Hey Hoover ~ Did you ruin someone's dive?

[TCDiver1]

Over the years of traveling i've done, this situation has happened a lot. It seems to happen more as time goes on. This is what i've gravitated toward.

1.) I'll buddy up with anyone as long as the operator/DM/Instructor understands that if my buddy hovers their air, they buddy up with them & get them to the surface. I don't get conflicted about it at all anymore, i finish the scheduled dive.

Hoover or fish, we're all paying customers, not the paid vendor. In the end hoover is the paid vendors problem, their responsibililty. If that means they add DM's when needed to run a good op, that is what they should do. I'll glady pay more to an op who understands this concept.

I don't expect my students to take care of other students while they're in class. I'm the paid vendor, my students are the paying customer. My problem, not theirs. Same thing in my mind. It's a duty of care kind of thing.

2.) See number one

3.) See number one

4.) See number one

5.) The real moral of the story:

"Travel with your own buddy if at all possible"

I agree with others on this, it saves plenty of potential heartburn on all sides.

 

[Wijbrandus]

Bob... that's nice... but it obfuscates and ducks the question. To fault the non-hoover for not having along a suitable buddy isn't the answer. The non-hoover was on holiday with non-diver wifey. Play along wid me 'ere.

Ok, direct to your question then.

If I were on the boat, all by my lonesome, and looking across at some poor Joe who's busy unpacking his mask from the original shipping box, knowing I'm going to get paired up with him...

Well, I'd be nervous. I'm the first to admit my skills are not top notch. I've got 40 dives under my belt. Not bad for a yearling in a landlocked state, but certainly not the guy to be looking to take anyone under his wing.

But if it's all there is, I'm going to take my best stab at it and I'm not going to let it ruin my day. I'm going to help that poor Joe out as best I can, and make the best of it. Some one did that for me my first day out on the boat, the least I can do is repay the favor going forward.

The way I see it is that we are all divers because we love being under the water. Is it really that important to get another twenty, thirty, or forty minutes under the surface? And hey, that guy could turn out to be the next John Chatterton with the right encouragement.

 

[Uncle Pug]

Robert... how would you answer the initial question if you were the hoover and ended up cutting short someone else's dive (you might not even be aware how rare and precious this opportunity to destination dive was to them because that is something you've done regularly and can easily afford to do again.)

 

[android]

Here is your scenario ~ answer honestly:

1) Do you offer to dive with the newly certified and obviously nervous fidgety guy who already has his reg in his mouth while sitting there on the boat? Remember... you are a noble soul... you were once a tadpole.

No, I would be proactive and make an attempt to meet and greet with divers while we were at the dock, getting on the boat and on the trip out. I'd pick out a likely suspect based on gear and such and attempt to arrange buddyhood prior to the DM assigning it out.

2) Do you inwardly wish that the DM would just take *your buddy* and allow you to continue your dive since you still have 2/3 of your air left?

Since we're in a foreign country, I would feign ignorance. I would point at my gauges showing plenty of air, look stupified, keep swimming and keep looking at fish.

3) How do you feel when the DM gives you the <pairupwithyourbuddyandascend> signal?

Same as 2.

4) How do you feel back on the boat as you sit out what would have been 45 minutes of your dive while the *shop vac* exults to the skipper how great the dive was completely ignoring you?

Assuming we got this far, I would use the time to lecture the Hoover and complain bitterly to the skipper making it clear that everyone else is still under water and making sure that Hoover knows he is to blame for our present condition.

Hmmm?[/QUOTE]

 

[RiverRat]

I remember my first "big dive" after I got my OW and AOW certs. I went to G. Cayman. First dive was a hundred plus of course. Lots of task loading for me. First deep dive in the wild, first dives in BP/W etc. I was also a bit overweighted. I lasted a whole 20 minutes. When I signalled my new buddy (she, by the way turned out to be a good dive buddy) that I was down to 1000 psi. she offered me her Octo. I calmly said NO and indicated I was heading up. Well the lady DM saw this and assumed I was running low on air. I wasn't, just knew I was hooving and made plans to end the dive. Anyway as me and the DM got on the boat she gave me a WTF? out of air already? She assumed that because my buddy was ready to hand off the octo I was really low. So I explained myself, that all was good and I was ending the dive is all. I made the boat with 500 psi. just as I planned. Turns out my new buddy actually had something else in mind down there. She was handing me the octo to extend my/our dives! BAD MOVE for her thinking that! Anyway I was calmer than anyone else. Amazing how people freak and jump to conclusions. Anyway, the whole thing PO'd me. I got my act together and the 2nd dive was great. As I trimmed out my BP/W and dropped some extra lead I was amazed at how my SAC rate improved. Glad my "SAC" is better!

 

[Wijbrandus]

The initial question I failed to answer -

You are a hoover. You suck down half your al80 before even getting to the bottom. You discover your needle is in the red 15 minutes later and only then bother to inform the poor person assigned as your *buddy* what your air status is. You thumb the dive and expect them to accompany you to the surface. They do but still have 2/3 of their gas left. They paid $$$ for the dive trip but you've ruined it for them.

the question ---> Do you feel any responsibility to recompense them?

In that particular situation, maybe I would feel that responsibility.

However, that would be because I was an inconsiderate SOB who didn't warn my potential buddy up front that I have a tendency to burn my air fast.

I always warn the DM or Captain of the Boat that I use air fast. Then, if it's a good day and I'm breathing fine, I come out looking better, rather than worse.

Also, I consider it just good buddy skills to be aware of my air levels, and to communicate the turn pressure.

