DIR and insta-buddies

[Crush]

Hi all,

I am curious about how DIR practitioners should and do deal with DIR-trained insta-buddies, or even non-DIR-trained insta-buddies. When I dive with insta-buddies I find that my buddy quickly becomes too far away to be of help, if not out of sight. I do my best to keep up with my insta-buddy when following, and when leading I try to constantly check on my buddy. However this is usually not reciprocated - if I happen to stop to snap a quick photo I find myself alone. True, I don't discuss our buddy plans while on the boat, but I have found that those discussions have no influence on insta-buddy behaviour once in the water. I have taken a very limited amount of DIR training and know better, but I find that I am now willing to continue on with my dive (solo) if my buddy loses me if the dive is shallow and I am near the boat since I know that, in my experience, no insta-buddy of mine has ever initiated a lost-buddy search when we have become separated.

Clarification: if my insta-buddy is leading, swimming so fast that I am having difficulty keeping up, is inattentive and loses me several times in one dive, I am willing to abandon them during the dive by not searching for them the next time that they lose me. If I am leading I don't lose my insta-buddy, and if I did I would search for them.

How bad am I for behaving like this? Or do others do similar things, despite their DIR training? Or is it simpler to avoid the situation by not diving with insta-buddies?

 

[ucfdiver]

True, I don't discuss our buddy plans while on the boat

I find that I am now willing to continue on with my dive (solo) if my buddy loses me

I am willing to abandon them during the dive by not searching for them the next time that they lose me.

Why expect your buddy to be DIR when you're not? If you want to dive some way other than DIR, just do that, don't slap the DIR label on it (or if you do, keep it on the west coast where it's already happening )

 

[TSandM]

Well, the quick answer is that those problems don't occur with DIR instabuddies. I have dived with people I have never met before, let alone dived with, and those dives have included anything from a 25 foot ramble around the Mala Wharf on Maui to an end-of-the-line dive in Jailhouse cenote in Mexico. One of the absolute STRONGEST points of this type of diving, for me, is that situational awareness and the priority of working as a team are so highly developed. One simply doesn't lose one's team -- and because of the emphasis on this, it very, very rarely occurs, and when it does, the protocols to deal with it are implemented.

In diving with other people, I make a very great point of saying, during the pre-dive discussion, that it's important to me that they stay where I can see them, and I'll even describe where that is (NOT above me or behind me!). It's been my experience that novice divers are pretty good about it, except when they get so stressed or distracted that they forget to look up. Experienced divers don't necessarily respect my request, and that's why I try not to dive with instabuddies, unless the person knows who I am and how I dive, and is willing to go along with it.

I would never continue a dive solo because my buddy left me. That's not what we do.

 

[Rainer]

I once insta-buddied with this guy James from FL when he came out here to dive SoCal. He was a cluster.

[What Lynne wrote.]

Hi all,

I am curious about how DIR practitioners should and do deal with DIR-trained insta-buddies, or even non-DIR-trained insta-buddies. When I dive with insta-buddies I find that my buddy quickly becomes too far away to be of help, if not out of sight. I do my best to keep up with my insta-buddy when following, and when leading I try to constantly check on my buddy. However this is usually not reciprocated - if I happen to stop to snap a quick photo I find myself alone. True, I don't discuss our buddy plans while on the boat, but I have found that those discussions have no influence on insta-buddy behaviour once in the water. I have taken a very limited amount of DIR training and know better, but I find that I am now willing to continue on with my dive (solo) if my buddy loses me if the dive is shallow and I am near the boat since I know that, in my experience, no insta-buddy of mine has ever initiated a lost-buddy search when we have become separated.

Clarification: if my insta-buddy is leading, swimming so fast that I am having difficulty keeping up, is inattentive and loses me several times in one dive, I am willing to abandon them during the dive by not searching for them the next time that they lose me. If I am leading I don't lose my insta-buddy, and if I did I would search for them.

How bad am I for behaving like this? Or do others do similar things, despite their DIR training? Or is it simpler to avoid the situation by not diving with insta-buddies?

 

[Crush]

It's been my experience that novice divers are pretty good about it, except when they get so stressed or distracted that they forget to look up. Experienced divers don't necessarily respect my request, and that's why I try not to dive with instabuddies, unless the person knows who I am and how I dive, and is willing to go along with it.

I have had good results sticking close to brand new divers - they seem happy to have a buddy nearby.

I have had good results sticking close to very experienced divers - they seem happy to have a buddy nearby/keep an eye on me.

I have had very mixed results with divers who are somewhere in between.

 

[jonnythan]

DIR is not a gear configuration.

 

[Crush]

It is easy to maintain high DIR standards when diving with like-minded individuals.

Crap on me if it makes you feel better. Or answer the questions I posed.

 

[jonnythan]

Nothing about your dive appears to have been DIR. I'm not crapping on you.

No pre-dive planning? Diving solo? Abandoning your buddy? The dive started very, very non-DIR and appears to have continued in that fashion.

You need to communicate with your buddy. Plan the dive. Discuss your expectations. Discuss procedures. Agree to do quick S-drills when you get in the water. Discuss signals. This stuff is important. It's a core part of DIR diving, and you didn't do any of it.

 

[ucfdiver]

It is easy to maintain high DIR standards when diving with like-minded individuals.

Crap on me if it makes you feel better. Or answer the questions I posed.

So you want instructions on how to make an instabuddy a DIR dive buddy with no predive chat over what you expect from each other?

I've dove with GUE instructors from as far as Portugal on their trip to Florida because they made an effort to FIND those "like minded individuals" as well as GUE divers from Boston, Seattle, NYC and other places. I've also taken a weekend trip to the other side of the country and met up with like minded buddies as well. When heading down to South Florida a few times a year I reach out ahead of time and match my schedule with divers who dive the way I like to dive. I've also seen divers from Canada and Ireland meet up with Florida DIR divers when they come here. Last year some members of this forum did a diving trip to Egypt and filled the boat with DIR divers...if they can do it so can you.

It requires some effort on your part.

 

[cascas]

I don't know about DIR trained... I know of no such course..

I do however dive with GUE trained divers from all over the world (really!). Even with insta-buddy GUE divers, and even first dive in a cave with GUE trained divers. I am not so eager to do that with divers trained elsewhere. And that is not because those courses are not up to standard, it is just that I know how a GUE diver will act in a given situation because procedures have been standardised and it just works. It just makes diving so much more relaxed...

Another thing is that if your buddy swims too fast and you fail to communicate that you're as much to blame as your buddy. If you allow him/her to find out he/she is swimming to fast for you by letting him/her discover you're gone, It's as much your bad as his/hers...