Not sure about trusting my buddy...

[knowone]

The bicker brothers used to exchange harmless jibes.

 

[Leejnd]

Because I mainly dive in tropical regions I see a lot of couples on vacation. It has become quite obvious to me that most couples carry the dynamics of their relationships down with them. I occasionally see a couple who make a great diving team, but it is more common that I see couples that really shouldn't be diving buddies. There is a reason that doctors don't treat family members; emotional issues and relationships affect technical judgment.

Wow...just...wow. I'm horrified to hear these stories. I never thought of myself as an exception to any rule, but if what you are saying is true, then I guess we're an exception, because I do most of my diving with my husband and we are an outstanding buddy team. I feel safer with him than I do with anyone else I buddy with, including some divers I know with years of diving and hundreds of dives. My husband and I know each others' temperament, we know our equipment, we have a well-oiled routine. We do our buddy checks with practiced precision, and we know what issues unique to us might arise (e.g. he tends to have trouble clearing his ears, so we descend slower than most). We can read each others' thoughts down below, and know our hand signals perfectly. We know each others' comfort zones, and can anticipate what the other might want or need in a given situation. That's something that comes with years of an intimate relationship, going through training together, and having done many dives as a team.

Perhaps part of the reason we're such a strong buddy team is that we both hold a healthy respect for the dangers of diving. We put safety as the #1 priority, and fun/enjoyment/photos/catching lobsters/seeing cool stuff as secondary. We know that we can't even consider the secondary stuff unless the safety factor is 100%.

If my husband didn't put my safety first underwater, or I his, I would be seriously wondering what the hell is wrong with this relationship! Shouldn't the first order of business in ANY risky endeavor be to stay alive??

And no, we don't have the perfect topside relationship. After 28 years together we've surely worked a few kinks out, but no marriage is without at least some strife, and we've certainly had our share, and still do. But we are definitely a solid dive buddy team. He trusts me 100%, and I trust him. We've had a few challenging moments in dives, and we handled them with aplomb, together, with no recriminations afterwards. I have full confidence that if I have a problem he will be right there, calmly doing what he was trained to do.

I guess I just wanted to point out that couples CAN be good dive buddies, regardless of their imperfect topside relationship.

 

[Karel26]

You are a much better diver. Diving is a thinking man's endeavor and he isn't doing his part.

I agree with dkktsunami, it is also a team sport. . If there are no comunication or eye contact then you are looking for your own death row even if it may not be your time yet. . If i were in the situation i would have said to him on the next dive that if he doesn't start to make a change during the dive to be a safer diver I will find myself a new dive buddy. .

I had a experience where my buddy was my girlfriend and she got angry for me for asking me what was wrong with her cylinder and didn't ussed the correct signals and got angry with me and went doing her own thing and during the dive I got narked and she just left me behind moving on with the group, if the dm didn't came back for me i would have propebly stayed there end drowned or who knows what would have happend. .

So if you there are alarms sounding in your head then it may be a sign to move on and get a new dive buddy. . Rather now when you can. .

Keep up the safe diving, your attitude awards safe diving is on the right place. .

Happy and sasfe diving. .

Live to dive and Dive to live. . . . :burnout:

 

[ZenDiver.3D]

You know, I am fortunate to have a hubby who is a good dive buddy, but we are usually leading dives or classes and virtually never get to dive together. I do dive with all sorts of other people. I see this same type of behavior with pals, siblings, and gf/bf's. This is simply selfishness and arrogance. You need to talk seriously with your bf. You also need to set him up with a different buddy. His experience level is only with you. Let someone else give him a shot and you dive with someone else. He may get reamed by that buddy and take them seriously. If not, and no change occurs, you get more training, different buddies, and enjoy this sport. It is amazing if you can focus on it and not fear for your buddy's or your life throughout the dive.

 

[daniel1948]

I think enough people have talked about the safety issues and the relationship issues that I'd like to post a different tack: the benefits of allowing the slow diver to set the pace:

I just got back from a dive trip where on most of the dives I buddied with the slowest diver I've ever encountered. He is a shutterbug and must have taken a hundred pictures on every dive. He swam so slowly he hardly seemed to move. I had no choice but to hang about. I wanted to keep moving to see the stuff up ahead, but for my own sake as well as my buddy's, I always stay close.

Well, the result was that I saw a lot of stuff I would not have seen had I been moving faster, and in the end I saw as much cool stuff as the folks who swam at "normal" speed. And as an added benefit, I never got close to using up my air. I've come to the conclusion that a slow buddy is better than a fast one.

I guess my point is that being a slow swimmer makes you a better buddy.

 

[fnfalman]

If this guy can't recognize; or should I say refuses to recognize, the dangers of the sport and the hazards he had put not just himself but YOURSELF in by doing all these things and being unrepentent about it, then you need to make the hard call and tell him that you won't be his dive buddy any more.

