Diving with unfamiliar local strangers?
- Thread starter northernone
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OP
No problems to dive with a stranger. Even no problems with a technical dive. BUT: If I pay for a dive as a normal custumer, the dive is done MY way. I will help in case of a problem, but not if someone drains his tanks too fast. Then I go solo further.
NYCNaiad
Dive babble all day long
I chose "other" because it changes based upon the scenario.
- Diving locally:
I'm going to be choosy who I dive with because I can talk to my dive friends & the people at my dive club & know who's a good match for my personality & my style of diving before I go anywhere near the water.
- Trip with a group (e.g., my local dive shop, a trip organized by a friend):
I will get paired up with someone. Each time this has worked well for me where the group has successfully matched me up with a good buddy with one exception. Once we had the entire boat to ourselves except for one person & that one person was paired up with me. They were dangerous as a buddy not buddying with me at all though we were sometimes in challenging environments (e.g., surfacing without telling me, taking off when my back was turned & not caring if I followed, etc.). They also literally crawled along the coral breaking off pieces to get good photos. I told them, the organizer, & the boat that I would be switching buddies if the person didn't change their behavior. The person didn't care & so I ended up with someone fairly new to diving while their original buddy soloed instead since she preferred that. My newbie buddy was a better buddy than my original one so it all worked out.
- Diving Abroad:
I do most of my diving abroad & usually travel alone when I do it. In this case, I have to generally take what I can get when I get to the dive shop. However, even then, I'll speak to the person I'm supposed to be buddied up with & run through some things. Most of the time it's ok & since I'm a conservative recreational diver, the risk is reduced a bit in any case. But once, the prospective buddy seemed crazy so I found a couple to dive with instead. (I told the boat I refused to dive with the guy & why.) Only time I've done a 3 person dive buddy team, but it worked out beautifully. They both paid attention to me as a good buddy should & they took great photos of me as well!
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On charters as a "single" I have been very lucky with the instabuddy thing, so don't hesitate in that area. There was only one time I was concerned on a deep dive (120'). I did ask this guy if he'd buddy with me as he was alone as well. After agreeing, he proceeded to jump in without telling me and headed down the anchor line. I guess to secure the anchor--oh, he was an instructor, so you never know.
When I'm teaching I'm always "on" so to speak ready to respond to a problem. As such I don't really get to relax as much as I'd like. There are a handful of people I dive with that I can truly relax with. Depending on the dive.
Out for fun I really prefer to be alone and allowed to do my thing. If it's just tooling around looking at stuff shallow, I'll buddy up with an unknown if they are honest about their skill level and experience. Get in the water and find out they weren't? Nope, dive is over.
On technical dives? No way if I don't know them personally or by reputation.
If I'm carrying my camera? They need to understand I might be spending time in one spot and not interested in moving a lot.
Out for fun I really prefer to be alone and allowed to do my thing. If it's just tooling around looking at stuff shallow, I'll buddy up with an unknown if they are honest about their skill level and experience. Get in the water and find out they weren't? Nope, dive is over.
On technical dives? No way if I don't know them personally or by reputation.
If I'm carrying my camera? They need to understand I might be spending time in one spot and not interested in moving a lot.
Ojai Diver
Contributor
Unfortunately, I have found that merely asking for a buddy on the local boats usually raises assumptions that one is a bad or inexperienced diver, even if that is not the case.
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That's interesting. I have not noticed that both when I was new and in later years. What would cause them to assume that--did they not ask you about experience, cert. level, etc.?
JamesBon92007
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I've been on dive boats in Hawai'i, Costa Rica, Puerto Vallarta, Playa del Carmen, Isla Mujeres, and Cozumel and only once did the DM tell me I had to have a buddy. I'm under the impression that this is not the norm. That one time I was paired-off was with a guy that I had met the year before so he wasn't exactly a stranger. The way I looked at it was there were usually a few other divers in the group so It's not like I was diving alone. More recently my girlfriend started diving so I almost always have a buddy now. In all of the locations mentioned it was "follow the DM" anyway.
Because my wife does not dive, I frequently am with someone new on recreational dives. I cannot begin to guess how many times that has happened over the past two decades. It almost always goes well.
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