Buddy ditches the dive plan

[Sas]

If I were in your shoes on that dive I would have stayed with my buddy. yes I would have been P.O.'d for missing the wreck and would have had a serious discussion with said buddy about it on the boat. I don't agree with leaving a diver go it alone because said diver chose to deviate from the plan.

Yea I agree. I would stick with my buddy until it became dangerous for me to continue doing so (i.e. like dannobee's first story where his buddy decided to exceed the MOD). I mean, I would be annoyed as to have missed the rest of the wreck dive (and would have serious words on the surface), but it is better than how I would feel if something had gone wrong with my buddy that if I had been there to prevent, wouldn't have happened. I would hope too, that if that I screwed up like dannobee's buddy did, that my buddy would stick with me anyway, but yea if they didn't it would be my own fault as one should be responsible for their own actions so I can understand why dannobee kept doing the dive - it is just something I wouldn't do myself personally.

 

[TSandM]

It's hard to second guess the dive, because a lot depends on the communication that went on between the two people before they got in the water. If, as dannobee says, they agreed that, if they got separated, they would complete their dives solo, then they had prepared for this contingency and did what they had agreed to do.

I would never make that agreement with anybody, so if my buddy gets blown off the wreck, through inattention or current or whatever, I am going to curse through my regulator and go with him. Depending on where we are and what the surface conditions are, that might put both of us at extreme risk, which is why I generally don't dive with anybody who is likely to ignore buddy protocols, and on the rare occasions that I dive with someone I don't know well enough to know if they WILL follow protocol, I go somewhere where we really can't get into any trouble.

Dannobee, that was a bad deal and a bad dive, and I'm sure the two of you talked about it afterwards.

 

[dannobee]

I see that you still haven't answered Lynne's original question.

I now think it's safe to assume that you're perfect. Go go buy a lottery ticket.


I tell you what, we'll dive North Monastery together, and I won't tell you what mix I have in my 108's. I'll lead the dive, and I'll take note of when you abandon me, then once on the surface, I'll rip you a new one for not sticking with me. Does that sound fair to you?

If I were in your shoes on that dive I would have stayed with my buddy. yes I would have been P.O.'d for missing the wreck and would have had a serious discussion with said buddy about it on the boat. I don't agree with leaving a diver go it alone because said diver chose to deviate from the plan.

 

[Brewski]

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?

Since I've been called out for not answering the OP lets go ahead and do that.
My buddy is my wife. Who is the more timid of the two of us. So normally we do stick together and enjoy our dive. On the day of such controversy, we had made a plan to join Cooltech, K-beck, Marvel, and her buddy who I'm sorry I forgot his name at this point. We were to follow them since thy have been here before, do a swimthrough in the aft of the ship then work our way back to the line. My buddy changed that plan once we arrived at depth, when she shook me off after I signaled to follow K-Beck I Just shrugged it off and we ascended to a shallower depth on the wreck where she felt more comfortable.
No big deal. Plan changed.

The worst occasion would have been during a night dive while I was taking macro shots of brain coral, she got bored and swam away to look around. I noticed she left and looked for her failing in that attempt, I returned to the spot where we were separated thinking she would come back which she did.

 

[Charlie99]

We had a plan, and the buddy deviated from that plan. At that point, it's a solo dive for both of us. That too, was part of the plan; if we get separated, I'll see you on the boat.

Your posts are a bit inconsistent.

Your first post was one complaining about a horrible buddy ditching the plan. When someone (with whom you apparently have a history of conflict) pointed out that YOU ditched the buddy, you come back and say the plan included completing the dive solo so therefore ditching the buddy was OK.

It sounds like your buddy agreed that "lost diver procedure' was to go ahead and finish the dive solo, but that he didn't think that the dive plan included intentional separation. There is a difference.

It's a good incident to think about how it could have been handled differently. What do you do when a buddy gets so intent on something (such as chasing a turtle for photos) that he is going somewhere you don't what to do?

As a minimum, my response would be to as clearly as possible signal that I'm breaking off buddy contact and leaving him. I would probably include "direct contact" as part of the underwater communication. Only in the very most severe cases of buddy problems have I found it necessary to grab a fin and yank, but this sounds like one of those cases.

It shouldn't be a surprise to him when he turns around and goes "Where'd my buddy go?".

Since in your first post you said that the buddy surfaced complaining about you abandoning him, it appears that there was some miscommunication underwater.

Charlie Allen