DAN missed the boat ...

[D_B]

I bet a bunch of good buddy skills can be learned in a dive or two with someone like Bob, or with his team ... just by watching a good example

 

[SPG3K]

NWG - The only thing you are forgetting is what I was talking about.

I prepare for every dive that has a buddy as though my job is to watch out for them.

However, if I'm being a good buddy, and they are not, and we get separated, I'm a lot less likely to end my co$tly dive to go find them.

I've had several cases in my limited dive career where the other person puts the fins into high gear or descends like a rock on one of the cranes or holes here in our Quarry and are never seen again.

In the quarry, I know my way around, so I will look for them, and if I call a dive, it's 25$ for the whole day, no biggie.

On the charters I've been on, where it's easily 100+ a day for 2 tanks, I'd be a lot less inclined to call a dive because someone decided they were too bored to swim together and took off.

THAT being said. In caribbean water, I'm finding it hard to believe that with 60-100' of visibility, anyone could ever be truly "separated" and not know it. Even in the quarry with 10' of viz, I have to make a conscious, concerted effort to get away from my buddy. He's either watching me or following me. (This is my personal buddy - not an insta)

I think more and more this whole debate depends more on the two people involved in the buddy system and not the buddy system itself, to be honest.

Like I said earlier.

NOONE is going to risk time or money or personal injury for some complete stranger. If they got on the boat, they knew the risks, and if they can't manage to stick together and use the buddy system, I'm not gonna kill myself to figure out where they got off to.

If it was my best friend - his life is worth the time, money, and risk of injury to save.

Again, like I said, anyone who says they treat an insta-buddy that way is lying.

At the end of the day, the buddy system IS fundamentally and fatally flawed.

It assumes that two living, breathing, thinking people who don't know each other, can go into a situation of life or death emergency and be willing to put their life on the line to save/help the other.

I contend that the average human being is much too selfish for that system to ever work among strangers.

If you aren't diving with someone who you know for a fact will make that level of comittment, you aren't diving with a buddy. You're diving with a possible source of air should you need it and be close enough to it at the time of need.

 

[Bismark]

Ah ... nice way to start a conversation ... delegitimize opposing thoughts by labeling them "dogmatic" and "politically correct" ...

... you call that critical thinking? Sounds to me like you aren't open to any thoughts except those that agree with yours ...

Well ... I'll give it a go anyway ...


Yes, the reality is that the buddy system does fail - on a reliable basis. But it doesn't have to. Being a good buddy doesn't take special skills ... all it takes is learning the things we (instructors like you and I) are SUPPOSED to be teaching in entry level OW classes ... and a desire to do those things.


I disagree. I dive, and teach, in limited visibility conditions routinely ... conditions such as were described in the article (10-20 feet vis) are typical here ... with vis of 5 feet or less fairly common in summer months. And yet the vast majority of our divers ... even our new divers ... manage to maintain buddy contact.

What causes the breakdown is that the typical OW student is told that they should always dive with a buddy, but they're never actually taught how to do it.


That's exactly the sort of thinking that gets people hurt. What's the priority here? A chamber ride will cost you way more than $100. In this case, it cost this diver the ability to dive again ... EVER. Think he'd be willing to pay $100 to get that ability back again? I do.

Yeah, sure, it's painful to call a dive when you've spent big bucks to go somewhere special and bottom time is important. But your health and safety needs to be the priority ... always.


No ... it isn't ... not if you have learned how to keep track of each other, and have a will to make it a priority in your diving. After a dozen or so dives ... once you've adjusted your mindset to MAKING it a priority ... it doesn't even require any extra effort.


That simply doesn't work ... the lead diver has no clue what's going on behind him, and is proceeding on the assumption that the trailing diver will be able to get his attention if there's a problem. In low vis conditions, swimming shoulder to shoulder works much better, because it allows both divers to maintain eye contact and communication by simply turning their head.


Well ... OK ... but now what you're basically saying is that your plan is to solo dive. Why bother with a buddy at all? And if you're going to plan your dive as a solo dive, then train and prepare to dive that way from the get-go. Don't make assumptions that you're diving with a buddy when, mentally, you're not.


That's why God created DSMB's.


Not necessarily so ... depends on what the current's doing. Generally, the current's going to be pushing both divers in the same direction at the same speed ... so they're likely to surface pretty close to each other.


Again, your priority here seems to be dollars above safety. I really don't understand that mentality coming from a scuba instructor.


I say could've been prevented by better planning, better buddy technique, and better decision-making.


Almost everyone I know ... and certainly any diver I train ... uses the buddy system quite successfully. And we dive in Puget Sound ... a place that's known for bad vis and strong currents. On the other hand, if you don't believe in it, it's unlikely you waste much time teaching your students how to do it.


In which case, I'd be shooting a bag, tying off the line to the wreck, and ascending up the line.


Thank you for dragging the level of conversation down to name-calling ... I expected better from you. I'm not talking about dogma ... I'm talking about addressing the reason WHY this accident happened.

