another insta-buddy fail story

[gcarter]

At least someone in the crowd kept their head on straight. It's a wonder those two didn't have an accident. Now for me, I would have told newbie from the beginning to put the camera away or find a new buddy. It seems that as soon as people get a c-card (or even before), their main objective is to become an underwater photographer. Mastering air consumption, buoyancy, and confidence are far more important for the first 100 dives or so. (This is my own opinion about newbies and cameras and it will not change no matter how many newbies reply that they did ok with theirs, thank you.)

Anyhow, I think you handled the situation very well, and I hope the other two learned something.

I do OK with my GoPro, but ONLY because I put it on my head and forget about it

I have enough to worry about without playing with a camera.

 

[thatdiveguy]

I don't think 100 dives is needed to do that. I started doing photography around 25 dives after I had fixed most of my buoyancy issues and breathing. I even managed to snap a couple of ok photos during this dive when I wasn't chasing the newbie down. That said, I do agree with you about they need to master their air consumption, confidence and buoyancy first. I'm not 100% on letting air out while I'm going up in depth before it becomes an issue, but most of the time I can stop and hover just fine. First two can always improve, but I hit a threshold I'm happy with. I was actually rather proud of myself when I managed to stay between 15-20 ft without anything around me and all I had to do was twist my fins at my ankle every once in a while to make sure I didn't drop too far when exhaling.

 

[TSandM]

Did you fix the slipped tank? That's the thing that jumped out at me, both times I read this . . .

I don't think I would have agreed with the original dive plan (I wouldn't dive in Monterey with an 8 dive diver with a camera) and when the guy wouldn't agree with going on the shallower dive, I would have thumbed things.

I'm also very sorry your takeaway is to dive alone. There are a LOT of extremely good, reliable, and useful divers who dive Monterey. It may just be that where you are looking for buddies is not finding them.

 

[thatdiveguy]

I did indeed slip the tank back in, guess I forgot to mention that. I don't remember noticing if it came back out or not. I don't see how thumbing it would've made a difference besides the other guys going your loss. He still would've dove with the rest of them. Next time I'm definitely going to say no if I don't feel comfortable diving with a buddy. I would rather be the solo diver in the middle of a group than paired with someone like that again.

I do have several buddies I enjoy diving with and most of the insta buddies I've met are decent enough divers that I would go with them again. I was just commenting that out of all the ones I've met, only a few are ones I trust would be useful in a bad situation. The rest were pretty much the equivalent of solo diving as it relates to safety. Also, it wasn't Monterey, I'm in SoCal.

 

[supergaijin]

I'm still trying to figure out why they were sharing air when the diver had a "half a tank" which I assume meant around 1,500 psi.

Reading Scubaboard?

Making a dive plan for some people is detracting from the 'fun' of diving. It's a shame but it's pretty common. Dive clubs are a great way for divers to come together but with it there needs to be a clear understanding about individual responsibility. A diver with 8 dives, new kit and a bloody camera to boot is a liability and should have been dissuaded by the club organisers from going anywhere deeper than 40ft IMO.

I would try to have a chat with the club guys and see what they think about it. As the organisers of these dives, and assuming a certain amount of combined experience, IMO they should take a bit more control of the planning and organisation besides stating a meeting time and place.

 

[requin02]

I don't think 100 dives is needed to do that.

You will have a different perspective about this statement after you have 100 dives for sure Good job on the dive and sorry you had apoor time on your dive.


r.

 

[DevonDiver]

You will have a different perspective about this statement after you have 100 dives for sure

Agreed. Increasing experience and training tend to re-establish one's perspective of their former competence.

 

[ScubaSteve1962]

At least someone in the crowd kept their head on straight. It's a wonder those two didn't have an accident. Now for me, I would have told newbie from the beginning to put the camera away or find a new buddy. It seems that as soon as people get a c-card (or even before), their main objective is to become an underwater photographer. Mastering air consumption, buoyancy, and confidence are far more important for the first 100 dives or so. (This is my own opinion about newbies and cameras and it will not change no matter how many newbies reply that they did ok with theirs, thank you.)

Anyhow, I think you handled the situation very well, and I hope the other two learned something.

