My First Instabuddy Experience

[uncfnp]

After more then a few dives I had my first true instabuddy experience on a recent Bonaire trip. All my dives to date have either been solo, part of a course or with my partner. Eric and I heard that Dive Friends had a boat trip to the north of the island so we decided to sign up. Other then an east coast dive years ago, we have never done a boat dive on Bonaire and so wasn't sure of the routine. When Eric heard that the group ascends with the first low on air diver he backed out but I decided to continue with the trip.

On board it was soon obvious all but two of us were part of a group. When the DM asked if we all had buddies and started to object when we two did not I quickly volunteered him as my buddy. We had already spoken briefly and I knew he was an experienced diver. Gearing up he was very polite and assisted when needed but otherwise unobtrusive. He did comment on my gear. I was the only BPW (and a freedom plate at that) and bungeed alternate on board. I showed him in about 2 seconds my procedure to donate.

Sure enough, we both dove self relient but still kept track of the other. End of dive I floated near the ladder while he spend the last of the hour dive limit just looking around under the boat until the guide signed to board. Second dive was pretty much a repeat of the first. No complaints on my end, in fact I enjoyed the experience and hope/think that he felt the same.

 

[WrmBluH2O]

Heartening to hear of good "instabuddy" experiences. Hope peeps keep 'em coming...

 

[Hawkwood]

Yeah, I've never had these issues that folks on SB say are so common.

 

[AdivingBel]

I dived regularly with insta-buddies in the Keys before my wife started diving. In over a hundred dives I didn't have a truly bad insta-buddy experience. The dives ranged from shallow reefs to several of the Keys wrecks. On some of the reef dives the buddies weren't very experienced, but they conducted themselves well and dived safely. On the deeper wrecks, the divers were more experienced due to diving with quality dive ops that vetted the divers prior to more advanced dives. I've read on SB about hair raising insta-buddy experiences, but that hasn't been my experience (N=1 as RJP would say, but that's over quite a few dives). These days I dive nearly exclusively with my wife i.e. "perma-buddy." Guess I dodged a bullet. YMMV.

Uncfnp, I'm glad you hooked a good one.

 

[TMHeimer]

I've taken quite a few charters in different locales over 10 years and can only recall 2 instabuddies that weren't that great. And they both had way more experience than me.

 

[Neilwood]

My one and only istabuddy experience were my first 4 post OW cert dives. Was paired with an AOW diver who, apart from poor buoyancy management, was pretty good in checking my location relative to him and both keeping an eye on each others gas levels.

 

[Rusty Roo]

some of my good friends were once what you would call an "insta buddy." i see people on here going mad and wondering how you would ever survive such an experience, but everyone at some point is a new buddy. personally from what i read on here, it's a very american thing to going diving with a specific buddy. in my experiences in europe, africa and asia instabuddies are common and generally people get along - obviously sometimes people don't.

 

[JBFG]

I've always been lucky with instabuddy. Those that were way more experience than me were always eager to take me under their BP wing. those you were less experience were always good at listening.

My last experience was with a sidemount cave diver in Hawaii. We were going to do some wreck diving. He took the lead and I followed. we chated for a while at the surface before splashing and it was one of the best dive of my life. We were both aware of eachother and dove as a team. great experience for sure.

 

[iamrushman]

wonderful........thanks for sharing......

 

[Altamira]

I think instabuddy experiences are like most other types of experiences. We tend to write and complain about things that do not go well, and overlook the opportunity to make positive comments about the other 98%.