Buddy ditches the dive plan

[Sinbad the Diver]

I had an interesting observation on the first day of my checkout dives that taught me a lot. Dude on the boat had finnished his AOW crash course the day before. He got instabuddied with someone and down they went. When I got up on the boat his buddy was already back (little quick given that this was my first OW dive ever). Then dude shows back up 15 mins later and there is a discussion with the DM about how he was swimming along and realized his buddy was not there. He hadn't looked back because they had agreed he was leading and just assumed the buddy was back there. "As soon as I realized it I went back to the entry point and did a safe ascent".

Interestingly his buddy chose to dive with another couple the next dive, forcing dude to be the 3rd with another pair. I get back on the boat after my dive, Dude is already there and the DM is explaining to him that he is not diving on the afternoon trip. Dude keeps arguing that he had problems equalizing so he thumbed the dive and his buddies went on together. His buddies walk away and won't even get into the discussion. Hmmmmmm......

Back at the dock I hear dudes first buddy talking to the 2nd pair. More or less both times they had a plan, they decended, he communicated to do something totaly different. First guy said no, dude took off, so he ended the dive. Second pair said no and he took off so they did the planned dive. I guess dude figured the DM was gonna sit him if he came back with the I didn't know they were gone thing again and aborted on his own and came up with the equalizing story. DM was obviously smart enough to understand fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me and wasn't going to risk having any more customers have their trips ruined by dude.

 

[nereas]

I'm curious about this, because I've read some stories. How many of you have had a buddy who was willing to sit down and make a dive plan, and then, once in the water, just ignored it? The closest I've come is two occasions where my buddy swam away from me, despite having agreed that we were diving as a buddy pair. But I've never had anybody violate the hard deck for the dive, or insist on going somewhere or doing something we had previously agreed not to do. Has anybody?

I have had all these things happen. Normally the underlying issue is an inexperienced buddy.

For the guy who went too deep, fortunately the vis was good enough so that I could continue to watch him, and when he finally glanced back at me, I could give him the "you-up" signal.

For the guy who swam away, from our original pinnacle, to the next one across an abyss, again I watched him, but eventually he disappeared into the low vis. He ended up back on the boat by himself, telling the captain he had lost me. Fortunately the captain knew me well enough to know that I was fine on my own. After we were both on the boat, the captain asked us both what happened, and then instructed him to say close to his buddy, which he in fact did nicely on the next dive.

Buddy separation happens fairly often with inexperienced buddies. I think they get a little high on the N2 and then they forget everything that we agreed upon, like staying close.

In a perfect world, on a perfect dive, one buddy is the designated leader, and the other the designated follower, and they always stay together. Unfortunately it is never a perfect world.

I have since gotten an X-Scooter DPV, which normally serves me as my buddy, or else it allows me easily to search for and find buddies who have swum away. And with the X-Scooter the world seems more perfect to me now.

I do not recommend solo diving to anyone unless they also have 2 of everything: 2 tanks, 2 complete regs, [a manifold & bands is nice but not critical], 2 masks, 2 computers, 2 SMBs, 2 spools, 2 means of flotation (wing & drysuit or 2 wings), which together with a DPV is nice, since now your gear is your buddy. This ultimately solves the insta-buddy problem.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Hooked up with a German fellow in Bonaire on a dive boat. I told him that it was my third dive of the day and I'd prefer to keep it above 60 feet. He said "yah", and off we went. At 60 feet he kept going down. At 80 feet I caught up with him and signaled for him to level off. He looked at me, turn and proceeded deeper. I let him go. Vis was such that I could watch him from 80 ... he was 20-30 feet below me. I spent a few minutes trying to get his attention. He looked at me a couple times and stayed where he was. I eventually decided to just head up and leave him there.

I enjoyed a nice, shallow solo dive.

The next day the same gentleman asked if he could buddy up with me and Cheng. I declined.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[nereas]

dbulmer, I wouldn't call what you did "ditching the dive plan", at least in the way I meant when I began the thread. No plan should be rigidly adhered to in the face of changing conditions -- I've learned that one the hard way! Deciding the plan should be changed, discussing it with buddy, agreeing, and proceeding with the new plan is just very reasonable buddy diving. But the key is communication and agreement!

Well, this is precisely why you should always designate a leader, and stay with him, in case conditions change.

Depth limits are flexible as long as you are not violating ppO2.

Turn around time should never violate the rule of thirds.

Deco times are flexible too, as long as everyone is on the anchor line within sight. I know of a lot of divers who take longer deco time than others.

Anyone has the right to abort at any time. With 2 people per team, they should then stay together. With an awkward 3 person group, there is room for confusion, unfortunately. Yet another reason that I do not like 3 person teams.

Dive planning with SEABAG [(c) NAUI]:

S - survey of the dive site (the wind, the waves, the water, the sky, the horizon, the reef or beach, the rocks, the current, the kelp [if any])

E - emergency procedures

A - activity (that which we plan to do in the water) & azimuth

B - buoyancy check [BPW or B/C]

A - air on?

