Best practices for being a good buddy

[TSandM]

Some really good points have been made, but I'd like to expand on "diving to stay found". It's important to think about field of vision for a diver. Masks really restrict this, and there are places where you simply CAN'T see. It is quite typical for the "follower" on a team to want to swim behind, and often slightly above the leader. This is the worst possible position for that person to be in, from the leader's perspective, because the only way this person can be seen is for the leader to turn and roll and look up. Someone directly behind me, I can see by tilting down and looking through my legs, but someone behind and above me may as well be gone.

Depending on the terrain, you may choose different formations. When swimming over flat reef, wing-on-wing is an easy, low-stress way to dive. On a wall, the person on the outside doesn't get to see anything, which is pretty frustrating In this case, single file may be better, but then you have to keep checking frequently to make sure the guy behind hasn't stopped to look at something, and you aren't leaving him. In poor viz, high intensity lights make all this easier, because you can keep your light in view of the diver in front of you, and he knows, by seeing it, that you are still there.

 

[jtpwils]

Thanks all for this info. As usual I appreciate it very much. I'll look into the ASL or SeaSigns. A friend of ours has a son who's deaf so the ASL would be good for us to learn for when he's not wearing his cochlear implant device.

 

[Kingpatzer]

Being a good buddy starts with setting common expectations with your buddy and ends with meeting those expectation.

 

[Teamcasa]

When swimming over flat reef, wing-on-wing is an easy, low-stress way to dive. On a wall, the person on the outside doesn't get to see anything, which is pretty frustrating In this case, single file may be better, but then you have to keep checking frequently to make sure the guy behind hasn't stopped to look at something, and you aren't leaving him.

Again, excellent advice but let me add this; you should not only check on them but stop often enough to give them the opportunity to spend a little time looking at that little something you may have missed.

It is frustrating when following a speed diver. They zoom past that beautiful <insert something really cool> and all you can do is shake your head and follow.

 

[Johan Broere]

If you worry about where your buddy is all the time, I enjoy diving hanging on to someones 2nd regulator or compas or go hand in hand. At first it seems maybe a little weird, but the "worry-free" feeling is worth it and before the dive talk about your different interests. If I know you would really like to find a seahorse today and take some pictures of it I will help you find one and take the time. Now, go diving. Together !

 

[jtpwils]

Thanks I thought about hand-in-hand when I'm diving with my daughter, but I found it useful to have my right hand on the inflator valve and my left on the butt dump. This kept my hands inactive and also easilly able to respond to buoyancy change needs. Of course, this is in a shallow pool where more adjustments were necessary than should be needed in OW.

 

[ScubaSteve2000]

Sometimes it's what NOT to do. I dove with a DMC last weekend. He insisted on staying behind above me. Drove me nuts! I always let my buddy know (as I did then) that I prefer to swim side by side and I prefer to be on the left side. That way we don't have to hunt around for each other. In this case I had to roll inverted and signal okay or for a pressure check. A real PIA.

Don't be a PIA buddy. Be consistant and follow the plan.

 

[Thalassamania]

I was at an AAUS Executive Committee meeting at Scripps and Jim Stewart (the DSO) had put together a dive in the canyon for those of us who wanted to. Each of us was buddied up with one of Bert Kobayashi&#8217;s (DSO &#8211; U.C. San Diego) Instructors. My buddy was a rather tall woman, who was just a little overly physically fit, in a manner almost exclusive to Southern California aerobics instructors of that era, but she was nice enough and Bert&#8217;s crew had a great reputation.

About ten of us loading into a stake bed truck with our gear, and Bert drove us up the hill and then back down to a beach close to the canyon mouth. We kitted up on the beach, talked about gear (no real differences) and procedures (surface swim to the buoy at the canyon head, she&#8217;d lead I&#8217;d follow, share air at 20 feet by the buoy chain, time and depth pairs, decompression contingencies, etc.).

So we started to swim out, she was pushing a bit harder than I though was really required by the situation, but I figured that was just to judge my level of conditioning or to make sure that I did not think she was too &#8220;girlie.&#8221; I decided it was the latter when we got to the buoy and she immediately switched to her regulator, flipped into a head first surface dive and leveled out, just ahead of me at twenty feet. We went through both a buddy breathing and an auxiliary sharing drill just as smooth as could be; and she led the way down the canyon wall; I followed.

We spent the next ten minutes, or so, moving out along the north wall of the canyon. It&#8217;s a great dive and I recommend it to anyone who is up for something a little different, you can often see deeper water organisms there because (like the canyons that head up to Monastery Beach and Moss Landing Marine Lab) deep water critters hit the wall and then wander into shallower depths. It was a neat dive, but something did not feel right.

I&#8217;m pretty comfortable in the water and I rarely feel uneasy, night dives in Central American volcanic lakes where we KNEW something evil lurked at bottom that had not been fed for centuries raised the hair on my neck, but that&#8217;s really about it. But I just could not shake a vague discomfort and unease &#8230; and it was getting worse. I was feeling clumsy in the water; I never seemed to be in the right place. Hmm &#8230; the right place, the right place? That was it.

We were headed out, side by side, the canyon wall on our right. We kept unconsciously jockeying for the outside position, that natural protective position that an instructor would take with a student, keeping themselves on the outside with the student contained by the cliff. So I ceded the outside position to her, and but for the need to suppress my desire to get the outside, the other issues disappeared. We reached our time limit before our gas limit and made our turn back.

Now, had something gone wrong while we were uncomfortable, distracted and unconsciously jockeying for position, our ability to head it off, or handle it would have been compromised because so much of our SA was being consumed by that foolishness. So it&#8217;s not just a question of being well trained, or team committed, or even agreeing on team roles &#8230; there are whole layers to the onion of optimum team interaction that need to be explored if team member are going to be at their best.

 

[jtpwils]

Thanks - favorite place to be; hadn't thought of asking about that. I can see it on the boat now - me to unfamiliar female diver "Oh, one last thing - what's your favorite position?" I hope she has a small dive knife.

 

[Jax]

Sometimes knowing how to be a good dive buddy means knowing what NOT to do. Assume you talked about what you are going to do (dive plan, direction).

1. Pay attention to your dive buddy! That means from going down to getting on the boat. From time to time I have ear issues. I just love to watch my buddy head straight down, watching no where but where he is going, while I have to bobble up and down to get a recalcitrant ear to behave. Or, I have to go to the boat for another weight, or to get the camera that I forgot. My buddy should have seen that I was having issues, and came with me.

2. Make a habit of checking (looking at) your buddy every three to five breaths. My buddy won't notice when I pause for a picture, or when I see something, and he misses a lot. Then I have to work like crazy to catch up. I'm going to wire a weight to my BC so I can bang on my tank, dang him.

3. Don't forget your checks. I cannot count the number of times I've surprised my buddy by showing him my tank pressure. You should not be surprised by such things.

4. Don't forget to know where your buddy is, even on the boat. You get on the boat, and make sure you buddy is there behind you, coming up. I kicked off a fin, and it would have been mighty nice to hand off the camera so I could chase it. Thank goodness for El Capitan, but my buddy was nowhere to see me.