Buddies - the good, the bad and the evil

[miketsp]

Since I'd been diving for the last 5 years with a regular buddy (my wife) this was a subject that hadn't affected me so much. However my wife is still recovering from a serious surgery so was unable to dive with me on our recent 3 week holiday at a location with good diving.
Since we were doing our own thing there were no other regular dive buddies available from our regular group so for the first time in years I was getting paired up with a different stranger on each outing.
What should have been good relaxed dives just turned into regular chaos no matter how much I tried to get aligned with my designated buddy before jumping in.
Buddies that just zoomed off into the blue at high speed, buddies that claimed to have hundreds of dives but couldn't even hold their depth, buddies that agreed beforehand to signal when they reached 100bar but when I signalled I was at 100bar looked at their SPG for what was obviously the 1st time during the dive then realized they were almost OOA and zoomed off up to the surface.
Most of these dives were in the 24 - 36m range so I opted for Nitrox due to the greatly extended bottom time. Most of the time I was just wasting my money paying the extra as the groups I was diving with were all ending their dives before I was down to half a tank and the DM was insisting I went back up.
Then on the last day a miracle happened. I got paired up with a (Swedish) Trimix diver with a good SAC. We discussed our dive plan - no issues about going into some deco commitment provided we were above rock bottom and we were operating as a pair providing we were each other's redundancy! After 3 frustrating weeks it was just so good to find someone that even knew what their SAC was!
In comparison with all the previous dives our dives together went off like a dream.
Even on Nitrox we were pushing into deco obligation with over half a tank each remaining.
Every time I checked on my buddy's location he was where I expected him to be and we were within 3 - 4 m of each other.
Everything clicked. Oh we were even diving the same computer.

After the frustrations of the first few weeks, the last day's diving reminded me how great diving can be when you are really in sync with your buddy and just how much it can suck when you aren't.

 

[ScubaSteve2000]

I hear you. I'm a new diver but I have already seen the gamut. My dive buddy during my open water cert dives and I were a good team. On later dives we maintained good habits and watched out for each other. Several dives later, my buddy was in Belize (damn him) and I was doing a lake dive. The guy I was paired up with claimed to have about 2x more dives than I did. He didn't want to do any dive planning. Just put his hand on my shoulder and told me that I was being a newbie. He seemed to have a lot of problems with basic skills. Vis was bad and I kept losing him and having to surface, find his bubbles, and when it was obvious that he was oblivious to my absence, I'd go find him. Bottom line is that I ended up having to untangle him (twice!) from an underwater cable that we were warned about in the pre dive briefing (did I mention that I had pointed it out to him and he still swam into it) and tow his sorry a$$ over 100 yards back to the enterance point (shore dive). He was very happy that I was his dive buddy and told me that he would dive with me any time. Me, not so much. At least this was only one dive on one day. 3 weeks of it must have been murder. I did learn a good lesson though. If a perspective dive buddy doesn't want to talk about the dive or thinks BWRAF is for newbies, I probably don't want to dive with them.

 

[peterbj7]

Sadly all too common. A product of the "dive now" mentality that has people diving (long) before they're competent. Instead of the standard "Open Water" qualification we should perhaps go back to the BSAC system, where divers are allowed to dive in the ocean but it is clearly understood that they are novices and still have a lot to learn.

When I have suitable candidates I try to teach some of these truths to people I've certified OW, but there are two problems. Firstly that most simply aren't interested - they see no need to understand let alone be able to calculate their SAC, not until they have a close shave. The other is that if this is seen as part of the OW course they can complain to PADI that I'm overteaching. Under PADI rules I'm committing an offence. For example, I also try to include use of a DSMB in an OW course, but this is definitely not allowed by PADI.

 

[TSandM]

Diving with the right buddy is like dancing underwater. I am incredibly lucky to have several people I dive with where every dive is a delight. When you have someone who is ALWAYS where you expect them to be; who signals ANY change; who has beautiful skills and is just gorgeous to WATCH underwater; who is absolutely responsible about his own diving; who loves the underwater life the same way you do, and gets excited about the same things . . . Then you have a recipe for a fantastic experience, even if the dive itself doesn't vouchsafe much.

