Are you going back for your buddy?

[Kharon]

You said: "The reason that we don't plan for two failures is because if we did it would be impossible to plan a dive safely at all." Where did that statement come from? Statements like this are lame excuse for taking a risk rather than an honest effort at risk management/mitigation.

Not at all. It's simply accepting the limitations of planning. If you try to plan for every pair of possible failures the number of scenarios goes up exponentially. Which specific pairs of failures do you plan for or do you (pretend) to plan for them all? What about three failures? Or four?

Planning for every possible combination of events is impossible. The best we can do is plan for singletons and react to doublets or triplets on the fly. If you get bogged down with covering every scenario of all possible failures you'll be sitting on the shore forever instead of diving. And the chance of running into a doublet or triplet is very negligable if you handle the original singlet properly.

 

[BRT]

No, that'll let you know they're within the ultrasound beeper's range and alive and well. On a leisurely benign dive you both should know roughly where each other was before you lost visual contact. It can tell you both to start looking for each other and you should know which way to look.

If you have no clue where your buddy might be, that thing can still tell you you are not in a body recovery situation yet. Which I imagine could help keep your BP and stress below the OH @#$% WE'RE GONNA DIE!!! level.

One time diving in a group of three I got separated from my wife and the other diver. I could hear them banging a tank but could not find them. It was in an area that has an entanglement hazard. My stress level got quite high.

 

[Bob DBF]

I use a number of diving styles, solo, same ocean buddy, and buddy. With solo lost buddy is no problem since I never loose myself. A same ocean buddy isn't lost until he dosent make it back to the beach, and the authorities need to be involved.

When buddy diving I use the standard lost buddy procedure, search for a minute or so, surface and look for bubbles in the unlikely case I can find and follow them down ( done it a few times, but I was lucky).

Ive found that informing your buddy what your procedure is, what you expect of him, and what you both can do to prevent separation and have a good dive works wonders to avoid the situation.



Bob

 

[Lobzilla]

Ive found that informing your buddy what your procedure is, what you expect of him, and what you both can do to prevent separation and have a good dive works wonders to avoid the situation.

Bob

This ^^^ is a great example of how to
plan the dive (together) and then dive the plan.

 

[txgoose]

This ^^^ is a great example of how to
plan the dive (together) and then dive the plan.

I haven't seen anyone advocating for not diving the plan. The discussion was for what happen when the plan changes in a way we weren't choosing. Granted if everything in life always goes to plan, then this discussion is moot. I like having discussions about when plans change.

 

[dmaziuk]

One time diving in a group of three I got separated from my wife and the other diver. I could hear them banging a tank but could not find them. It was in an area that has an entanglement hazard. My stress level got quite high.

:shrug: If you couldn't find them you should've surfaced after X minutes or continued solo, as planned.

 

[northernone]

Well I've got two stories.

1. I've jammed my gear madly enough under a fallen spiky tree and got low enough on air while trying to solve the problem I ditched gear and swam up CESA style (glad for non integrated weights so I didn't rocket up).

If I had a buddy who heard my banging and decided to leave me and go enjoy their dive solo, I'd suspect they would have some psychological struggles later finding they ignored my distress call. Particularly if it ended in a fatality.

2. Out with two new divers. Low viz (~1-3ft) river drift dive in 14mm wetsuits. Buddy #1 got snagged on branch. I go to help sort him out clawing my way against the current along the clay/sediment bottom. Sorted. Buddy #2: gone. Buddy #1 and I search a minute. We surface. Bubbles spotted ~300ft downstream. We descent and find buddy #2, bcd deflated, nesting into the mud. Finish the dive. Post dive chat, he knew we'd come back, so he waited. He didn't want to surface solo because of fears of the midwater blackness. (Some mental health challenges) Not sure how that would have played out if we couldn't see bubbles and went back down. I'd like to imagine training would have kicked in and it would have been fine... I tend to be sceptical.

Buddy separation.
Cameron

 

[Searcaigh]

My regular buddy and I dive with a bailout / deco stage and our usual vis is usually 2-3m, as we are both photographers it's easy to lose each other, 9 times out of 10 we find each other

If we don't find each other then the plan is to surface but first we deploy a DSMB, so that the diver who surfaces first will know that the other diver is okay and on their way to the surface.

The problem only occurs when one diver doesn't shoot their DSMB and one has to assume the worst. Fortunately that's not happened to date.

On dive trips together we usually don't have the comfort of a stage / bailout bottle but vis is usually a lot better and we've never had any issues.

When I dive with my daughter we stick together like glue and as an instructor she is more qualified than me, but in years experience I'm a lot more qualified than her. I guess that diving with a close relative changes many things as there's an emotional connection too.

 

[Bierstadt]

I've jammed my gear madly enough under a fallen spiky tree and got low enough on air while trying to solve the problem I ditched gear and swam up CESA style (glad for non integrated weights so I didn't rocket up).

Full story please! How did your bcd get that stuck and what was your thought process as you got yourself out?

 

[mcpowell]

If we don't find each other then the plan is to surface but first we deploy a DSMB, so that the diver who surfaces first will know that the other diver is okay and on their way to the surface.

This is a great idea / plan!