How close your buddy vs Herd diving

[Bubbletrubble]

This is what my buddy and I agreed on. He has 10 years and a ton of dives on me so I trusted that this was acceptable because it was acceptable to him.

I don't think that it was the actual buddy distance that made it "casual." 10 ft. is a very reasonable buddy distance IMO. You checking on his position every 8 breaths -- that's what I was trying to call your attention to. I'm willing to bet that he checked on your status more frequently than that.

The U/W photography solo diver thing I was just quoting from somewhere on SB and was the catalyst for our having a discussion of my taking the lead based on my having the camera and probably not paying enough attention.

Bob Bailey (a.k.a. NWGratefulDiver) wrote a fantastic essay on buddy considerations when one or both divers are wielding an UW camera. Read it when you get the chance.

I'm always learning.

We all are.

 

[The Chairman]

You checking on his position every 8 breaths --

You can be a L-O-N-G ways off in 8 breaths! Learn to keep listening to (for) your buddy underwater and you're good to go! Use all of your senses that you can.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

I guess I just don't get the modern buddy system, produces more questions than answers for me. Do dives in general NEED to be that close because they can't deal with their dive?... it was pointed out to me in another post about fallen masks, drop weights, a diver being "spooked". I'm not going to say those things can't happen ever, but there is something wrong with your routine if it happens with any frequency at all. And even when it does, unless you are a very very very new diver you should have enough knowledge to deal with it without needing a buddy within an instant.

@Ana: I think I understand your position. I completely agree that a diver should be trained well and be level-headed enough to deal with the vast majority of issues that might crop up on a dive by himself. I also agree that if any of those issues are happening with great frequency...then the diver is probably doing something wrong.

I just get tired of hearing about newly certified divers playing the scuba equivalent of Marco Polo with their buddy in our local waters...or having to do multiple emergency air-shares before even hitting their 50th dive. Unlucky? Perhaps. But it also might be a sign that their buddy teams could be diving safer.

Taking a rescue class can be an eye-opening experience. There are a number of medical issues that could create an emergency under water -- a situation in which only a nearby diver could help. The likelihood of some of these medical issues increases as we age. In my mind, maintaining disciplined buddy diving practices is a great way of stacking the deck in your favor in the event of such medical emergencies. Just a thought...

 

[Mr Carcharodon]

I guess I just don't get the modern buddy system, produces more questions than answers for me. Do dives in general NEED to be that close because they can't deal with their dive?... it was pointed out to me in another post about fallen masks, drop weights, a diver being "spooked". I'm not going to say those things can't happen ever, but there is something wrong with your routine if it happens with any frequency at all. And even when it does, unless you are a very very very new diver you should have enough knowledge to deal with it without needing a buddy within an instant.

Ana,

The chances of having a serious accident are likely less than one in a thousand dives and given the number of dives most divers do that means they will never have an occasion when having a buddy there makes the difference between life and death or serious injury. Given that I can see where you are coming from. But every year there are hundreds of diving related deaths and many more serious injuries. Some of us believe that this is too many. Certainly from the perspective of the training agencies this is too many to passively accept, which is what in effect you are doing. Remember all that is being asked of a buddy is to be there in a timely fashion if needed. Admittatly being an effective buddy is driving the risk from low to very low. Given that I do make allowances for team members to wander off occasionally to look at that really cool invert or fish. Since that is part of what diving is about too. But it is not the ideal.

 

[SeahorseDeb]

So many good points to this discussion! I live in an area where we dive lakes and a river. Right now our vis is 8-10 feet. If my buddy was 8 breaths away, he/she'd be out of my sight. This weekend one of my buddy's had an incident for which I was able to assist him to the surface and safely secure the situation. Had we been 8 breaths away or more than 10 feet I would not have seen his signal to me that he was having an equipment malfunction. This was the first time I had to assist a buddy, and very glad I maintained the close contact.

 

[The Chairman]

Good for you, Deb! Were you side by side or playing follow the leader? How did he signal you? Was there any premonition on your part (spidey-sense) that something was amiss?

 

[Gerbs]

Yes, it sounds rigid... if you don't mind I'm going to keep asking because I can do this one day just to check things out but wow...

...so there are 5 of us and Joe on the far left thinks he may spotted an indigo hamlet (little blue fish) what is the procedure at that point?

If you start the dive as the 4th person on the right you end the dive as the forth person on the right... is that what you are saying?

That is the typical routine, not just for people learning? You get together with your diving buddies to "have fun" , their experiences vary from let's say a few dozen dives to a few hundred, and that is the typical Saturday dive?

Yup, that's a normal Saturday dive, pretty much (usual crowd is ~30 dives, ~70 dives, ~200 dives and ~2000 dives). Normally, we don't dive all abreast, we dive, buddy-team line astern (see below). If more people turn up, we form several groups. Should point out, though, that normal dive here is a wall dive around 25-45m, in a freshwater lake with a year-round thermocline.

If <---- is the direction of dive, and * is the overall dive leader, with n being a novice diver, X being an experienced diver (numbered in ascending order of experience), and ------- being the reef, the formations wold look like:

<----------------------------------------------------------------
...n1..n2...or....n1.......or...n1...n2...or..n1...n2...n3
...*...X1..........x2.............*....n3........*.....X1..X2
.....................*....................X1.....................

on the way back, the side isn't changed, so it looks like

------------------------------------------>
.n2...n1...
.X1....*...

keeping the more inexperienced divers on the inside.

The trick that makes it all work, other than situational awareness, is that the Dive Leader does not need to look at all diver, just the buddy team leader (in the above example * only needs to look out for n1 and X1, and delegates to X1 to keep an eye on n2. Conversely, X1 needs only to concern himself with n2 (and*). Unless you are the dive leader in the far right example (keeping three people under observation), at most you need to track two people.

