After many years or solo diving I've become less than an optimal buddy. It goes beyond safety, experience or type of diving. This past weekend I got the opportunity to "see" this frame of mind from several angles.
Saturday I went out with my husband and 2 very good divers. We no longer anchor and leave the boat empty, for many years the philosophy is: always someone familiar with the operation of the boat stays onboard. I wanted to only do one not too deep dive because I felt a borderline sinuses concern, so my husband dove first with the other 2 divers. He wanted to spearfish so he went with one flag and the other 2 paired up with another flag. As expected, the flags separated very quickly but felt easy to monitor. Being a deeper dive without deco, my task protecting the dives with the boat went by fairly quickly.
For dive #2, my husband was at the helm, and one of the 2 divers called it. Leaving me with the other diver ready to dive... this diver was ready to dive with me with just one flag, but I mentioned that our speeds just don't match and considering I was doing only one dive, I wanted to have a nice one. I had a blast and so did the other diver.
Sunday. The same diver came with my husband and I. By that morning my sinuses already crapped out my chances for diving, so I was going to be at the helm and stay dry. I should add here that my husband and I don't exactly match speeds either, but we do close to ok when diving slow. Also the other diver not only is very capable but is a very social person too, adjective that no one will ever use to describe neither my husband or I . As expected (by me) my husband asked to go on separate flags. Ok they splash and I'm maneuvering around both flags, traffic wasn't heavy but we were somehow close to the inlet. That means you have the boaters that speed as soon as they clear the inlet, plus the guys that are done with the day and coming back into the inlet also in a hurry (no sure why). Anyways..... this wasn't a deep dive so for sure would be an hour plus for them, don't know the strength of the current at depth but within 15 minutes the flags were are least 3-400m apart....by the time I picked up the first person that surfaced they were ease 1.5-2km apart.
This tells me that if they would've shared a flag the compromise would've been ridiculous. One diver would have "taken the higher road" and be miserable or both would've give up their style so both would've enjoyed a great deal less than they did. Instead they both came out super happy ready to face the week still as good of friends they were at the time they splashed. No need for "debriefing" which many times is just code for: I hate it when you do this or that.
I can't wait for next weekend... if everything goes right with my sinuses, I'll get to dive with some very cool divers without having to actually dive with them.
