At what point do you leave your buddy?

[DiverBizz]

tstormdiver, you can't abandon something you didn't have. It sounds to me that your "buddy" already had his predive plan set and it did not include a buddy. Entering wrecks without the proper equipment/certification and practicing solo diving without letting you know ahead of time is dangerous to self and other divers involved. You had to surface before an OOA situation occurred. That is only my opinion.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I had to make a similar call once ... also in Bonaire ... when I decided to go out for an extra boat dive after my regular dive buddies and I had already done three dives earlier in the day. I got hooked up with a German fellow ... explained to him that I'd already done three long, deep dives that day ... and we agreed to a dive profile no deeper than 60 feet. At least, I thought so.

We got in the water, and he promptly headed down the wall. At 60 feet I signaled him to level off. He looked at me, turned, and continued down the wall. I followed him to 90 feet and stopped. He continued down to about 115 or so, at which point he turned and looked at me. I signaled him to ascend. He turned and continued his dive at the 115 depth. After about two minutes of following along at 90 feet watching him swimming below me, I decided to just head up and leave him there.

I disagree with those who say you are obligated to stay with your buddy. If the two of you have made a dive plan, and one diver proceeds to break the plan, you have no obligation to that person. They are diving outside the "contract" ... and in both my case and Tom's, doing so exceeds the risk we were willing to take to do this dive.

No one is obligated to remain with a dive buddy who is diving in a risky manner. At that point, your dive buddy has made a conscious choice to be a liability. As the old cliche goes ... if you saw someone jumping off a cliff, would you feel obligated to follow him?

Not me ... nothing about the buddy system implies that both divers have to be stupid ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[b1gcountry]

We didn't agree on a hard depth. The dive plan was very loose, and at this point, we both had dove the site several times already. I didn't feel a more in-depth plan was called for, although it might or might not have helped. Being the more experienced diver, I also assumed I would be leading, which was a faulty assumption. Lesson learned about making assumptions about new buddies.

I was not too concerned with his safety with me vs. without me. He was already closer to the rest of the group than he was to me, so he would most likely go to one of them in an emergency. They were also obviously aware he was there, so I don't think me leaving put him at additional risk.

Just out of curiosity, if the plan is to keep a dive shallow, what depth would you consider within the plan? The reef we were diving had a drop off at 30', and went down to about 110'.

Tom

 

[TSandM]

Being the more experienced diver, I also assumed I would be leading, which was a faulty assumption.

Ah, here's a problem. This should have been spelled out in the dive plan, who was leading and who was following. I've been guilty of this one a few times, too, and it can cause a great deal of confusion underwater. One of the reasons I like the GUE EDGE mnemonic (no matter what I think of the actual choice of words) is that I remember not to skip things like team structure and individual roles.

As far as what "shallow" is, there's another problem. It's too vague. One person's shallow might be another person's edge of comfort. I did a dive with a couple of people new to me earlier this month. I proposed the "shallow tour" of the cove, which to me means go down to about 70 feet and cross the cove at that depth. Turned out my companions were not entirely comfortable with that, so we agreed to keep things about twenty feel shallower than that. So I thought 70 was shallow, but as the third or fourth dive of the day, I might think 30 or 40 when I say "shallow". Better to specify.

This is such a good example of the principle that diving problems rarely stem from one simple event. Here, you have a pretty clear chain of causation: It began with buddying up with an unknown, continued with that person's inexperience and the fact that it was a night dive, was compounded by a sketchy dive briefing, began to unravel seriously with your buddy's confusion, and the final insult was poor underwater communications. The best way to address the situation is not to decide when you leave your buddy, but how to avoid ever having to make that decision, and the answer to that probably lay on land, before the dive.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Assumptions are common "gotchya's" in dive plan breakdowns ...

Joe Talavera once wrote an excellent article that's appropriate to this discussion ...

5thD-X Forums :: View topic - Equipment Education: Good Buddy Skills

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Jim Kerr]

