"I refuse to dive with him!"

[all4scuba05]

Does this sound like you? Have you ever found yourself being teamed up with some stranger on a dive boat that upon knowing his background, you refused to dive with him? Or did it reluctantly?
I've read advice here stating that its good to seek out someone in the group who is a good match for you. If everyone on the boat did this, would that mean that two "professionals" would be diving together, and two "inexperienced divers" would be entering together but perhaps not returning?

I think that if a dive op were to team people up that way, there might be an increase in fatalities because teaming up bumb and dumber together would decrease their chances of getting safely out of a bad situation. So if I had a dive op, what would I do to make sure I have a successfully safe dive trip? One guide per "questionable diver?

I sure as hell understand why I too wouldn't want to be teamed up with a Costello.

Not knocking anyone...I've only got 29 dives myself and don't fall into either catagory...

 

[DanBMW]

I like the question, as I'm sure many on this board have been in a similar situation. Most of the time, my wife is my buddy, but I too have had the same concern. In the few times I have not been with my wife, I generally try to find a buddy before I'm paired with a random selection. If that is not the case, there are implied areas of responsibility.

My suggestion is to understand that you might be the better of the two, regardless of the number of dives, and have that implied responsibility. Best case is for the two new partners to have a talk before the dive so that a reasonable plan is made and followed.

Be open to change, because thing will change on the dive and you have to be flexible.

 

[CD_in_Chitown]

I've never made the decision outright without seeing them in the water first, but there are individuals I know that I don't buddy with anymore.

As a dive professional, when I'm on vacation I go incognito, I don't want the boat to team me up with the underwater train-wreck that needs a DM supervising him anymore than I want to hang with some tourist who thinks diving with an off-duty DM is like walking through questionable neighborhoods with an off-duty cop and cheaper than paying for the offered "guide" service.

As for experience levels any two divers can have an enjoyable dive, they both need to be qualified to dive the site and they need to dive within the limits of the lowest training level between them. (IE I know you're new, you know I'm seasoned. We agree to dive within your limits at your comfort level.) This is the same argument my wife uses against diving with me, diving a beautiful reef at 56 fsw (to the sand) is a fun and enjoyable way to pass some time. Whether I'm diving with my warm-water only spouse, or one of my regular dive buddies is a moot point. They, and I, know and respect each others limitations.

This is different than being buddied with someone fresh out of OW on a dive to say 105 fsw though. I wouldn't want to get on a boat headed for a deep dive and learn that my insta-buddy doesn't have the training/experience for the dives, not sure how I'd handle that situation.

 

[Doc Intrepid]

I'm pretty selective about who I dive with. Before I do any sort of deep dive in the ocean with an unknown diver, we do a shallow dive or hit the quarry first. I'm basically looking for a diver who is consistently aware of the situation and who communicates well (in addition to exhibiting reasonable competence in the water). I really don't care if they're new or experienced, so long as they pay attention to details. I won't dive with an unsafe diver, whether they're new or experienced. Plenty of new divers pick up on safety right away. But there are many experienced divers out there who remain fundamentally unaware of whats going on around them. I refuse to dive with them.

On a dive trip you may not have that luxury, but you can certainly look around and get a feel for relative competence. On a dive trip I'd try to find a diver who appeared to be squared away, whether new or experienced, and dive with them to check things out. If they're a safe diver, I'd continue diving with them. If not, I wouldn't.

I'd rather dive solo on a vacation recreational trip than dive with someone who consistently has issues. The trips cost too much to spend my time dealing with some diver who is an accident waiting to happen.

YMMV.

 

[boulderjohn]

Because I have a non-diving wife, I am frequently in the position of buddying with complete strangers. Most of the time this works well, but sometimes it does not. Matching a beginner with an expert is a great situation for the beginner, but it is less than ideal for the better diver. Let me give you a couple examples I experienced within the past year or so.

1. In Cozumel, dives are led by a divemaster. Hopefully, a dive group will be relatively matched in skill, but this time they weren't. We had four divers and a DM. One husband and wife were both certified divemasters. This left me (also a professional) to buddy with the other diver, who was fresh out of his OW certification class. He was a very nice guy, but as you might guess, he was low on air when the rest of us were just getting started. I did his safety stop with him while I kept an eye on the others. I went up with him, saw that the boat was ready to pick him up, and then went down to find the others. We gave him some breathing and swimming lessons (Stop waving your arms!) during the surface interval (for which he was grateful), but I still had to do the same thing on the second dive.

2. In Bonaire, on the way to a really nice site on Klein Bonaire, I chatted up a very nice group who invited me to join them, especially since they had an odd number (3). Two of them immediately went past 100 feet deep and stayed there as long as they could, because they wanted to say they had gone that deep. They reached their turnaround point very quickly. My buddy and I went deep at first, but I got him up to a higher depth right away so that we could have a decent dive time. Still, we had to turn around on his tank level, and I ended up getting back on the boat with my tank nearly half full--despite swimming around the bottom of the boat until I was bored. I missed a whole lot of great diving on that tank.