You either use the buddy system as it's intended to be used, or give it up altogether ... in which case you train, plan, and equip to dive solo. Giving lip service to a buddy system without training people how to do it is pointless.


In my opinion, by not pointing out in the article that a breakdown in buddy diving is what caused this accident, DAN did a huge disservice to its readers.

FWIW - I do occasionally dive solo. When I do, my plan, equipment and mental approach to the dive reflect the decision to do so. However, when I make a decision to dive with someone, my plan, equipment, and mental approach to the dive reflect the fact that I am diving with another person, and that part of the plan includes beginning, executing, and ending the dive together. If you cannot make the commitment and effort to do that, then you should not be diving together.

This conversation has nothing to do with "dogma" ... and I find your choice of words both insulting and, basically, ignorant of the point. It has EVERYTHING to do with dive planning, executing basic skills you are SUPPOSED to be teaching to your Open Water students, and a mental commitment to diving with another individual.

It's not rocket science ... it's not even particularly difficult. You just have to know how to do it, and decide that you want to ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Bob and others,

After I read the response by Aquamaster, I too was incensed by his comments and what looked like his completely missing the point. I too dive and teach in the Pacific Northwest and I wanted to respond to each and every point as Bob has. However, Bob, you beat me to it. I am very surprised that someone with the alleged diving experience that Aquamaster purports to actually make the comments he has about losing your buddy and about the buddy system in general. Lead and trail divers? You have to be kidding. Letting $ be the deciding factor on safety and diving? Again, you have to be kidding. If money is that tight, pick another sport like chess where you don't have to worry about making a decision about $100 or a potential chamber ride. You are doing a disservice to your students and other new divers reading this when you make that sort of cost benefit analysis. Nothing in the ocean worth dying for as far as I am concerned, even with stages of expensive HE, double 130's with HE, and deco gases and boat charters and plane rides......

On a recreational dive, I will dive with just about anybody once. Even with 5' of viz, with a new buddy, good luck trying to lose me. I am stuck to you like glue, shoulder to shoulder. You couldn't get away from me if you tried. If you appeared to be oblivious to me, I have not been oblivious to you. I might not dive with you again, but you won't disappear from me. With an insta-buddy, my biggest focus until I have established your level of skill and awareness is to be your buddy. If I am 5' feet away from you, you are only 5' away from me.

Finally, placing the emphasis on a pony bottle vs. the buddy system assumes that the only thing that can go wrong for you in the water is OOG and a redundant gas supply is the answer to all your problems. Pretty myopic view if you ask me. Again, I am surprised that someone with your purported level of experience would adopt this approach.

 

[Bismark]

NWG - The only thing you are forgetting is what I was talking about.

I prepare for every dive that has a buddy as though my job is to watch out for them.

However, if I'm being a good buddy, and they are not, and we get separated, I'm a lot less likely to end my co$tly dive to go find them.

I've had several cases in my limited dive career where the other person puts the fins into high gear or descends like a rock on one of the cranes or holes here in our Quarry and are never seen again.

In the quarry, I know my way around, so I will look for them, and if I call a dive, it's 25$ for the whole day, no biggie.

On the charters I've been on, where it's easily 100+ a day for 2 tanks, I'd be a lot less inclined to call a dive because someone decided they were too bored to swim together and took off.

THAT being said. In caribbean water, I'm finding it hard to believe that with 60-100' of visibility, anyone could ever be truly "separated" and not know it. Even in the quarry with 10' of viz, I have to make a conscious, concerted effort to get away from my buddy. He's either watching me or following me. (This is my personal buddy - not an insta)

I think more and more this whole debate depends more on the two people involved in the buddy system and not the buddy system itself, to be honest.

Like I said earlier.

NOONE is going to risk time or money or personal injury for some complete stranger. If they got on the boat, they knew the risks, and if they can't manage to stick together and use the buddy system, I'm not gonna kill myself to figure out where they got off to.

If it was my best friend - his life is worth the time, money, and risk of injury to save.

Again, like I said, anyone who says they treat an insta-buddy that way is lying.

At the end of the day, the buddy system IS fundamentally and fatally flawed.

It assumes that two living, breathing, thinking people who don't know each other, can go into a situation of life or death emergency and be willing to put their life on the line to save/help the other.

I contend that the average human being is much too selfish for that system to ever work among strangers.

If you aren't diving with someone who you know for a fact will make that level of comittment, you aren't diving with a buddy. You're diving with a possible source of air should you need it and be close enough to it at the time of need.

You might be the smartest person in the world but my advice to you is with your very limited diving experience, you might do your self a favor and pay a little more attention to someone with Bob's diving experience.........Or are you speaking from 30 years of diving experience and you just made a mistake on your profile?......

 

[Rick Inman]

NOONE is going to risk time or money or personal injury for some complete stranger.

No one? I know several law enforcement offers who do this every day. In fact, countless numbers of your average citizens have come to the aid of complete strangers at the risk of their own peril. I know some average folks who are the kind of people who would NOT be able to just stand by and do nothing.

There are thousands of American soldiers currently risking their lives for people they don't know.