I have only abandoned my buddy (there was no group at the time) one time. It was to be a simple deep dive to look at the attractions with a max depth of 100'. Whether this makes me a bad buddy or not, is in the eye of the beholder; I did what I felt I had to do, to ensure my safety. Perhaps we should have had covered the plan of what we would actually be doing down there in more detail. We dropped down & started the dive. My buddy decided at that time to start penetrating some of the cabin cruisers & such down there. We were both AOW divers with deep, but not wreck experience. I was not at all comfortable with the idea of entering an overhead environment at such depths & so would just hang outside of the attraction & wait. Well, as my air started to get low, I started signaling my buddy, but he decided to ignore me. When my air supply reached a level where I needed to start an ascent to be able to surface with right at 500psi . I signaled my buddy again that it was time to end the dive. Once again he ignored me & continued to go inside the attractions (he had a pony bottle, I did not). I went ahead & began my ascent & when he finally surfaced I asked him what was the deal down there. He claimed that because he had the pony that he wanted to push the limits of his dive (obviously we should have also discussed at what pressure to begin to ascend). He also let me know at that point that he was teaching himself solo diving & that he figured I'd be OK if I went ahead & ascended before him. So in effect I was basically just a buddy to let him get into the water (the quarry will only let certified solo divers dive solo) & all others must have buddies to enter. In that case I feel I was justified in going ahead to begin my ascent when he ignored my signals to end the dive. Needless to say, I will no longer dive with this diver as he wants to be a self- taught solo diver & how he finds a way to get into the water (finding a buddy) is his problem. Besides this episode, I have seen multiple things this diver has done that I would consider dangerous considering his training (we go through the same shop, so I'm aware of his skill level). I will also quietly warn new divers to the quarry about him & his general M.O. Unfortunately this is a character that if he doesn't wind up killing himself, he'll probably wind up killing someone else. Case in point, after diving a rebreather only 1 time, he offered to teach me how to use a rebreather. Of course, I know my limits & I'm no where near ready for something like that. I will only take larger steps like that under the watchful eye of my instructor, who is qualified to teach such things. Was I a bad buddy with this guy? I don't feel like I was, but then many will come to their own conclusions.

Absolutely not. It was clear that he abandoned "you" from the begining of the dive leaving you on your own from the time you entered the water. That's BS. :11:
I would have definitely let him know that I did not appreciate being used like that, and I don't think I would have been too nice about it either.


b1gcountry,
From the way you described his reaction when you tried to get him to ascend with you, and having experience on both sides of the fence, I would have determined that he was confused and would have followed him and try one more time, only a little more aggressively, (like "hey, it's me") to get him to ascend to a shallower depth. If he still didn't follow then it doesn't matter what you do because you're on your own. The only person who's looking out for you now is "you".

 

[b1gcountry]

I agree the dive plan should have been better. It was 10PM, and I was starting to get a little tired, so that probably made me rush it a little.

Tom

 

[Steve50]

No one is obligated to remain with a dive buddy who is diving in a risky manner. At that point, your dive buddy has made a conscious choice to be a liability. As the old cliche goes ... if you saw someone jumping off a cliff, would you feel obligated to follow him?

Not me ... nothing about the buddy system implies that both divers have to be stupid ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Right on !

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I had to make a similar call once ... also in Bonaire ... when I decided to go out for an extra boat dive after my regular dive buddies and I had already done three dives earlier in the day. I got hooked up with a German fellow ... explained to him that I'd already done three long, deep dives that day ... and we agreed to a dive profile no deeper than 60 feet. At least, I thought so.

We got in the water, and he promptly headed down the wall. At 60 feet I signaled him to level off. He looked at me, turned, and continued down the wall. I followed him to 90 feet and stopped. He continued down to about 115 or so, at which point he turned and looked at me. I signaled him to ascend. He turned and continued his dive at the 115 depth. After about two minutes of following along at 90 feet watching him swimming below me, I decided to just head up and leave him there.

I disagree with those who say you are obligated to stay with your buddy. If the two of you have made a dive plan, and one diver proceeds to break the plan, you have no obligation to that person. They are diving outside the "contract" ... and in both my case and Tom's, doing so exceeds the risk we were willing to take to do this dive.

No one is obligated to remain with a dive buddy who is diving in a risky manner. At that point, your dive buddy has made a conscious choice to be a liability. As the old cliche goes ... if you saw someone jumping off a cliff, would you feel obligated to follow him?

Not me ... nothing about the buddy system implies that both divers have to be stupid ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

A diver acts somewhat strange, doesn't repond as expected to signals and takes off down the wall to way past the dive plan depth. When do you begin to wonder if the buddy is severely impaired by narcosis and requires a rescue rather than an abandonement?

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Sounds to me like you ended up doing your original plan. He left you. You planned to solo anyway. I had this happen in Fla. Guy came up and said I'm buddying with you. DM says so. Oh really? Well guess what I'm taking pics this dive. Not changing my plan for anybody. After ten minutes waiting for the right angle on a stone fish he left and joined another group. I finished my dive the way I intended to in the first place. Alone and relaxed.