Everyone has a buddy they stay with (unless explicitly changed) and * can keep the group under overall observation. Normally, you'd stay quite close to your designated buddy, with the distance between the buddy teams being variable, but within sight.

In your example of the furthest-away-from-leader diver spotting something in the example on the far right would have n3 show X2. Since * expects input from X1 and X2 every now and again, * should get the (light) signal from X2 as it's expected. X1 will see the exchange and join in, they can tell their respective buddies, then everyone can crowd the poor little fish.

It's actually more complicated to explain than to do, to be honest. Also text-only is not that great for diagrams, and it's too early in the morning for me to do a sketch. Normally, biggest group is 5 people, and then only because a 6th diver is not available to split into a 4 person group and a spare buddy team doing their own thing.

I hope that didn't confuse all clarity.

Gerbs


ps. The photo <<<---- was taken by *, I was X1 and you can see n1 in the background. in this case, * had his camera as a buddy, with us shadowing in case of problems.

 

[The Chairman]

Dang Gerbs... sounds like too much work for me! Good luck with it!

 

[Ana]

Yup, that's a normal Saturday dive,

Thanks, I appreciate the detailed explanation; it definitely paints the whole picture. I get the feeling that is the best system for group dives under those conditions. You mentioned depth, fresh water lake with thermocline, made me wonder about visibility, but not a huge deal.

Now would you be adverse to completely change that system if the conditions are completely different? For example: a Caribbean shallow dive, with great viz and probably no thermocline?

You took the time describe your dives so I’ll try to do the same with mine. I’m not a social creature so it is mainly just my husband and I.

First of all it is salt water. Used to be the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean but I had it with the crappy temps of the Gulf. The dives in the Atlantic are off the S. Florida coast. The planning between my husband and I goes something like this:
-You want to go out for a tank or so?
The answer is either sure let’s go or give me X hours I need to finish this or that.

So once the dive IS ON, it is a matter to check the air in the tanks, make sure the boat is loaded and go, this is about 15-20min. Takes 45minutes from the backyard to the closest dive sites; at that point either we anchor and both jump in or we dive one at a time with the person on the boat following the dive flag.
If we go together, we roll off the boat together, my husband shoots down to the bottom fairly quick, I take my time descending. When I reach the bottom he’s usually around, we acknowledge each other and tend to start together in one direction, from there we may separate for a s long as 10 minutes or so, maybe longer if spearing. When we first met we would separate for much longer, finishing the dive at different times. As the years go by our style has converged considerably, we still come up separate sometimes, especially if is cold but not as often.

When my husband read your response, he brought up a situation we faced on a live aboard. I’ll bore you with the story, just to complete the picture of my diving philosophy.

A week long aboard “The Juliet” departing S. Florida to dive around the Bahamas. Nice big sailboat, great accommodations. Takes 12 divers but that week there were only 7. My husband and I, another couple that we are friends with and 3 others.
The boat would hook up to some buoys they keep, give a short description of the site in question and my husband and I would drop in the water. We managed to keep the crew from “helping” us and did our thing for the first couple of days, then the 3rd or 4th day there was an issue. The DM couldn’t get the line from the boat to the buoy claiming there was way too much current. So after agonizing for a while he offered to “take us” on a drift dive. I thought there was way too much drama going on, but I played along.
While all of us 7 were gearing up on deck the DM started “explaining”
I don’t remember all the steps to follow because honestly I only started to listen about 6 or 7 minutes into the rules. I guess he grabbed my attention when he said:

“ … after all of us are in the surface holding to this line…”

My first thought was: what? After more than 5 minutes talking we’re still on the surface?
The 2nd thought was: Why would I go back to the surface to hold anything after I’m jumping about 10 feet from the boat?
There was no 3rd thought, at that point I opened the buckle of my weight belt and told him, I’m sitting that dive. The DM was shocked, we exchanged a few opinions, I believe we were both civil, at that point he approached my husband who was grinning and also undoing his gear. Then our 2 friends who are very experienced also started to put their stuff away.
At that point the DM was inconsolable he went to talk to the Captain. The Captain approached us and asked what we wanted; we happen to have our own floats and flags and stated that we typically just drift on our own with a live boat within a safe distance but are not implying to tell them how to run their boat. He didn’t have a problem with that. Don’t know if the other 3 divers held hands with the DM or not. The 4 of us (2 and 2) did our thing for 2 dives. The following day we went back to hooking up to the buoys and doing our dives.

I don’t claim my way IS THE ONLY way, but I couldn’t follow your way for more than one dive. Actually I think I would pass even for that one dive, I would probably try to find a way to do the dive with just 1 person.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

So once the dive IS ON, it is a matter to check the air in the tanks, make sure the boat is loaded and go, this is about 15-20min. Takes 45minutes from the backyard to the closest dive sites; at that point either we anchor and both jump in or we dive one at a time with the person on the boat following the dive flag.
If we go together, we roll off the boat together, my husband shoots down to the bottom fairly quick, I take my time descending. When I reach the bottom he’s usually around, we acknowledge each other and tend to start together in one direction, from there we may separate for a s long as 10 minutes or so, maybe longer if spearing. When we first met we would separate for much longer, finishing the dive at different times. As the years go by our style has converged considerably, we still come up separate sometimes, especially if is cold but not as often.

@Ana: I think it's great that you and your husband are self-sufficient, well-trained divers who don't need to stay glued to each other under water. Do both you and your husband carry a redundant gas supply? The reason I ask is that your style of diving is essentially solo diving. With buddy diving, the buddy carries the redundant gas supply.

When you dive conditions that are different from your local waters (cold/temperate water, lower vis, night dive, unfamiliar dive site) do you adjust your buddy diving habits?

Thanks for sharing the info...