Bad buddies...

[Steve_C]

just out of curiosity. in these "insta-buddy" horror stories.. How often do most people talk through the dive plan? And clearly identify a lead diver and a following diver?

I have only found myself in a purely "insta-buddy" situation twice.

The first time, the guy barely spoke English and I had to chase him down a couple times.

The second time, I was much more experienced and planned to let the "buddy" lead the dive. I am a pretty good tail so there was not much chance of him getting away from me. And I can enjoy a dive and still be able to keep half an eye on the buddy.

Its not unusual for me to pick up a new dive buddy, but we plan things out and talk through the plan. ALWAYS.
..... A buddy that blew the plan and either took off, or failed to maintain the follow, would not ever get a second dive with me.

I always try to talk through the plan. I will discuss the lead but in my heart I prefer to do it since most often the other diver will charge off faster than I like to go. We will have an agreed signal for switching the lead. If I get added to a pair of experienced regular buddies then I usually go along with their dive plan as long as it looks reasonable.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I had a guy disappear 3/4of the way through the dive. He had been hanging on my marker instead of using his BCD. I waited on the surface for him to show up long enough for me to get seasick and feed the fishes. Just when I was about to call the alarm and I saw him exiting the water at the wrong exit point. Never said a word, just stowed his gear and drove off even before I got out of the water.

Every solo diver has a story about why they solo.

My first wife and I were certified together. Our first couple of hundred dives were as a buddy team, never out of each other's sight. One day were diving the underwater park on Catalina Island. During a surface swim back toward the exit I saw something below me that looked like a piece of dive gear. It was only in fifteen feet so I told her I was going to retrieve it and come right back up. When I surfaced she was nowhere to be found. Reverting to my OW training I searched for a minute and then begin swimming for the exit. I knew I was going to have to ask others to help me find her body. With tears in my eyes I climbed the rocks, only to see her getting into her street clothes. I was furious. She said she knew I was OK so she just went in. We began solo diving soon after that.

 

[clownfishsydney]

I am lucky in that 90% of my diving is done off my boat and I either buddy with my wife or with friends who, in some cases, I have done hundreds of dives with. However, even then there are a couple of friends who are very experienced (one has done probably 5,000 dives, about 1,000 more than me) who I will no longer dive with as they both are very selfish and do not care at all about their buddy.

Of the few times I have ever had to dive with someone totally unknown to me, I have been lucky to get good ones all but twice. In both those times I was the far less experienced diver and I had to rescue one and recover the other one's weight belt.

Best solution, join a dive club and dive with them. Has served me very well for the past 25+ years.

 

[rabe]

just out of curiosity. in these "insta-buddy" horror stories.. How often do most people talk through the dive plan? And clearly identify a lead diver and a following diver?

I have only found myself in a purely "insta-buddy" situation twice.

The first time, the guy barely spoke English and I had to chase him down a couple times.

The second time, I was much more experienced and planned to let the "buddy" lead the dive. I am a pretty good tail so there was not much chance of him getting away from me. And I can enjoy a dive and still be able to keep half an eye on the buddy.

Its not unusual for me to pick up a new dive buddy, but we plan things out and talk through the plan. ALWAYS.
..... A buddy that blew the plan and either took off, or failed to maintain the follow, would not ever get a second dive with me.

I always go through to things with my buddy (insta-buddy or more regular): 1) dive plan and 2) hand signals and gear check.

In the second case I've reported, we stick to the plan until the end. After that, the dude completely went off the road...

 

[CT-Rich]

Instabuddies come in flavors. If they have any sort of diving experience and go charging off, I will not chase them like the chairman says. They have thumbed the buddy system.

An exception is if I am buddying with a very new diver. More than once it has been their first ocean dive. In this case I still do not go chasing them but do make a much more concerted effort to stay in reasonably close contact and to keep an eye on them. But that is usually not an issue because I tend to move slow and they are usually doing their best remora imitation. Point out a couple critters and they want to see what I find next.

For green instabuddies (green in the sense of dive experience) I prefer females. On average they tend to have better sac rates and follow the dive plan better. Everybody is different but that has been my experience.

I don't mind green insta-buddies, they are usually open to letting me set the agenda and as long as I know what I am getting into I am good. Its the guy who has been diddling around and should know better that pisses me off. I agree on female insta-buddies. Better air consumption and usually prettier to look at than the guys.

 

[AfterDark]

I don't recall ever having a bad time with an insta-buddy. Could be because I haven't had many. However I have dove with a lot of newbie divers of unknown abilities that I hadn't met before; in my home waters, usually people I meet on SB.
That has produced some very good results, although not a newbie, still as an unknown from SB CT-Rich comes to mind.

The only story I have close to anything like a "bad" experience with an insta-buddy was in NC. A group from RI spent a week diving NC. My buddy for the week was a newbie unknown to me until the morning of the 1st dive. I splashed 1st and waited on the 15' hang line for my buddy as agreed. He never showed up at the line. I went up looked around but he's not there, ask the DM he hasn't seen him. I explain the situation to the DM and tell him I'm taking another look at the line. Not there so I descend the 100FSW to the bottom no buddy. I re-surface to find the DM hanging over the gunnel calling to me.
He tells me my buddy got on the boat while I was talking to the DM the 1st time. Seems the spectacular vis of 100' unsettled him enough to call the dive before he submerged! I told the DM I would do my dive solo as I had ID's and was ready to dive alone as I usually am. He dove the 2nd dive with a DM after that he was fine and we had a great week of diving!

 

[rhwestfall]

there is a reason I just completed my Solo class this past weekend....

 

[Marie13]

Best solution, join a dive club and dive with them. Has served me very well for the past 25+ years.

Not all dive clubs are created equal. The only ones I'm acquainted with locally are full of vacation only divers who go on expensive trips and shy away from the local cold(er) water diving that I'm interested in.

On the other hand, I've gotten introduced to a good number of folks through my LDS/instructors. Aside from one couple, my dive buddies are all guys whose wives/girlfriends aren't interested in diving. If I'm in need of a buddy, I'll usually have one after I've sent a few messages out.

 

[Steve_C]

We see frequent posts from UK, Australia, and parts of Europe about dive clubs. While we have some dive clubs in the US they usually are not like the ones those posters are familiar with. At least that is my experience. To get my diving in I have to cobble together, one LDS, one Dive Club, One active local dive online group, and a number of instabuddies and regular buddies. I pick when I want to dive and then find a way to make it happen.

 

[Tribal]

We see frequent posts from UK, Australia, and parts of Europe about dive clubs. While we have some dive clubs in the US they usually are not like the ones those posters are familiar with. At least that is my experience. To get my diving in I have to cobble together, one LDS, one Dive Club, One active local dive online group, and a number of instabuddies and regular buddies. I pick when I want to dive and then find a way to make it happen.

Most countries in Europe have a federation thats part op Cmas. Instructors are volunteers and are part of a dive club/school. Ofcourse there are still big differences between the clubs but most of them do plenty of dives a year as a club.
In april i will be diving for 2 years and will be past 200 dives, most of them are with my club so no insta buddie

What wonders me about the OP is why you do your deco stops and Then when you surface you use the SMB. Ofcourse with a strong current you did drift away, if you did use it at the start of the deco the boat would have noticed.