 

[Misplaced Priority]

I was in that situation once in Key Largo at the wreck City of Washington or maybe it was the Benwood. The captian asked me to dive with this woman who OBVIOUSLY did not have a clue. I was worried but hey how much trouble can she get into in 25 feet of water, clear water and sunny calm day. So I helped her get ready and I had a talk with her and told her "Don't hold your breath and stay right by me" I dove that wreck before and I know that if you don't see steel, the you are off the wreck and there is nothing else to see but sand. So I went in first and waited at the mooring ball forever for her to come on. Finally she did. I told her we would decend down the line for reference and to help her clear he ears. Then when we get to the bottom follow me over to the wreck. Well we got to the bottom all was well I pointed and then headed to the wreck maybe 15 seconds went by and I looked over to check on her and off she had gone in the complete opposite direction. It looked like she was chasing something or being chased by something. Straight away from the wreck and out to never never land. She had a good head start on me so I figured I better try and catch her. Well by the time I did and motioned for her to surface for a boat check we were way off and downcurrent, small as it was from the boat. I told her that unless she wanted to be picked up somewhere off the Carolina coast, she would follow me. We went back down and had to swim into the current back to the boat. Finally made it with the dive now over. Never saw anything on that dive but the back of her fins and sand. Now i cringe if buddied up with a stranger.

 

[Nemrod]

I understand your question well. Here is the way a typical boat dive goes. You are visiting an area, anywhere USA or some exotic locale. You go to the dive shop and ask about diving and they tell you it is great and they have a boat going out in the morning. You sign up and give a deposit. Sure enough, next morning a boat is at the dock as promised and is rapidly filling with divers, most are excited and talking and chattering, a few are quiet and reserved sipping some coffee, others are knocking stuff over, fins and masks are everywhere, the National Geographic wannabee photo guy is hogging all the deck space with his camera gear and complaining people are stepping on it so I help him out and step on it some more. Then you got the guys with the big spear guns and the captain is arguing with them about no spearing allowed. Somehow you get your gear on the boat and yourself and the lines are cast off and veroooooooom, away you go. You are alone, you look around, soon the captain ask for buddy teams, you ask to dive solo and they freakout and quote the stupid PadI Bible to you and claim gravity will cease if they allow solo diving and they team you or you team with some guy you have never seen. It is a two tank dive and two different locations. there is current and once anchored you must descend and go down the anchor line. You don't get to say "Hold Everyhting" into your Dick Tracy watch and go dive a quarry with your new buddy. Amongst all the chatter and chaos and drum of the diesels and the camera guy fussing with the spear guys and the lady changing cloths in the front of the boat and the guy changing his cloths in the back of the boat and you figure they are an excellent match and the three divers vomiting off the side you figure you are on a ride to Hell.

So what do you do, do you not dive? Do you dive and if the buddy is a dweeb do you dump him and take the wrath of the captian when you return or do you just decide to babysit the dweeb or do you luck out and get a good buddy or what--it is pretty much wild card. What if you ask to dive with the "squared away guy" and he and his "squared away" buddy say no because they only dive with a "squared away" "team". This is the real world of tourist diving. There is no get to know, there is only go or no. N

 

[Xanthro]

I boat buddy all the time and for my own safety treat them as solo dives.

A couple of suggestions for people.

One: Never assume the person can follow. As Misplaced Priority found out, sometimes above water planning goes right out the window. Descend together, buddy side by side until you get a feel for the person's skill. The swim off in some random direction is unfortunately more common than you would think.

Two: Be prepared for a shorter and less shallow dive. Yes, I know this blows, but I try to look at it this way. Shorter and shallow beats not diving at all. While I could simply chose to dive solo in these cases, often seeing the enjoyment on another person's face is worth a few minutes of bottom time. It helps that I just like floating sometimes.

I'll dive with pretty much anyone once. If that person is completely unsafe under the water and can't improve, then I won't dive with that one person again. Sometimes very nervous people on the boat can dive well. A number of times I've noticed people having nervous problems descending and I swim over and just talk to them. Let them know the can cancel the dive, but if they'd like I'll wait and descend with them. I've yet to see someone not be able to descend then, and luckily everyone of them was ok once under.

The really bad buddies seemed ok on the boat and could descend, but under water they were a menance.

 

[ArcticDiver]

Just some perspective factors:

-Just because someone has higher breathing gas consumption than you doesn't make them an inferior diver. There is much more to gas consumption rates than diving skill. Muscle mass and lung size are two that come immediately to mind. It has been posted many times that large(not obese) athletic people have some of the highest gas consumption rates.

-Maybe the key factor is whether you can agree on a dive plan and then count on each other to dive the plan.

-Maybe we place way too much emphasis on having a "buddy" for safety. Maybe we should look at it as all diving is either "Solo Diving" or "Team Diving". I submit that most diving is where the other diver(s) are too distant to provide immediate help in an emergency. That is Solo Diving. No different from a lot of other activities we do from driving a car on the hazardous highways, to skiing, to piloting an airplane, to biking, to hiking, etc.

- Team Diving on the other hand is where all members of the team are similiarly trained and equiped. I've done some of this and it is a pleasure. For some environments it probably adds somewhat to safety. But even then, not always.

Just a few thoughts. As for me I'll dive with anyone I can communicate with and who hasn't proven themselves to be an unsafe diver. Diving is for fun. So, if I don't milk the last PSI of gas, so what? On the other hand, sometimes I dive with groups where I'm the first to run out of gas. Very few are so greedy about dive time that they make a big deal out of it.

 

[vkalia]

To me, the skill level of the diver is less important than their personality. If their are pushy or irritating on land, I dont want anything to do with them underwater, regardless of how good they may be. If they are nice people, I dont mind diving with them, even if means cutting my dive a little short or helping them get sorted out. My rule of thumb is never dive with anyone who complains that "it is better <somewhere else>" or look down on other divers. Diving is meant to be fun, and I dont need any negative vibes ruining my day.

When traveling, I dive with strangers quite often - never have had any problems as long as I follow my rules above.

I've found that the inexperienced divers usually make better buddies, and are also quite willing to take some tips. Highly experienced divers are also great ("ok, meet you back here in 50 min... have fun"). It is the moderately experienced, "know-it-all" ones who are generaly the most troublesome/irritating to dive with.

Vandit