First, a little background
My family and I just recently moved back from Australia to Washington, DC (I seem to mention this in most of my posts. I must miss it). My wife, sensing my pain at having to trade great ocean wreck diving for fresh water quarry diving, decided to sign me up for a liveaboard dive trip in the Bahamas as a surprise. To add to the surprise, she signed my father up for the trip as well. One problem he wasnt certified. Anyway, we got him sorted out and certified about a month out and then proceeded to do four additional dives as well to identify any problem areas before our trip. We found a couple (the usual suspects buoyancy and air consumption), but overall a conscientious and safety-minded diver. We both were quite satisfied that we were able work well as a buddy team, and had our communication and dive planning sorted out. I have to say it was quite strange to be providing input and guidance to the old man, but it ended up working out great.
The trip: Diving from the boat in beautiful conditions, we were having a great time. Half-way through the 2nd day a single diver on the boat approached us and asked if he could dive with us as the guy he was diving with had no trouble at all pissing off and leaving him. Fair enough. Well give it a go for a dive and see how we do. As my Dad and I had already determined our plan, I briefed him on it and he agreed. We did the dive and it was a success. Our three-man buddy team had worked out just fine.
The problem: Later on in the trip we had a night-dive to 50ft. It was my Dads first night dive and as such, I made sure I went over all of plan in laborious detail with our group. Outside of the normal speech, I stressed light signaling and proximity to each other. Conditions were good, visibility good, but it was still a night dive. I structured the dive so that my dad and our new addition would be side by side, and between them they would work out what to look at, heading changes, etc. I would be slightly above and slightly behind in order to better observe and keep a tab on things.
Twenty minutes into the dive and everything was going according to plan. My Dad and our new buddy stopped, compared SPGs and gave each other the big OK. Perfect. Everything is going well, I thought as I moved up to check their air myself
But just at that moment, they split into completely opposite directions at full speed. At that moment I was stumped and furious. What do I do? My head was going left and going right as I tried to figure out how to get the group back together, all the while those two were getting further away from each other and from me. I had to go after someone, but whom? Blood won out (note to single divers, blood always wins out). I sprinted full speed and grabbed my Dad. Told him stay where he was and hold his light straight out as a beacon. Then did another full sprint to our other diver, grabbed him, and we swam back toward my Dads light. That I found our new buddy was pure luck. His tank beacon wasnt visible and I managed to just get a glimpse of his dive light that I was able to home in on. That exercise cost me about 1000psi and was nerve-wracking and exhausting. We all were able to make a normal ascent up the mooring line at which time they told me that they each thought that they had an agreed upon direction, problem was that no one communicated that direction to me.
In the end I realized that I wasnt scared for myself, but for them. My dad was a new diver and I had no idea to how he would react if he found himself alone on a night dive, and I had little idea of how our new dive buddy would react in the same spot. So I guess my question is, what would you guys do in the same situation that I was in, or how would you avoid it in the first place? To me, it is a further indication of how a simple miscommunication can throw everything into chaos and create a dangerous situation for all involved.