I would hate to live my life thinking so lowly and cynically of people...

SPG3K, I would hope that, if we were diving together and you needed aid, that I would be the kind of person to do what I could to help you. Sadly, it sounds like if it were the reverse, I would be on my own...

 

[jpsexton]

Since I prefer to use the designated "lead" diver system I have to ask what is wrong with that approach? If visibility is low someone has to be the designated navigator don't they? Otherwise you'd never get anywhere unless you both knew exactly where you were going and both had predetermined the route to take to get there. How do you explore someplace new if nobody is leading?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

For those who are interested ... NWGratefulDiver.com

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Bismark]

Since I prefer to use the designated "lead" diver system I have to ask what is wrong with that approach? If visibility is low someone has to be the designated navigator don't they? Otherwise you'd never get anywhere unless you both knew exactly where you were going and both had predetermined the route to take to get there. How do you explore someplace new if nobody is leading?

If you and I are walking and talking down the street and you know where you want to go and I don't, does that mean I can't walk beside you? We walk along and when you want to make a turn, you tell me and we turn. Not difficult at all. Not any different in the ocean......except for the talking part.......... You just need to be more switched on than normal. In the ocean, I tend to be a little more alert to my environment than, say, walking in the park. It is all in the mindset you have.

 

[jpsexton]

For those who are interested ... NWGratefulDiver.com

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Thank you for that article! That is a pretty en lighting read.....

I have used the follow the leader method mostly and it works most of the time but it does become frustrating if the follower isn't doing a good job. In fact my instructor insists on the sided by side method but I never wind up using that system with anyone else. I think I'll start "insisting" on it as well.

 

[SlowRain]

Interesting thread and obviously lots of viewpoints. Consider this...

Like NW I have been diving a LONG time. When I first started, the buddy system was pretty much a biblical directive because there were no SPG's, no BC's (unless you want to count a horsecollar with a CO2 cartridge in it) and what we truly understood about diving physics pales compared to what we understand today. Recreational diving "way back when" was, at least in my opinion of having lived through it all, a bit of a different animal. You practiced the law of the buddy system because that was in essense your "safe second".

Because of the advancements in technology and understanding, diving has expanded dramatically. I said it before in another post...I remember when certifying agencies villified nitrox as too dangerous to be used by recreational divers. Today you can get a certification by doing some prework and sitting in class for a few hours. Trimix was something you did ad hoc because no one certified it...now you can be trained. My point is that the sport has opened up areas to the masses that were once either non-existent, or roads traveled by those who were considered at the time "out there."

With this expansion has come different circumstances and thus the need to examine the hard fact that what works on one type of dive may not be plausible on another. I don't think it realistic to take the buddy system and put it in a box with the thought of "this is the box, don't use anything else." Sorry...that is just not realistic in this day and age. Modifications and adjustments are necessary according to what you are doing, the conditions, etc. but most importantly what the divers agree on in combination with what makes sense! Personally I wish I had a dollar for everytime the old "if we lose contact we surface and connect up again" was in play and I sat on the surface and finally had to swim over to their exhaust bubbles to descend and find them again.

I don't think there is in this day and age a "boxed answer" that fits all circumstances. Rather I would think the correct thought process would be a combination of things including, but not limited to, diver experience, dive conditions (vis, current, etc), is this a new dive location to you? To them? To both?

How the buddy system is approached is really defined by how the two divers decide it should be approached. About every 2 years I will do a liveaboard. The spectrum of experience you find can vary dramatically. I have been paired with divers who were very good friends and I have dove with extensively, and I have been paired with someone who was on their first dive outside of certification and I had never met before. Now...say what you wish, but I am going to approach those 2 situations differently. That may not be "right" but that is reality. Someone I know, whom I can "read" effectively is one thing, but quite another when it is someone I don't know. I have been on dives with groups where, as a part of check dives for experience level, I gave an out of air warning and watched as the other diver actually backed away from me. Say what you want about poor training, they didn't dive enough, whatever, but that kind of thing is out there. It goes to the necessity of pre-dive planning and communication.

I have been on deeper wreck dives where the understanding was your dive partner's responsibility ended if you got yourself into a situation that by his/her intervention could create nothing more than 2 people becoming an issue rather than one and that decision was made by the partner based on their judgment. This gets into moral decisions and that is a whole other topic, but those were the terms of the dive and it was left to the individual to decide whether that was acceptable or if you decided to stay on the surface.

I guess my "stance" if there is one to be had here, is that the buddy system is effective, however what the parameters of what is covered by it needs to be clearly decided upon before the dive and consented to by both divers. Assuming is the first step towards potential disaster. Clearly many factors determine what the most effective policy would be, and it would be difficult to assign a unilateral set of actions that would cover every dive.

Strictly my personal opinion...but every dive I do is approached from the mental standpoint (regarding depending on my buddy) of "I am on my own and self-rescue is my only recourse." Be prepared for self-rescue. Anything beyond that is icing on a cake. Yes I have an obligation to my buddy that I take very seriously...but it is clearly defined as to what those obligations are before the dive, along with what our actions will be.