I usually take my camera with me, but I don't start messing with it until I get things under control, there have been dives where I didn't take any pictures, because there was to many other things to deal with.

I did indeed slip the tank back in, guess I forgot to mention that. I don't remember noticing if it came back out or not. I don't see how thumbing it would've made a difference besides the other guys going your loss. He still would've dove with the rest of them. Next time I'm definitely going to say no if I don't feel comfortable diving with a buddy. I would rather be the solo diver in the middle of a group than paired with someone like that again.

I do have several buddies I enjoy diving with and most of the insta buddies I've met are decent enough divers that I would go with them again. I was just commenting that out of all the ones I've met, only a few are ones I trust would be useful in a bad situation. The rest were pretty much the equivalent of solo diving as it relates to safety. Also, it wasn't Monterey, I'm in SoCal.

After a similar experience, I will only do shallow dives with a newbie, unless it's on a charter with guides. With 35 dives in less than a year, I still consider myself a newbie and anyone with less than 50 is still a newbie to me. It's seems you wanted to go with the deeper diver and weren't going to let anything stop you either, even though you didn't have a good feeling about this guy. So it seems it was 2 egos at work here. Yes you did a great job handling the situation, hope you learned something from it also.

 

[thatdiveguy]

I usually take my camera with me, but I don't start messing with it until I get things under control, there have been dives where I didn't take any pictures, because there was to many other things to deal with.

I won't start moving before I've got my buoyancy adjusted and have double checked everything again. I don't get why people feel like they need to rush off as soon as they hit the floor. My camera is a cheap one and always leashed so I don't have to give it a second thought if I need to be paying more attention to my surroundings, just have to let go. I did think ahead on that one when I started taking photos. Having to keep track of my camera while helping those guys would've made things much more challenging.

After a similar experience, I will only do shallow dives with a newbie, unless it's on a charter with guides. With 35 dives in less than a year, I still consider myself a newbie and anyone with less than 50 is still a newbie to me. It's seems you wanted to go with the deeper diver and weren't going to let anything stop you either, even though you didn't have a good feeling about this guy. So it seems it was 2 egos at work here. Yes you did a great job handling the situation, hope you learned something from it also.

I would definitely still consider myself a newbie too, just not a completely oblivious one. I know I will be looking back on these dives later and go "lol, noob" but half of learning is doing and reflecting on mistakes. How is this an ego thing for me? I've dove that site several times before and am very comfortable going down that deep. I wasn't pushing myself or trying to prove something to someone else. My entire goal was simply to have a nice dive. For not diving because of him, how would that have made any difference? It was a group, that wouldn't've stopped him.

My main takeaways from this are need to discuss more during the predive talk, and next time I will be more forceful and flat out say no if I'm not comfortable with the buddy. I also noticed how helpful having a longer backup hose would be in case I ever need to share air. I now see why DIR says 7ft hose.

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"Neither of them understood the concept of waiting out the set and just went for it." I am going to do some shore dives, really shallow and easy ones, with another guy not familiar with entering from the beach, can you explain waiting out the set? Do you mean waiting for a set of big waves to pass and then go in? ​

correct

 

[ScubaSteve1962]

I would definitely still consider myself a newbie too, just not a completely oblivious one. I know I will be looking back on these dives later and go "lol, noob" but half of learning is doing and reflecting on mistakes. How is this an ego thing for me? I've dove that site several times before and am very comfortable going down that deep. I wasn't pushing myself or trying to prove something to someone else. My entire goal was simply to have a nice dive. For not diving because of him, how would that have made any difference? It was a group, that wouldn't've stopped him.

My main takeaways from this are need to discuss more during the predive talk, and next time I will be more forceful and flat out say no if I'm not comfortable with the buddy. I also noticed how helpful having a longer backup hose would be in case I ever need to share air. I now see why DIR says 7ft hose.

---------- Post added ----------

To me the ego thing was, that you were diving with a new group, didn't feel comfortable so instead of doing the shallow you really wanted to do deep and was going no matter what, because they were going no matter what. Also the other diver took over as the buddy, probably because you showed him the guys reg instead of handling it yourself, because if it was 10 of you, this meant someone was left without a buddy. I'm not trying to lay any blame, just my opinion.