Having wife / girlfriend as dive buddy

[Bretagne]

My husband is my buddy. But each of us take care of our own equipement (except when some one has closed the tank with too much strength, as I have feww strength in fingers).
My husband holds the compass. So he succeeded do loose us fine (not anything serions, because we in this area there was no risk of drifting away... we just had to swim more to go tho the boat).
But I always try to use the submarine landscape for orientation, that way I am not completely dependent of him (well, when he has lost us I obviously failed too).
He carries my tank to put it on my back to go to the boat. I do the same for him. He checks my air, I check his air.
When I send the saussage from underwater, he checks that I keep constant depth. I do the same for him (and we do not use the inflator of the other to correct, just signal it if we change depth when we should not).
To summarize, we watch the other, but we let each of us have the control of his own dive.
We learned to dive together, so none is more advanced that the other one.
And next dive, i will take the compass .

 

[vetdiver]

To Vet diver,

You are 100% correct, about being honest with ones partner. That is why I do the diving and my girl friend does the sky diving. My girl friend is comfortable with diving out of perfectly good air planes, but I'm not.

I on the other hand am very comfortable in the water, but my sig other is kinda closterfobic. No problem, because we have no problem with giving the other their own space.

Your girlfriend sounds awesome! Excellent for you both. You are always welcome to meet us at Cape Ann while she is off falling out of planes...now there's just the little matter of waiting for my reg to finish being serviced...HOW LONG CAN IT POSSIBLY TAKE??? Apparently longer than 2 weeks, grumble grumble.

 

[Moogyboy]

Personally, I fantasize about my soon-to-be-live-in gf learning to dive and us going off to exotic locales together to paddle around...of course, she has to learn to swim properly first.

Talk about cold water. :/

Seriously, I kinda envy couples who dive together. Granted it really isn't all about romance and fun and games and all, but it does have a certain allure. And what better demonstration of love than to put one's very life in the hands of the other?

Okay, back up here...buddy checks...skills...

cheers

Billy S.

 

[SA-Diver]

My wife is my dive buddy on 80% of dives.
We had the same issue - me checking the gear, planning the dive etc.

It has now changed by us alternating as our buddy pair's dive leader.
Every other dive we plan with her leading the planning, the gear checks and the dive.

This has resulted in her becoming a much more independant diver.

 

[MichaelBaranows]

I would think it would be great to have a wife as a dive buddy. This is a person you are going to spend the rest of your life with so you might as well enjoy being together and spending time together. But I could see how one person might get a little dependent.

 

[Marek K]

And next dive, i will take the compass .

Hey, we men never ask directions when we're driving a car. Why should it be any different when diving?

I was diving with my son last summer in Makadi Bay at the Red Sea. Shore dive, and I shot a compass azimuth to get from one coral head to another one that was beyond sight range.

Trouble, is, I mis-copied the azimuth from the chart at the dive shop... instead of 60 degrees, I set 30 degrees. Needless to say, we never found that second reef, and ended up surfacing in the middle of the bay with a long surface swim back to shore (I didn't want to swim against the current at that point). And then a long walk with scuba gear back along the shore.

Despite finding my error, and numerous accurate navigation legs since then, he still can't let me forget that... "Dad got us lost scuba diving!!"

--Marek

 

[Fin59]

Talk to her and just tell her. She needs to learn to be responsible for her own gear, safety....for her own good as well as yours, but you are still probably going to be in big trouble when you talk to her about this.

 

[tinydiver]

Thanks to everyone who posted to this thread. I'm glad I took the time to read the whole thing. Next thing is to get my boss to read it. He is my dive buddy which can be less than comfortable at times. We are in the Virginia Beach area and neither of us likes to dive cold water. So............that means travelling to dive. Our schedules work against us (he's ALWAYS on business trips). $$$$$$ works against us. He can afford more exotic locations than I can and offers to pick up the tab which I'm not comfortable with. ETC......
But when we do finally get a chance, he takes responsibility for everything and I'm dependent on him. I'm very aware of it too. My husband isn't interested in diving and if I have to find a new buddy, I'd rather it be another woman. I know that I'll become a better and more responsible diver.

 

[Tristessa]

My girlfriend of 6 years got certified 2 years ago, and took a liking to scuba early on. Every free weekend we had she would beg me to go diving, and not being able to say no, i agreed.....putting my buddies, which i had been diving for years aside. From the very beginning we encounter the same problems as you described...fitting of the mask...putting all her focus into one thing, not checking her gear....etc.... What i did and it work perfectly for me is first i calmly explained the situation to her....i told her that i worry too much, and spend 90% of my time looking after her making sure everything is all right....i said i wouldn't want anyone else for a buddy, but we had to work on some things in order to for BOTH of us to have fun on our dives....then for about a month....whenever we had free time i'd take her down to our local dive shop and jump in the pool......i'd check only my gear at home, and then let her check hers....(i believe that it's easier to learn through a mistake in a pool or preparing for a pool dive than in the ocean)...for example....never open your tank valve if the inflator hose is not plugged in.....after a couple of whips one day, she never did it again)....then in the pool, i'd pull of her mask(always gently), or every 10 minutes i'd ask her about her tank pressure, or our bottom time....things like that.....needless to say, and because my fingers are starting to hurt, after about three week, she became much more relaxed and sure of herself in the water....she learned to communicate, and most of all master her surrounding....it is a joy to dive with her now, and sometimes she worries about me