of experience. This stuff happens with surprising frequency and an understanding of procedure is very basic knowledge for a diver of this level to possess.

Your question is not actually more "grey," but instead an entirely different question! You are talking about a very deep dive in recreational terms yet with a dive plan and execution within the limits of the NDL, and you are talking about an emergency you hypothetically witnessed in the form of a panicked ascent. I'd be really worried about a panicked ascent, and there's no way I'd perform a safety stop in such an instance, particularly without having acquired a decompression obligation.

 

[windapp]

Can we alter this scenario a little to make it a bit more grey? I think its pretty obvious that if you are only at 60 ft that you can blow off a safety stop without an issue. But lets say that you and your buddy are doing a dive to 100ft on air, and the plan is to stay there for 15 minutes to look for sixgill sharks. At 13 minutes, you see the shark!.....but your buddy spooks and bolts to the surface (I know, its cheesy, but roll with me here ). You start heading straight up at a safe ascent rate. And for additional greyness, lets say there is current. Blow the "safety stop"? I know it is not technically a deco stop at this point (air tables allow 20 min @ 100 ft I believe). However people HAVE been bent on recreational dives, especially deeper ones. This question should be obvious, I agree. Although I will admit that I have never been too clear on the "right" thing to do in grey areas such as this.

EDIT: I will add that theoretically you should be able to ascend at 30 fpm (or 60 then switch to 30 depending on how you do it) from that depth having spent that amount of time down there. But when you hear about people getting bent on recreational dives, its not exactly something you want to try for yourself. At least forme. So part of the confusion on my end comes from never having gone straight up with no stops from any significant depth (and time) before

Not at all gray. If I know for a fact my buddy is in danger (as he would be bolting for the surface), I am going to ascend at a safe rate and skip the stop. I am not going to let a potentially struggling buddy wait an extra 3 minutes because I might potentially have a tiny chance of getting a little bent. Keep in mind that there are degrees of decompression sickness and if you unexplained dcs is usually the mildest. It is a matter of evaluating risk. If you don't have a decompression obligation, the risk from skipping the stop is substantially lower than the risk that your buddy is in trouble and needs help.

On the other hand, I am not going to dive 100 feet with someone I don't know well enough to know they wouldn't bolt just because they saw a shark.