Buddy Issues, complaints and close calls??

[slackercruster]

I started a thread about solo close calls and many brought up issues with buddies. So I started a thread about buddy complaints.

I have had a few buddy issues myself. One lady budy vanished from the scene when she confused her BC buttons and thought she was releasing air when she was in fact pressurizing. The more she released, the faster she went up and away.

I must confess I do this sometimes after a diving hiatus. But I catch the mistake very quick.

Another lady buddy had her tank come lose from BC and it started to sink behind her. I was able to retighten for her and we continued the dive.

Last lady was not my buddy but I saw her leave her buddy when she was trying to adjust her gear and her weight belt dropped off and up she went...never to return. She was on the boat when we were done.

Men do stuff too. One hyped guy (not a buddy, but in my dive group) almost knocked me off the ascent line as he hurried past me banging into me to scold his daughter to come up. I could hear him screaming through his mask at her as he was shaking his fist.

Thats about it for me. What about you and your buddies?

 

[Hemlon]

My buddies have been awesome. The only one I had who I would not dive with again was my buddy and co-student during my AOW class.

He was one of those divers who had a story for everything and had done all of life's adventures bigger and better than anyone.

Underwater, he was just fine. Of course, he couldn't talk! But on the surface, he was too much to take!

 

[Gombessa]

Last lady was not my buddy but I saw her leave her buddy when she was trying to adjust her gear and her weight belt dropped off and up she went...never to return.

Could easily have been serious, but I got a good chuckle out of reading this She just dropped her belt and went away.

 

[plot]

I once had a buddy in about 30 feet of freshwater calmy tug on my arm, I stopped and looked at him, he gave me the thumbs up sign... we were in a lake with little boat traffic and near our boat anyways so we were good to ascend. So I gave the OK sign and the thumbs up and that's when he turned into a cork and away he went.

I didn't understand it. He was having some issues earlier and I'm not to sure he wanted to be diving as he was getting nervous with the low vis and the fact that we couldn't see anything below us (probably 200 feet of muck to the bottom), so when he signaled me I thought he was just scared or whatever and wanted to get back to the surface. But he was calm enough to stop me, tell me he was going to ascend, then off he went as fast as he could to the surface and then to the boat.

 

[lifeisfullofgooddives]

I only dive with one person now...We have been through many dives together and there is no one I trust more...

Of course before I met him, I dealt with a bunch of wacko's in my time. My favorite was the girl who could not get below the surface on a night dive, of course after I had to call the dive, I found out she was wearing enough weight for freshwater...and not the saltwater we were diving in..:shakehead OF course she said after "where did you learn that?" when I told her she didn't have enough weight....me and the captain found that funny.

I also loved this one guy who had a habit of floating into me or kicking me with his fins....no matter how many times I told him to keep his distance...always a good time!

 

[DavidPT40]

I had one buddy whom only brought part of his gear on a 3 hour trip. He rented some more at the quarry. Then he proceeded to swim off at blazing fast speed, churning up the bottom as he sped out of sight in the 20-30 foot visibility water. I saw him for less than 10 minutes on a two-tank dive.

I swam through the quarry at a slow pace with my other buddy, admiring the fish, mussels, and the sunken machinery. I was totally amazed when I surfaced at the end of the dive and discovered our other dive buddy was still alive I did get a tiny bit peeved though when I saw a soft-shell turtle, and this dude stepped on it and scared him off.

 

[BubblesUp]

My only buddy issues came during my early diving years from random buddy assignments on charters.

One of my favorites was a guy using a rented, air integrated computer who hadn't read the manual and didn't believe it could be telling him he only had 1 minute of air left just 7 minutes into a dive to 110'. (Computer was right - happy I had a pony to hand off!)

 

[Adobo]

I started a thread about solo close calls and many brought up issues with buddies. So I started a thread about buddy complaints.

I have had a few buddy issues myself. One lady budy vanished from the scene when she confused her BC buttons and thought she was releasing air when she was in fact pressurizing. The more she released, the faster she went up and away.

I must confess I do this sometimes after a diving hiatus. But I catch the mistake very quick.

Another lady buddy had her tank come lose from BC and it started to sink behind her. I was able to retighten for her and we continued the dive.

Last lady was not my buddy but I saw her leave her buddy when she was trying to adjust her gear and her weight belt dropped off and up she went...never to return. She was on the boat when we were done.

Men do stuff too. One hyped guy (not a buddy, but in my dive group) almost knocked me off the ascent line as he hurried past me banging into me to scold his daughter to come up. I could hear him screaming through his mask at her as he was shaking his fist.

Thats about it for me. What about you and your buddies?

I did a lot of internet reading when I first got my open water certification. I read a lot about this guy who ran a "research project" in Florida. The guy bragged a lot about their "impeccable" safety record.

When I dug a little deeper, I realized that the guy hand picked the divers that he would dive with. He would only dive with people who were in really good shape (whatever that may mean), who dove almost identical equipment configurations, identical procedures and above all else people who believed in the team concept.

After reading about this stuff, I thought to myself, "Well yeah, of course he had a great safety record. He stacked the game in his favor."

That's when the light bulb came on in my head.

Personally, when I dive, I hand pick my dive buddies. I guess I take a proactive stance so that I have a minimum of these "buddy issues and complaints." I can only imagine that when you are not too selective with your buddies, your incidence rates of buddy issues tend to go up.

I do wind up diving with less skilled divers or divers who are not as committed to the team concept on a semi regular basis. When that happens, I change the dive around so that we are doing more "bunny slope" type dives where things like buddy separation are not too problematic.

So I guess the short of it is that while it is not possible to completely eliminate buddy issues, you can go a long way to minimizing them by either being picky about who you dive with or being picky about the type of dive you do.

 

[TSandM]

In over 300 dives, I've had two buddy issues, and both of them were people who took off on me. I won't dive with either of them again. I've had dives with novice divers who had some buoyancy issues, but they were not unexpected, given how new the people were, and I didn't mind.

But, like Adobo, I dive in a community of divers who consider situational awareness and team skills to be central priorities in their diving toolboxes. It makes a difference.

 

[cummings66]

I've had one serious buddy issue, most of the buddies I have dove with be it boat assignments or random meetings on shore have turned out well.

I will dive with most anybody, I do have a few qualifications I look for, but for the most part I'll dive with anybody. I'm proud to say I'll take new divers out and have fun and call them my buddy.

To be frank, some of the worst buddies have been divers with over 500 dives and years of diving. I've found them to be rather independent and tend to take off on their own, do their own thing etc. The new divers tend to stick closer in order to learn the ropes so to speak.

I believe buddies are good, and I know there are good ones and bad ones out there. I've been lucky in my choices so far.