Night Dive Buddy Separation - What would you do?

[sdhoule]

When diving with a buddy, or buddies, expierienced or no, I like the protocol of each diver being responsible for maintaining contact with the diver behind him. The leader keeps eye on the second, and the second keeps eye on the third, and or so on. In caves, night dives or basic low vis, the diver to the rear of another assists by shining the light forward of or bumping the fins of the diver in front of him.
If theres a problem with the third diver, the no. 2 man assists him, and the no.1 man should be right behind him.
As far as where the expierienced diver should be in the line, well it doesn't really matter, you can all exchange positions as long as you follow the protocol.


Steve

 

[MikeFerrara]

Best to avoid threesomes. Our whole safety system is based on buddy pairs.

Which system is that specifically?

Of course, sometimes they are unavoidable.

All you have to do to avoid any dive is say no. It's easy.

When you have 3 divers, one has to be clearly appointed as the leader. The other two follow. Especially in low visibility and night dives. There are signals to change the leadership role during a dive if you want to give everyone a turn at leading.

Some one should be appointed leader on all dives regardless of how many divers there are.

And remember, in many 3 diver configurations, one diver is effectively diving alone alongside a buddy pair. That one diver must know that he is not going to be monitored very often by the other two.

Not in any three diver configurations I use.

 

[MikeFerrara]

When diving with a buddy, or buddies, expierienced or no, I like the protocol of each diver being responsible for maintaining contact with the diver behind him. The leader keeps eye on the second, and the second keeps eye on the third, and or so on. In caves, night dives or basic low vis, the diver to the rear of another assists by shining the light forward of or bumping the fins of the diver in front of him.
If theres a problem with the third diver, the no. 2 man assists him, and the no.1 man should be right behind him.
As far as where the expierienced diver should be in the line, well it doesn't really matter, you can all exchange positions as long as you follow the protocol.


Steve

Since you brought up cave diving...when diving single file, any diver with a problem or possibly the least experienced is usually placed in the middle. We depend heavily on our lights to keep track of eachother and for communication. All this works GREAT in OW too, however, every one in the group needs a good light and has to know how to use it. Not only does it work on a night dive but lights are a big help in all but the most brightly lit water even during the day.Your light needs to be bright enough and focused enough to be used as communication. A focusable light is most versital. Each diver needs to keep their light pointing to the side and foreward of the guy in front of him. You can see the diver in front of you and you can see the light of the diver behind at all times. You know the other divers are there and can communicate without any one even turning around. The same method works in OW or when side by side rather than single file.

If a group is going to depend on seeing eachother rather than lights then all divers need to be where they can see eachother with none of this above and behing nonsense. The above and behind diver has been lost as soon as the others turn around. LOL time to search for a minute and surface. When I have to babysit, which is something I did a lot of when I was teaching I assigned all divers a buddy. Everyones primary and first responsibility was working with their own buddy. I also had a buddy, however, my buddy and I had the additional responsibility of watching the other buddy team/teams which were often students. This also allowed me to observe two students doing their own dive together from an out of the way position and yet be close enough to step in if I was needed...and without telling them that they had to buddy dive but that I was going to solo dive. BTW, if I had to step in and help then the class wasn't over yet. If the team being watched splits...I'm on one and my assistant is on the other. Of course that isn't any way to get a good grade. LOL. If their not competant enough to end the dive should they find themselves seperated from the other team then they probably shouldn't be in the water. There were other variations I used for slightly different circumstances but that's the nuts and bolts of it. No one is out of sight of their buddy and some are not only in sight of their buddy but another buddy team as well.

If there is only three and you are the babysitter there's always the chance that one of the divers can draw your attention from the other. You can only be in one place at a time so this isn't my first choice for a babysitting or teaching dive. It always makes sense to have an assistant if you're teaching/babysitting. A team of three competant divers works fine and I see no reason to avoid it. If there are more than three I prefer to break the group up into teams of twos and threes.

 

[peterbkk]

Which system is that specifically?

All you have to do to avoid any dive is say no. It's easy.

Some one should be appointed leader on all dives regardless of how many divers there are.

Not in any three diver configurations I use.

Mike,

Your responses to my suggestions confused me a bit. Maybe you were too brief to explain your intention.

The buddy system IS our main saftey system. The buddy system provides your backup equipment. It provides someone to help you if you can not extricate or help yourself. You do not agree? I don't understand your question.

You must have a greater degree of regimentation in your diving techniques than is common in recreational diving in this part of the world. Maybe conditions are more difficult where you dive, Of course, you can always say no. But, if 3 people want to go night diving, how many times would you realistically say no. Usually you'd work something out. I can not imagine a scenario where you would say no to the third person, provided that person was competent / experienced enough for the dive.

I dont think that it is necessary to appoint a leader on every buddy pair dive. If I am diving with one of the three buddies that I normally dive with, neither one of us needs to be appointed as the leader. We've learned how to communicate and how to stick together. We dive as an equal pair with direction being agreed from time to time throughout the dive. It has worked for us on hundreds of dives. If diving with a stranger, then I would agree who will be the leader before the dive. But, my point was, with 3 divers or more, you should always have a clear leader. That is what seemed to go wrong in this case that we are discussing.

Regards
Peter

 

[peterbkk]

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 ...

I am an ex-Melbourne diver too. Dived in Melbourne from 1981 to 1991 before moving to live in Thailand. Luckily here I have some great ocean dives, including some wrecks. Interestingly, the drive time from Bangkok to Samaesarn (nearest good wreck dive location) is about the same as the drive time from Melbourne to Portsea.

So, which wrecks did you enjoy the most around Melbourne?

For me, the Eliza Ramsden springs to mind. And the WW1 submarines. And the Hurricane off Rye. I also enjoyed the William Salthouse with its barells and pork bones. I have a porthole off one of the scuttled graveyard ships.

Regards
Peter

 

[MEL-DC Diver]

Hey, a lot of discussion has happened since I last checked. This is great. The differing POVs are really provinding a lot of good insight into dive differences and situational considerations. Thanks for all the great feedback, guys.

 

[MEL-DC Diver]

I am an ex-Melbourne diver too. Dived in Melbourne from 1981 to 1991 before moving to live in Thailand. Luckily here I have some great ocean dives, including some wrecks. Interestingly, the drive time from Bangkok to Samaesarn (nearest good wreck dive location) is about the same as the drive time from Melbourne to Portsea.

So, which wrecks did you enjoy the most around Melbourne?

For me, the Eliza Ramsden springs to mind. And the WW1 submarines. And the Hurricane off Rye. I also enjoyed the William Salthouse with its barells and pork bones. I have a porthole off one of the scuttled graveyard ships.

Regards
Peter

Ah, the drive to Portsea. That is exactly where I go. I would arrange my dives with Aquatic Adventures in Glen Iris and they coordinate w/ Dive Victoria in Portsea for the boats. The Portsea and Rye piers I know well.

I did the Eliza Ramsden as the very last dive before I left - I cannot believe that there is still so much left of her. They did blow her mast off a few years back as she was in the shipping channel. The J4 sub was the first wreck I ever saw. I did it as the deep dive for my AOW. I will never forget it. A great wreck to dive on as it is sitting upright w/ the bow broken off - you get a great look at the torpedo tubes. They scuttled those J-class subs all over the place around Port Phillip Heads and they all provide a nice dive.

Nice to talk w/ someone who's got MEL diving experience. Seems that not too many people think Melbourne when it comes to diving in Australia - probably b/c it is not warm and tropical. Seems that there is this big reef somewhere up north that people always want to go to. Oh, well. :wink1: