Buddy Checks - do you do them?

[orm]

It's still with increasing and alarming regularity we are on a boat with (resort) divers that fail to do a buddy checks before their dive for reasons I can only assume that it may not look cool? And I'm not just dealing with divers, DMs and Instructors amazingly thing they don't need to do one.

My girlfriend and I have dived for the past 10 years together, we're both instructors and we still do buddy checks before every dive, regardless!

At the very least, the buddy check will catch little problems like:

Jumping in with no mask (don't laugh, it happens)
Forgotten weight belt.
Weight belt snagged/on wrong way around.
Clips on BCD undone
No computer/compass.
Air not on.

This, if nothing else is a bit of a pain to sort out when you're in the water, but in certain, rough conditions can cause undue stress, something you don't need to be dealing with in the water.

At worst, you have a malfunctioning octopus, empty tank, tank strap undone, snagged on boat rigging.

For a simple 30 second check it's a must, you're never too old or knowledgeable to not do one.

 

[eelnoraa]

I totally agree. Since my OW, I have made a effort to do buddy check before every dive. This is easy with my ususal dive buddy. But when I pair up with insta-buddy, it is always hard to enforce this. A lot of diver I met, simple just don't care about it.

 

[DCBC]

Yes I do, even when diving solo.

 

[diver 85]

Thanks for the PSA.......I don't do them except to my bestest buddy---= ME....

 

[Teamcasa]

Yes. We still do the buddy check. However, complacency can and does slip in from time to time. Hopefully, the issue (whatever it was) slaps the thought of skipping the buddy check away without injury.

 

[randykiw]

I do when my dive buddies are my wife or son-inlaw. Could just be me feeling I need to what out for them, since I got them into diving. But when I have a insta buddy that is another story. Not that I would be opposed to a buddy check but really have never been asked about it and very rarely ever seen anyone do one on a boat, unless its a family group.

 

[ptyx]

Depends on the dive.

Most of the time, I don't do a formal buddy check, but I do a quick scan of buddies (and myself) as they gear up and walk to the water.

Level of scrutiny increases with consequences - to the whole scripted pre-dive sequence for dives where bad deployment means canceling the dive. Otherwise, I believe in the school of hard knocks when it doesn't knocks too hard. Nothing like having to climb back on the boat to get your weights to teach you to check them next time - and if it's just delaying the dive by 5 minutes, it's worth the lesson (been there, done that...).

(I'm sure I'll get flamed for this)

 

[Cave Diver]

It's still with increasing and alarming regularity we are on a boat with (resort) divers that fail to do a buddy checks before their dive for reasons I can only assume that it may not look cool? And I'm not just dealing with divers, DMs and Instructors amazingly thing they don't need to do one.

If you're on a boat with my buddy and I, it may not be obvious when we do one. We've been diving together a long time and our checks are pretty much automatic. We banter and cut up back and forth while we're gearing up, but we're also keeping an eye on each other during the process. While we're kitting up, we may double check things with a single word (mask? Zipper? Inflator?) rather than a whole phrase (Is your drysuit inflator hooked up?). If you're not paying attention to us a lot of people will miss that. The last thing we do before we splash is a couple of quick breaths to make sure regs are working and air is on.

Once we hit the water we do a quick bubble check of each other, which again may not be noticeable if you're not really paying attention to us. We normally throw in a quick S-drill on the way down to double check hose routing and then we're off.

Just because someone doesn't run down a written checklist doesn't mean it's not happening and just because someone is vocalizing it doesn't mean it's being done thoroughly. YMMV.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Buddy checks ... yes. However, they don't always have to be formal occasions. Some people need to be able to stand there facing each other and go through a verbal head to toe checklist, while others can do visual or verbal checks while gearing up or making their way to the back of the boat.

I also like to do bubble checks once we're in the water ... which is another great time to give your buddy's gear a final scan to make sure everything's where you expect it to be. Bubble checks are usually done on the surface, prior to descending ... although in rough conditions it's OK to drop down a few feet and make a quick stop to look each other over becore continuing the descent.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[adm3745]

Every time I get in the water my buddy and I make sure each of our primaries and backups are working. We make sure our 7 ft hoses are deployable. We check each backup light, do a quick bubble check than go. IT only takes 30 seconds to a minute once you get the hang of it.