 

[H2Andy]

many of us have answered that we wouldn't be in that situation in the first place,
so the scenario isn't exactly realistic...

but if I were that sort of person, then i'd probably not offer to pay or anything.
i'd be too clueless to know anything was wrong to begin with.

 

[OE2X]

Ok. In such a case, I'd not want to risk my trip on the toss of the dice with a random dive buddy. If I did not have a dive buddy to take the trip with me, and this was a major concern, then I'd be doing what it takes to get one.

Come on. If you are going on the trip of a lifetime, and you are going solo, you are just asking for a life of pain. You are going to be paired up with whatever other Joe shows up without a partner. You already know this going into the deal. Giving new divers a complex with a ten page *****fest about how they've ruined your dive is counter-productive.

You need to prioritize what's important to you. Is it spending 10 grand on your trip to Fiji, or is it having a dive buddy on your "approved" list?

I dove solo for a few months. I took what I got. I had no case to ***** because I was by far the worst diver on the boat. I probably still am, as I'm still a rookie after a year and a half of certification. I'm sure when I went out on my very first dive post-cert, my dive buddy wasn't real happy with my air consumption. Fortunately, BridgeDiver was gracious about it and encouraging. If he'd *****ed about it, or even spun me off to another dive buddy, I'd probably have dropped out of diving in shame.

Now, I've gotten my wife into diving, so I've got a dive buddy that doesn't concern herself with how fast I go through my air.

Yes, I'm working out and improving my physical fitness. I've already doubled my bottom time, but it's still crap compared to most people. I'm just glad I'm no longer the first one back on the boat. I strongly suspect nobody WANTS to be a hoover, but some people just are. When you are on the trip of a lifetime, you can't get anything but an al80, and they ain't giving you twins either.

I guess my bottom line is if an approved buddy is so important to you, bring one in your save-a-dive kit.

It sounds like you have quite a chip on your shoulder. I'm not sure why you feel the need to lash out at people that have more experience than you.

I've done solo trips of a lifetime to places that I'll likely never get back to and for many reasons, bringing along a buddy of choice is just simply impossible. Most of my buddies have to work extremely hard for their money and sometimes their priorities are very different. Thus I dive without my buddy of choice.

FWIW - I have also been buddied with some expert divers that I had never seen until arriving on the boat. It can go either way. This is why I spend time talking to the people on the boat to see if I can find someone that has enough experience for me to feel comfortable with.

The point that seems to be lost in this whole thread is that the hoover had no clue that they had dramatically shortened the other divers bottom time. He came to the surface bubbling about how wonderful their 15 minutes were and the whole time the new buddy was feeling short changed.

How come the hoover doesn't feel responsible for ending the dive because he doesn't have any skills and ends the dive after 15 minutes? It sounds as if the individual in this scenario was way under qualified for this sort of dive. It is the hoovers responsibility as well as the DM's to assess if he should be at this dive site.

Personally I think the DM should have done the dive with this guy.

 

[Hank49]

If the guy sucked his air that fast you probably didn't go deeper than 12-15 meters, so go up with him, see to it that he gets on the boat OK, and go back down. It may not be DIR, but you paid a lot of money and you won't get the dive time back any other way.
This happened to me when a guy I was with sprung a leak in his reg when I had 140 bar left. We surfaced, he got on the boat and I went back down and joined the group. No worries.

 

[Wijbrandus]

It sounds like you have quite a chip on your shoulder. I'm not sure why you feel the need to lash out at people that have more experience than you.

I'm sorry if I came off that way. It was certainly not intended. I come here to learn from those who are more experienced, and not to lash out at them.

I've done solo trips of a lifetime to places that I'll likely never get back to and for many reasons, bringing along a buddy of choice is just simply impossible. Most of my buddies have to work extremely hard for their money and sometimes their priorities are very different. Thus I dive without my buddy of choice.

FWIW - I have also been buddied with some expert divers that I had never seen until arriving on the boat. It can go either way. This is why I spend time talking to the people on the boat to see if I can find someone that has enough experience for me to feel comfortable with.

The point that seems to be lost in this whole thread is that the hoover had no clue that they had dramatically shortened the other divers bottom time. He came to the surface bubbling about how wonderful their 15 minutes were and the whole time the new buddy was feeling short changed.

How come the hoover doesn't feel responsible for ending the dive because he doesn't have any skills and ends the dive after 15 minutes? It sounds as if the individual in this scenario was way under qualified for this sort of dive. It is the hoovers responsibility as well as the DM's to assess if he should be at this dive site.

Personally I think the DM should have done the dive with this guy.

I thought the original post was a hypothetical situation. Now you are talking about a specific incident. I'm not sure it makes a difference to me though.

How is a diver that is new to the sport supposed to know they've ruined other people's dive? Did they tell the DM before booking that they were new to the sport? I know I did for the first twenty dives or so. I made a point of it because I didn't want to go beyond my comfort zone.

As far as making the DM pick up the new guy, I'm all for that. I don't think most divers need a guide to pull the group along, but that seems to be the MO for most tourist spots.

I guess my point of view is different. You guys are all so well-travelled, and all so knowledgeable, that you should expect the worst when you are put in a situation like this. Your experience should tell you what's coming.

Is the new guy responsible for costing your dive? Maybe. But does he "owe" you for it? I'm more of the mind that he doesn't. You got to dive. I'm not sure you contracted for "X minutes at Y feet".

I think in many ways this thread is just as valid as the thread about DMs that limit your bottom time to something less than the NDL on the tables. Divers have a legitimate beef there too, except we are told to find a Operator that doesn't do this.

Shouldn't you find a dive operator then that doesn't force buddies on each other? I know that's a practical impossibility though.