No more insta-buddies

[olphart]

Matt,
Listen to the advice that Lynne and Kathy are quietly offering. Come to the dark side.

I may be being dense, (it's past my bedtime), but what is the dark side?

 

[spectrum]

I've dived with a fair number of relatively unknown people, and fortunately, most of the experiences have been reasonable. But I have to say that one of the things I love the most about the system within which I dive is that I can get in the water with someone who is totally unknown to me, except for a single training class, and I can pretty much guarantee that things like you describe won't happen. It's a nice feeling.

Gee, in my world that would leave no qualified buddies.

To the OP....

I have also hosted more than a few visitors from away and take a special interest in diving with new divers. Experiences such as the one you had will hone your pre-dive briefing skills and lead you be more selective in dive site selection for first encounters.
2 divers is nice
3 person teams can work well if in tune or at least trying.
If I get in the water as foursome we are 2 buddy pairs casually linked. My dive is only dependent on being tight with one other diver.

Pete

 

[Splitlip]

Matt,
Listen to the advice that Lynne and Kathy are quietly offering. Come to the dark side.

And back to the original dilemma:

If the instabuddy is not trained????

 

[Tropicalwolf]

This is why I solo dive. Way too many bad experiences with insta-buddys. I consider them "shiny object divers". You may have a plan before getting in the water, but the first shiny object they see, they wonder off like a 4 year old.

 

[on_two_wheels]

I agree that someone should take charge. Generally, that would ideally be the most advanced diver. I'm AOW with 69 dives (start of day). My two friends are rescue but with fewer dives and much less cold water/kelp/low viz experience than myself. Instabuddy here claimed nearly 200 dives and mostly local. I knew as soon as we entered, those were either inflated numbers or he had never led a dive. So I led all three. No briefing could have predicted him coming up under me like he did, wandering off on his own, etc. No one just wanders off with any common sense. He also was with us when he decided to surface. He simply didn't catch the girl in front of him to let her know. I don't know anyone that says in pre-dive brief, "Hey, if you decide to surface, let me know." That's common sense. Clearly absent in this case.

For those asking, the dark side I believe is DIR. Kevin....might attend the DIR curious dive/bbq on 10/9 if I can get the day off.

 

[fnfalman]

I would have a sit-down with the guy before the 2nd dive and gone over the issues that I had beef with. If after the 2nd dive, there are still issues, he would have been on his own for the 4th dive. Sounds like he really wanted to be on his own anyway.

 

[fnfalman]

I may be being dense, (it's past my bedtime), but what is the dark side?

DIR-type diving.

 

[AndrewA]

Over the years, both on holiday and in my dive club, I have been fortunate to dive with many divers whom I did not previously know ( I hate the term "instabuddy"). They have had a wide range of experience and I have enjoyed diving with all of them. I am thankful to all of those who dived with me (especially in my early days) who have put up with my strange looking kit with its steel backplate and my primary hose wrapped round my neck and who have put up with my habbit of swimming slowly and looking at stuff rather than trying to set underwater speed swimming records.
I have usually found that it is nice to let my new buddy lead and then I just bimble along beside him. It makes for a pleasant dive.

 

[idive2]

I too have probably had 100-150 dives with insta-buddies, maybe even more.
When paired up with an unknown diver even though you have discussed their
experience level and some other basics you definitely don't know their personality
or judgement skills until you're at depth. I always dive prepared to take care of myself
(smb, reel, pony etc.). I like the idea of the buddy system but when diving with
unknown divers the best I can do is to be as self reliant as possible.

 

[Captain12Pk]

And back to the original dilemma:

If the instabuddy is not trained????

Though I guess the potential would still exist, it's been my experience that DIR style divers tend to migrate toward and dive with other DIR style divers. Thus eliminating the problem with the poorly skilled "insta-buddy".

Should Insta-buddy be hyphenated or not?