G - gear needed

Plan your dive and dive your plan. Always.

 

[nereas]

Hooked up with a German fellow in Bonaire on a dive boat. I told him that it was my third dive of the day and I'd prefer to keep it above 60 feet. He said "yah", and off we went. At 60 feet he kept going down. At 80 feet I caught up with him and signaled for him to level off. He looked at me, turn and proceeded deeper. I let him go. Vis was such that I could watch him from 80 ... he was 20-30 feet below me. I spent a few minutes trying to get his attention. He looked at me a couple times and stayed where he was. I eventually decided to just head up and leave him there.

I enjoyed a nice, shallow solo dive.

The next day the same gentleman asked if he could buddy up with me and Cheng. I declined.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

That sounds like one of those "yah"s that really meant "no."

 

[piikki]

I'm curious about this, because I've read some stories. How many of you have had a buddy who was willing to sit down and make a dive plan, and then, once in the water, just ignored it? The closest I've come is two occasions where my buddy swam away from me, despite having agreed that we were diving as a buddy pair. But I've never had anybody violate the hard deck for the dive, or insist on going somewhere or doing something we had previously agreed not to do. Has anybody?

I've met people who are very awkward about the planning stage. It makes ME very awkward in turn and if I just can (which should be always) I ditch the the dive at that point. I have made mistakes and went on and two of the most striking deviations of dive plans have happened in these types of cases. Both of them happened with guides that weren't 'too worried' about making a plan.

In one case the guide violated the depth we had agreed on, in other the time at depth. Both dives were drift dives (not my favourite), were buddy and I were quite dependent on the guide leading us to a safe exit point (ripping current next to shipping lane). In first case, we had agreed to drift at 60-80ft but soon after entry the guide dropped to 100ft and started drifting in different speed. Only due to one other group member who wasn't comfortable with that depth either we managed to keep our nerves in check. The guide joined the group last on exit point to blow a bag.

Second time, the guide drifted at depth knocking on the limits of NDL, and we rose above the group attempting to indicate that it is time to level up. No reaction. Obviously we had not explicitly told that we are not happy going into deco. We were lucky that current was about same speed at different depths that time because we were able to stay above the guide. When we hit what seemed like a suitable exit point I was pissed to extreme, huffing, and waved early goodbye to the group that stayed off-gassing long after buddy and I surfaced.

Another lesson learned - if you are dependent on guide make sure it's the kind of guide you want to be depending on... or choose a site with less hazards.

 

[Teamcasa]

Good thread.
I’m sure all divers have a bad-buddy story so I won’t bore you with a few of mine.

Keeping sort of on topic, the importance of a good plan and the rigidity of sticking with it goes hand-in-hand with the difficulty, depth and tasks of the dive. If I’m diving the local dive park just for fun, the plan is a little loose and subject to in-dive changes depending on what shows up. However a deep, drift dive on the edge of recreational limits calls for strict planning and our strict adherence to it. (barring emergencies or other unknown issues)

 

[flw]

On the day after Hogmanay a good few years back, a nice sunny day and we decided a good dive would clear the cobwebs. I got paired up with a guy I wasn'tvery keen on,but the vis was 20m or so and it was flat calm - as we take hogmanay very seriously in the north,I said I wasn't prepared to go below 30m- it was on a modern wreck that had just broken in 2 halves, and the lower half was perched on a steep slope( or so we thought)
At 30m(and single 12l), no wreck was in sight, though there were big scrapes in the rocks where it had slid down,and assorted wreckage everywhere.
At 37m,I stopped-said I wasn't happy to go any deeper-and the next thing is he's decided to 'rescue' me by grabbing the front of my harness and physically hauling me back up the slope - I couldn't breathe,cos his arm kept knocking my reg out -I decided wriggling was only going to make matters worse-and at about 10m or so he let me go - I would have carried on in the shallows,but he signalled up and went fairly fast- it then transpired he's only got 20bar leftin his cylinder....
Back on the boat, he made a huge song and dance of his heroics- and I resisted the temptation to put the power on full before he'd finished tying his kit back in....
I never dived with him again, even though we lived and dived on the same island

 

[Rick Inman]

I'll tell on myself.

Took a newer diver on a dive. We planned to go out to an old barge, and if we had time, to the tug boat. There is a small penetration into the barge if one wants too (I've done it a hundred times), but I told the buddy we would just swim around the outside. Then, when we got to the barge, on a whim, I dropped down into the barge, swam the length inside, turned around and exited out the hole I entered.

After the dive, the young man with three dives to his name, called me on it. "You broke the plan," he said. "You went inside when you said you wouldn't and you left me alone on the outside. I prefer not to dive that way."

He was right, of course. I apologized and promised not to do that again if he would be gracious enough to dive with me again.

I have never seen or heard from him since.

 

[sea nmf]

Four times for me, always with a brand new buddy. Each time, that was the last dive with them. Three of them took off, and one of them exceeded the depth plan.