Water Monkey
Contributor
Good question.Water Monkey, I'm always floored by the people who travel alone and expect to find a dive buddy on a boat in some far-off place. My husband has done this, but I'm not sure I'm that brave. I'm powerfully risk-averse, and one of the early decisions I made with my diving was what I wanted from a dive buddy, and I gravitated to a type of diving that ensured that the buddies I got would be the kind I wanted. I have been fortunate enough to travel to a variety of places and get in the water with people I had never met before, and have had a completely successful sequence of dives (some easy, some out on the far edge of my personal capability envelope) due to that pre-vetting.
At home, I dive with other kinds of people -- visiting divers, new divers -- but there I can skew the odds in my favor by using redundant equipment and keeping the dives to fairly simple ones in well-known sites.
BTW, regarding your last example -- I don't know who you are or what you're like, but I can almost completely guarantee that I wouldn't be able to get your butt back on a boat by myself, no matter what. Am I a dive buddy?
When I get in the water as a buddy I generally assume that who ever I am diving with is a liability, and my entire dive plan revolves around that assumption, unless of course I have made a lot of dives with them and practiced some skills together. Even then I plan for the worst. Regarding the 78 year old, in my mind I was HIS buddy and he was MY liability. It really doesn’t matter whether or not you can drag me out of the water but physical fitness is part of being a “good buddy”.
To answer your question, if we were set up as buddies on a dive boat and you told me about your certifications, you’re still a liability to me until you prove otherwise.