How close to buddy to stay?

[ucrtwf]

Hi Everyone,
I've only been certified for a couple months, actually I've only been on 3 dives as a certified diver. My question is "how close should you stay to your dive buddy". In my brief experience, I've seen couples close enough to hold hands, and others that are 50 ft away from one another. While diving with "my buddy" (wife), it seems as if I was investigating under things, around here and there, and several times had to "wait up" for her. I'm guessing if I had to wait up, it's probably too far eh?
Thanks for your thoughts,
Tim

 

[jeckyll]

Hi Everyone,
I've only been certified for a couple months, actually I've only been on 3 dives as a certified diver. My question is "how close should you stay to your dive buddy". In my brief experience, I've seen couples close enough to hold hands, and others that are 50 ft away from one another. While diving with "my buddy" (wife), it seems as if I was investigating under things, around here and there, and several times had to "wait up" for her. I'm guessing if I had to wait up, it's probably too far eh?
Thanks for your thoughts,
Tim

If you had the absolute worst kind of failure (i.e. debris in you first stage) so that you took a breath and 1/10th way through your breath there was _nothing_, how close would you want here to be?

3 approaches:
1) I'll just CESA.
2) I have a good buddy that stays close to me and I stay close to
3) I am in the same ocean with another diver but basically solo diving.

Whatever approach you use, make sure you practice how to get to air / the surface.

 

[Twiddles]

Arms reach, works well =). I used to move ahead or above and spent way to much time spinning around trying to locate her every 30 seconds or so. Pain in the butt. Right next to me, we can both enjoy what were trying to look at.

 

[mudhole]

The distance to your partner will vary by the level of experiece of each of you, and the conditions of the dive. . . Clear water, good visibility, no current might let you spread apart a "little" more. As conditions, visibility, current, terrain, etc. become limiting. . . hand holding distance may be necessary.

Put yourself into the idea of a shopping center. . . on a slow shopping center day you can spread out and still "watch over" your partner. Christmas shopping situations, requires you to stay close together to keep in touch.

A dive should be a shared experience with your partner. Your wife will keep and eye out for interesting things on her side of the reef, you keep your eye out for things on your side. When either of you find something of interest, you both focus your attention on the point of interest.

It will cause of strain if one of you leads and the other doesn't share the same interests. Often two women will enjoy diving together while two men think they are more "thrill seekers". Women frequently get more time on a tank of air, and may resent coming up with half a tank, when the men are out of air. . . "QUICK" buy the ladies a smaller tank, tell them it is just because they can't handle a big heavy tank like you can. If they believe that, you have a good dive partner that will run out of air at the same time you do.

 

[PerroneFord]

Depends on the dive. In siltout conditions I want my partner bumping my fins occasionally if I am in the lead, or bumping me should to shoulder if we are two abreast.

In clear conditions I want them just out of arms reach so that I can get to them in a fin kick or two.

 

[Carribeandiver]

consider that your dive buddy is your teammate. then consider that ALL of your life support also belongs to your teammate as ALL of his/her life support belongs to you.
Now how far away do you want your redundant life support system? Think again about the jeckyll's post and consider that is you who just exhaled and now could not inhale because of a malfunction. doesnt matter the cause, all you know is you cant take a breathe. tell me how far you could swim to get the next breathe?
I dont care how much visibility you have, seeing your gas/air and having access to it are two different things. Personally, I want access, seeing it doesnt do me a whole lot of good if I cant reach it.
Diving is a sport practiced in an unforgiving environment. With proper precautions and proper safety procedures we can survive to come back and enjoy it again.
So what is the answer? 5 feet? 10 feet? 15 feet? Depends on current, dive site, i.e. overhead such as cave, ice or wreck, deep diving, or just casual relatively shallow sightseeing diving. 10 feet may not seem like much but next time you exhale, dont inhale, pretend your reg has a malfunction and see if you can swim 10 feet to a dive buddy/teammate. Then you decide if that is too much or too little.

ditto what PerroneFord said.

 

[String]

To work out the distance. Go underwater, take your reg out of your mouth, breathe out fully.

Now see how far you can swim on those empty lungs.

Worse case scenario but thats what you need to prepare for.

 

[diver 85]

For me with the type of diving I mainly do(Caribbean clear water) , 40' or so.....BUT, It Really depends on the dive, in some cases 5 to 6 ' is too far.....

 

[ClayJar]

Worst case scenario but thats what you need to prepare for.

Actually, that's not the worst case. If they're new divers, there's a chance that they will not be paying close enough attention to each other (at least until they get it all thoroughly ingrained).

So, how far away do you want to be? You want to be close enough that if your buddy turns and starts wandering *away* from you right before your reg stops working, you can catch your backup air. If they swim faster than you, arm's length would be good.

 

[NorCalDawg]

To work out the distance. Go underwater, take your reg out of your mouth, breathe out fully.

Now see how far you can swim on those empty lungs.

Worse case scenario but thats what you need to prepare for.

And allow time for your buddy to react to your request, without ripping the reg out of their mouth.