Buddy left me on a shore dive.

[glassbottom]

Please keep in mind that I'm new to these forums, so I'm not sure if this is even in the right place. Mods feel free to move it if you see fit.

So I had an experience last weekend that I wanted to recount and get some opinions on. Some of it kind of put me off but nevertheless I want it to be a learning experience for practices going forward.


To give you some background I have recently gotten back into diving after over a decade hiatus from the sport. Mostly this interest has come back into play because of a good friend that is also certified. Given the length of my time out of the water I went ahead and re-did my entire OW course. I felt this was a good all around, not only in the education but a met a couple of people that may allow me some extra opportunities to dive when my typical buddy cant for one reason or another.

Anyhow a few of those "opportunities" have already come up. This left me insta-buddied a couple times. Mostly this has gone OK, not great but OK.

But recently I did a shore dive with the my DI (who was not working and just the most experienced diver in this instance) and some other people that he has previously taught. We were a group of 8 in total, most of the other divers I was just meeting that day. Skills ranged pretty wildly in retrospect.

Profile was pretty benign, we were diving during slack tide, so very little current but vis was only about 15 feet. Max depth was maybe 55-57 fsw. The plan was to pretty much file out in pairs and follow the jetty line out and back around to shore. Total time was probably 30-35 minutes at most.

We decided to pair off into 4 groups of 2. We all agreed to start our ascent once the first person hit 1500 PSI, stick with our buddy etc.

We also had 2 dive flags, so my DI and his buddy took the lead of the group, and the guy that is working on getting his DI (and was a co-instructor in my class) pulled in the rear towing his dive flag. We all agreed to stay between these two and never be above them at any time. (this is a popular shore dive location and there were also many other groups out, I counted at least 5 other flags out there as we went in).

3 of the groups were with their spouse/SO so they pretty much already had their buddies set, and I was insta-buddied with the sole other guy.

This guy wasn't totally new to me, he did the OW class with me actually, but I had never buddied with him during the class. He did seem to struggle with the skills portions of the class more than others but given we are all new, who am I to judge.

So off we go, me and my buddy are second in the group directly behind the lead guy/DI towing the flag. I re-iterated right before descent we should not pass the first group towing the flag for any reason and my insta-buddy agreed. the first 1-2 minutes everything is fine as we descend, then distraction kicks in. My buddy just starts swimming about, darting here and there, all over. His depth was all over the damn place from 40-55 feet. After a couple of minutes of this with me hovering at 48 feet I find myself simply focused on keeping sight of him and the lead diver and not realy enjoying a thing. So I grab my buddies attention and re-iterate the stay with your buddy sign (http://btckstorage.blob.core.windows.net/site1971/Diving Signals/Buddy_up.jpg). I have to do this at least one, maybe two more times but eventually the inevitable happened and he swam off in front of the lead diver towing the flag. At this point I don't follow, I get the attention of the lead diver and try and tell him my buddy is gone. He seems to think im telling him at 1500 PSI (which I am close to anyway). So I pull out my slate and simply tell him "buddy swam off in front of you, heading up". the three of us head up and at 15 feet I see my buddy at the surface, at this point they stay we me on the safety stop and when im done I head up and they continue the dive without surfacing.

I didn't really bitch him out, but definitely was like WTF dude. We were in navigable waters though at this point and there was a boat nearby fishing so I grabbed him, told him we are going down to 10 feet holding hands and going around the side of this vessel that didn't have lines out. Once we hit the end of the jetty we are to surface and then finishing the dive on the surface swimming in. This is what we did.

I finished the dive with about 750 PSI, he about 1000. He definitely apologized and I didn't chew his ass or anything but it definitely struck a nerve.

But overall it got me thinking. One thing my father and I always practiced and did was slung an al19 pony in case we had an issue (this was back in the 90's, octos weren't as common place but we had them as well). We would usually practice the pony deployment on the last dive. My dad was always trying to empress on me self sufficiency etc but we had experience (100+ dives by that time) and practiced regularly so the task loading wasn't an issue then.

Now I consider myself a new diver.

There is a part of me that feels I should consider carrying an al19 again when insta-buddied in case something like this happens, but there is another (much larger) part of me that says I need to practice my other core skills (buoyancy, trim, weighting and buddy skills) before re-adding such a task to my repertoire.