It doesn't mean that you can't be his girlfriend, it just mean that you'd want to find a dive buddy who satisfies your safety requirement.

I presume that you and your boyfriend are relatively young? Say, in your 20s? Men of that age think more with their balls than their brains. Have him a chat with some very experienced divers and maybe he might listen. If not then tell him that you will not be his dive buddy any more.

I understand that you are emotionally attached to him and it would be tough on you, but you need to sit him down somewhere and go over the after dive briefing of what went wrong and what could be better. EXPLAIN TO HIM THAT IT'S NOT JUST HIS LIFE IN DANGER BUT IT'S YOUR LIFE AS WELL. Tell him that if he were to mess up, you'd try to rescue him and since that you're inexperienced, you'd end up getting messed up as well. That's not a play on his psychology. That's the truth. And if he still has a Rambo attitude? Then tell him that you're dive buddies no more.

Let me start out by saying I am a really new diver (second season, and only about 18 dives or so), so I am not in any way trying to make it sound like I know it all. I certainly do not. Here is my dilemma or concern.

I was certified last year with my BF, but I do not feel he is the safest diver out there. He thinks he is a great diver. I have continually voiced my concern about his buddy skills. He swims much farther ahead than me, rarely looks back (at least from what I can see), doesn't think it is a good idea for getting into the habit of safety stops if we are only down 40' for shorter periods of time, and thinks our communication is super. I disagree.

I feel as though I am on my own down there. On a few shallow dives with just the two of us in inland lakes, there were times I couldn't see him at all, and had to surface 4 times on a 25 min dive to find him. I try to explain I prefer for him to dive next to me and not in front, or at least be within an arms length from me, but he keeps insisting he is doing that. Well I have good vision, and with medocre viz I think he needs to stay within eye contact.

He is an airhog, and uses a larger tank to keep our dive about the same. Recently we went and did a dive in the Bahamas. He was running very short on air (I still had 1400-1500), so we signaled to the DM we were heading back. I indicated we would still do a safety stop. He was not happy, but finally settled down until our minutes were up. By the time we surfaced, he was down to less than 100#. He started to take off without me, ran out of air on the surface, and was only about 1/2 way to the boat. I kept swimming as fast as I could to get up to him, but he wouldn't stop. He basically did a back float to the boat. I still had tons of air for the two of us left.

Once I got on board and caught my breath I tore into him (just us were on there other than the capt). And he still couldn't figure out why I was upset. I had PLENTY of air for the two of us to have a normal safety stop as well as a leisurely swim back to the boat. But he doesn't listen to me.

My concern in the back of my mind is he really is just a loose cannon down there, and I am not really sure how good of a safety buddy I have with him

Do I have reason to be concerned, or am I just nervous because I am new?
help?

 

[elmer fudd]

You know, I am fortunate to have a hubby who is a good dive buddy, but we are usually leading dives or classes and virtually never get to dive together. I do dive with all sorts of other people. I see this same type of behavior with pals, siblings, and gf/bf's. This is simply selfishness and arrogance. You need to talk seriously with your bf. You also need to set him up with a different buddy. His experience level is only with you. Let someone else give him a shot and you dive with someone else. He may get reamed by that buddy and take them seriously. If not, and no change occurs, you get more training, different buddies, and enjoy this sport. It is amazing if you can focus on it and not fear for your buddy's or your life throughout the dive.

I doubt that would be the result of setting him up with a new buddy. Most of us don't bother telling someone that we think they're irresponsible and that they have to change before we'll dive with them again. We just don't make that second dive. Ever.

She's got a relationship with him so she can't just walk away, but other people can, and they will.

 

[Herk_Man]

I would not dive with him. Just his unwillingness to listen to your concerns, by itself, is enough to thumb this buddy. Sometimes you just have to use tough love. Let him know that you don't feel safe with him and find a girl friend that dives to pair up with. His attitude is going to get one or both of you hurt or worse.

 

[Leejnd]

LOL well poor Redstilletos has certainly received a consistent message! Methinks if she actually gets her recalcitrant BF to read this thread, he might just see the light.

Here's another suggestion: have him start reading the Accidents & Incidents forum! Hubby actually suggested we do that when we first started diving, so we could get a feel for the kinds of things that can and do go wrong on dives. It was a REAL eye-opener, and helped us to truly understand the risks involved in this activity, and the root causes of most dive accidents. We learned that when something does go wrong on a dive, almost invariably it was due to diver error - somebody breaking a sacrosanct rule. In the few cases in which it couldn't completely be blamed on somebody's blatant mistake, then it was due to a series of things that went wrong that probably could have been anticipated. And in almost every case, proper buddy diving could have saved the person.

We still read the Accidents and Incidents forum. Second to our training, it's the best educational tool out there, and has probably saved many lives.

 

[GeneV]

Redstilletos
Bob Bailey aka NWGratefulDiver has a pretty good article about buddy diving that you might want to show your BF.

Here's the link NWGratefulDiver.com

Cheers,