insta buddy nightmares

[nolatom]

My insta-buddy experiences have been pretty good, and sometimes excellent. I won't repeat the good advice above about talking seriously but non-patronizingly about the dive with the pickup buddy.

One exception--a very fit but irresponsible buddy who went wherever she wanted, busted the boat's depth limit without a second thought, was like herding cats to get her back to the upline, she didn't want to answer me about how much air she had left, and she then swam away from the line and out of sight behind some pinnacles (Stetson Bank). I declined to chase her as I was down to 700 pounds and would run out if I had. I wondered how I would explain coming up without her. But she was back on the boat ahead of me, after apparently coming directly up by the stern, without a safety stop.

But even this was a learning experience. It's harder to learn how to respond to a situation if all your dives and buddies are "perfect" and you never have a situation.

 

[Polar_diver]

Most of the time, instabuddy=solo diving...

 

[SDiverJim]

I have been lucky enough to not have had an "insta-buddy" bad experience yet. I did have a dive shop blow me off 2 times while on vacation in Aruba. I was lucky enough to salvage the trip with a couple of dives with another location.

 

[David_57]

Given a photographer type as a buddy he spent the whole dive with total disregard for the reef he would stand on it kneel on it to steady himself so he could take the perfect shot. Total disregard of me as a buddy which to be honest did not bother me, when we were back on the surface had to listen to him boast how many dives he had and how many years he had been diving.

 

[Dirk P.]

Has an instantbuddy who claimed was an experienced underwater photgrapher (didn't take camera along for this dive though). Dive would go into a tunnel in which buoyancy control was paramount otherwise visibilty would go down dramatically. I expected no problems, also with my insta buddy.
Buddy was going all over the place, so on the way back vis was very very poor. Fortunately being a Dutch diver, I have no issues with poor visibility. Unfortunately buddy didn't and she ran out of air a lot faster.....

 

[DevonDiver]

Most of the time, instabuddy=solo diving...

There's a difference between 'solo diving' and diving alone.

 

[DaMaDo]

I had to semi-rescue my first ever "insta-buddy" at the start of the dive and tow them 50 yards back to the boat in current. It was the first regular dive after my rescue class so I guess it was continuing education

They stayed out for that dive and didn't go in for the second one which I thought was good judgement. From reading some of the stories on this board that doesn't always happen.

 

[Jax]

My insta-buddy lied about his gas. Ego thing, he didn't want me to use less than him. Generally, he was a total arse, but it was lying about his gas that made this a poor experience.

Fortunately, I was equipped to dive solo.

 

[Banyan]

Quite a few bad instabuddy experiences, but I've been the bad instabuddy at least once: Did a morning shore dive without a computer and decided I would go on my first ever post-cert boat dives (to two adjacent wrecks) for dives number 9 and 10. Went and rented a computer, which was required for the boat. During instabuddy sorting, someone points out that my computer is useless because it doesn't have the loading from my morning dive so I end up borrowing someone's wheel and trying to figure out a conservative dive plan for doing two more dives. Me and another newbie get put together with a guy with a Master Diver card who agrees (for some reason beyond me) to babysit the two of us, so he has to forgo diving the deeper wreck that starts at 90'. The other newbie burns through her air like mad and has to surface early and is actually kept out of the water in the second dive as she complains that it's the equipment's fault that she came up with no air. The second dive I was conservative with the profile I came up with on the wheel and spent the entire dive 20-30 feet above my "buddy" as he explored the deck of the shallower wreck, and came up with 1300 psi. Neither dive was more than 25 minutes. When we got back on the boat, the instabuddy was kind enough to say he felt safer because I stayed with him on the second dive.

Looking back on it, I'm astonished by my own stupidity and for how patient and gracious the instabuddy was. So thanks anonymous instabuddy!

 

[Downing]

I guess I've been fortunate not to have had any really bad insta-buddy experiences.

My worst one is actually kind of funny and happened on my first dive trip after certification. We went to Playa del Carmen for a week followed by a week in Cozumel. I dived a few cenotes on the mainland with an instructor/guide and had a blast. Unfortunately, I got swimmer's ear and couldn't dive for the first couple of days after we got to Cozumel.

By the time I was cleared to dive, my wife wasn't feeling well. So I went by myself to the boat. I was pretty nervous because this was my first boat dive, my first dive without an instructor, and I was with a group of strangers. They buddied me up with an older guy with a camera, so I assumed he was experienced and I could just follow him along on this drift dive.

In we go. I descend just fine, meet up with the pack, and am feeling pretty proud of myself so far. The group starts off with the DM leading the way, and my buddy and me are in the back. Only my buddy's going up and down and up and down and up and down, and kind of wrestling around in the water. I'm thinking WTF is with this guy? Finally, after about 5 minutes of watching him ride a roller coaster, he starts going up for good. He hasn't so much as looked at me, so I have no idea what he's doing.

So I go up with him. We get to 15 feet. I stop. He keeps going. Now I'm really confused. I'm looking down at the pack, and they're 30 feet below us and drifting away. My buddy breaks the surface, then sticks his face in the water, looking at me. I hover, not knowing what I'm supposed to do here. The guy's not panicking. For whatever reason, it appears he's called the dive.

So I hover some more. He continues to bob along on the surface, looking down at me every now and then. I keep looking up at him then down at the group, which is rapidly approaching the edge of my visibility. What to do? This guy doesn't appear to be in trouble. I figure the boat will pick him up. I'm about to get left behind by the group if I don't start moving.

Screw it. I left him there and rejoined the group. The DM never noticed. I kept thinking I was probably going to get kicked off the boat for leaving my dive buddy, but dammit, I had come a long way and paid a lot of money to dive so by golly I was going to dive. Not knowing if it was going to be my last dive with this outfit, I decided to just relax, enjoy it and what will be will be.

Back on the boat, no one said a word, much to my relief. Turned out the guy was underweighted, which is something I can easily recognize now but had no idea what the problem was then.