I don't know how people who have to do much or all of their diving with instabuddies deal with it.

 

[fisherdvm]

Not to slight the brand names, but I've had insta-buddies who've been masterdivers of the best brand, who gave a hoot about his/her buddies. The worst diving buddies are those who have cameras. Once they whipped one out, it is time to find another buddy.

 

[h90]

Reminds me going on a trip. The instructor is a friend of mine. He made a group of three people. And it started already strange, but I was still new to diving so I didn't think much. He told one customer that the other DiveMaster and I are his buddies. Than he told me this dive accounts for one Rescue Diver unit, smiled and went away......

That buddy (small guy) needed with a shorty 8 kg weight (I need 3-4). So he dive 45 degree with hands and fins. We catched him several times as he rockets up or down. Most of the dive the DM hold him on the BCD. Maximum deep there is 10 meter and after 28 minutes the tank was complete empty. He didn't think that anything is wrong with that. absolut normal for him. And for sure he won't take less than 8 kg weight, else he don't go down......
I didn't want to complain because he was really a lovely guy, but couldn't dive and he was a complete idiot, but friendly and nice. But a waste of money for me.

 

[tstormdiver]

I have been diving for just over 2 years. Being a single diver & working a rotating shift, make it quite difficult to always have the same buddy. In that course, I have been extremely lucky that all but one of my buddies I've had have been good buddies whose experience has been form a beginner peer with me to professionals. Now, I have dove with beginners fresh out of OW who might not know how to react to a situation & there's a difference (to me anyway) between that & a plain bad buddy. I've been truly blessed with a combination of good buddies & mentors who've helped me along the way. The only bad buddy I've had is a guy with whom I've had in a few of the same classes as I've been in. I will warn any beginner divers about him because he can talk a good game, but I know what training he's had & know that he won't hesitate to take a new diver well beyond the abilities of their training. He will do it to justify his going beyond his own training. I've seen this guy, as my buddy, freak out & bolt off, or not follow the dive plan & go well outside of what is acceptable for recreational diving. Needless to say, I've only a couple of times until I realized this guy was going to hurt me or himself with his decisions. It doesn't take very long, even to a beginner, to realize how dangerous this guy can be (& he wonders why he can't ever find a buddy). Anyway, since I've been so blessed, I try to return the favor to those I dive with to try to be a good buddy to them.

 

[pilot fish]

Mike, insta-buddies have been the bane of my dive life, since I travel mostly alone. I've had all manner of insta buddies, from the newbie with 6 ow dives, divers with solo mentalities to great divers I thoroughly enjoyed. It's a crap shoot. I still have not found a way to screen a prospective dive bud without sounding like you're doing a job interview.

The camera thing is great advice. If your insta-bud has a camera, it usullay means you are diving alone. Come to think of it, when you get a crappy bud, for all intents and purposes, you ARE diving alone

 

[MikeFerrara]

Baseball teams, football teams, basket ball teams, rodeo roping teams and every other kind of team practice together. I don't know why divers would think that they can skip it.

 

[billtodive]

Some divers don't realize they are being a bad buddy initially. Since they did (insert skills) in a pool drill they think it's easy and dont need practice.
It is easy to watch a skilled diver and see how little physical effort is expended, it looks easy.
Many don't look at themselves critically, and some would be hard pressed to identify themselves in the video as the roto-tiller.
I thougth I was a buddy diver untill about dive 30/60. I just didn't know much about diving other than working on good buoyancy and "watch the new guy" (I would have needed a mirror for that.)

Now that I have some idea what a good diver is (and what a poor diver I was), I have things to work on.
I'm sure there are many that were in the same place.
Maybe my wife could have lent out her subtle husbandly hinting device (2x2), but I probably didn't notice the hints from good divers. Maybe the 2x4 model would have gotten my attention...