 

[JohnN]

I think you're asking if carrying a 19 cuft pony is a good idea.

Yes. It will never leave your side, you'll always have gas if poo hits the fan, once you're underwater, you'll never notice it. The key bit is always give in the same configuration (insta-buddy or not)

 

[Seya]

Well you alway have to remember the only person you can count on is yourself. So if you want the pony by all means use one. If you run out of air and your buddy has swam away you'll need it. Even if your buddy is 10 feet in front of you you might never catch him if you are out of air

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

 

[glassbottom]

I definitely think in the long term ill be back to slinging an al19 when insta-buddied.


My biggest concern is that I don't want that to allow me to get complacent with skills or to be a distraction while im still re-learning a lot of other skills (buoyancy, trim, weighting etc). So in the near term I don't know that I should add this, but likely will in the long term as I get more comfortable with my setup and skills.


So my biggest point in the post is:

Should I have handled the situation differently? Should I have been more thorough with him pre-dive (I felt it was a fairly simply dive plan at first, clearly my buddy either wasn't paying attention or we weren't diving the same plan.).

Maybe I should just avoid all instances of insta-buddies until I feel im comfortable with my core skills and go back to slinging an al19? This could possibly mean less dives, which im mostly ok with I suppose.

 

[Seya]

One of my buddies was like that when he first got certified always swimming off and never paying attention. Then I just explained how important it was to remain close and he has been very attentive since. So when you get insta-buddied explain your ground rules to them. Go get the pony bottle if that's what you want and do a course like perfect buoyancy with it so you get dialed in.

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

 

[Johanan]

It is good to have a good talk with your instabuddy before the dive, agreeing on communication, distance, etc. However, when diving with an instabuddy you must be prepared that any dive can become a solo dive. It happened to me a number of times. I think, to dive with instabuddies one should get certified as solo diver. Instead of a 19 cf pony I opted for a second AL 80, i.e., I dive sidemount doubles and don't worry if my buddy swims away.

 

[BRT]

In 15' vis the buddy system often turns out otherwise. In better vis you probably can't reach them anyhow if you go OOA. Good idea to have a backup plan.

 

[seeker242]

What part of FL you in? I'll buddy with you and I don't leave my buddy. I do everything by the book 100% I'm a new diver but I still know what the book says and I follow it! ha!

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

So my biggest point in the post is:
Should I have handled the situation differently? Should I have been more thorough with him pre-dive (I felt it was a fairly simply dive plan at first, clearly my buddy either wasn't paying attention or we weren't diving the same plan.).

The question is how often do you want to dive with this person? If you would like to do future dives - before, during and after conversations are always good. My son and I are always talking about things that we can do better or what we did that we don't want to do again.
It is not perfect but without conversation how are you going to get better at being a good buddy?
Perhaps some of the fault/issues may be within your domain and your buddy may have some issues he or she needs to discuss with you as well. Open communication makes everyone better... IMO

 

[glassbottom]

The question is how often do you want to dive with this person? If you would like to do future dives - before, during and after conversations are always good. My son and I are always talking about things that we can do better or what we did that we don't want to do again.
It is not perfect but without conversation how are you going to get better a being a good buddy?
Perhaps some of the fault/issues may be within your domain and your buddy may have some issues he or she needs to discuss with you as well. Open communication makes everyone better... IMO

Definitely agree I had some culpability in the matter. I think some/a lot of it was related to me just getting back into diving/being new and in new/mixed company so I was minding my tongue.

He knew he messed up, even offered to buy me lunch, so I didn't chide him too badly or really at all, and didn't show my disdain for the situation like I would have if I had known him better. I think that was a failure on my part.

I just assessed the situation mid-dive, said lets get under and around this fishing vessel, clear of entanglements and overheads and out of the navigable waters and finish the dive on the surface. I didn't really know what to say or how to say after the dive it without coming across a dick or rubbing his face in it.


To be honest, I don't think he will be a permanent fixture as a dive buddy but I cant count out that we may cross paths again. He is definitely not the same "style" diver that I am, a little more distracted and ditzy than me.

I think you are right that next time the pre-dive conversation will be much more in depth on my end of my expectations as a buddy and if I feel its going south ill thumb the dive mid-way instead of repeatedly chasing him down and saying get with me/your buddy. I think I learned I need to do a little better following up as well and not just HOPE that he understood what happened.