People embarrassed to do pre dive buddy check?

[Nick_Radov]

I was taught to tap on the SPG for gas remaining or signal on the arm, and tap on the computer for NDL. Of course with AI watch computers, that makes things ambiguous. Is there an official standard or do you just decide before the dive?

There should be no need to ask or answer gas remaining during a dive. Gas planning including minimum pressure and turn pressure is part of the pre-dive briefing. Each diver in the team is responsible for monitoring their own gas. The first one to hit turn pressure gives the "turn around" signal and the first one to hit minimum pressure gives the "thumb up" signal. You don't need to complicate things by explaining why you're turning or ending the dive.

 

[Roy_W]

I was taught to tap on the SPG for gas remaining or signal on the arm, and tap on the computer for NDL. Of course with AI watch computers, that makes things ambiguous. Is there an official standard or do you just decide before the dive?

We draw a circle on the palm of the hand when asking how much air the other diver has. Which works regardless of whether AI or a mechanical SPG is used.
We use the same method as you for the NDL.. a tap on the computer. The expected answer being that the other divers signals how many minutes left before reaching NDL. If they have passed the NDL they must then alternately signal the depth + time required for the deco.

 

[Roy_W]

There should be no need to ask or answer gas remaining during a dive. Gas planning including minimum pressure and turn pressure is part of the pre-dive briefing. Each diver in the team is responsible for monitoring their own gas. The first one to hit turn pressure gives the "turn around" signal and the first one to hit minimum pressure gives the "thumb up" signal. You don't need to complicate things by explaining why you're turning or ending the dive.

Personally I prefer receiving someones else remaining gas as it helps understand that everything is going according to plan..

For example, everyone starts with 200 bars with equal sized tanks. Upon reaching 40m or a given point everyone signals their gas.. If someone was down to 120 bars, instead of 150bars for example, then everyone would realise that something is wrong and the dive would be aborted. In my opinion this is far better than presuming that everything is under control.

 

[RobPNW]

Personally I prefer receiving someones else remaining gas as it helps understand that everything is going according to plan..

For example, everyone starts with 200 bars with equal sized tanks. Upon reaching 40m or a given point everyone signals their gas.. If someone was down to 120 bars, instead of 150bars for example, then everyone would realise that something is wrong and the dive would be aborted. In my opinion this is far better than presuming that everything is under control.

In addition to that, if you have a "Hoover" in your group, it's nice to know the dive will be over about 10 minutes sooner than you thought

 

[Tracy]

Honestly, simply asking "is your air on?" would be best. It avoids the stealth mistake, and I believe it's more likely to cause the diver to take a few verification breaths.

As a dive boat captain, I can 100% guarantee you are incorrect. Everybody has their air on when you ask them. I find at least two per weekend that have it turned off when I check it.
That is with a maximum of 24 divers in a weekend. I can't imagine how many are caught on big boats with lots of divers.

 

[SlugLife]

Just need to rant/ talk about some failures of mine.

I believe every rec training agency teaches some sort of pre dive buddy check. Valves open, pressure gauge reading full, regs breathe, inflator inflates, holds hair, deflates, etc.

It seems that almost every dive location I go to, whether it’s a chartered boat, dive at quarry with locals, etc, people don’t do this buddy check.

I dove with new buddies yesterday and explained to them my long hose config and how I would donate in an ooa emergency. The response I got was, “If I run out of air, I did something wrong” I’m thinking yeah, that’s the point of reviewing this stuff. Prepare and have a plan for an emergency, but it’s like they think it’s never going to happen to them so they brush it off.

I will happily and always pre-check ANYONE ELSE who wants a pre-dive check from me. However, I always turn-down buddy-checks, unless I'm literally complete and ready to jump in.

For me, NOT having a buddy check my equipment is SAFER. The important point here is working with my psychi and mentality. Every time I've screwed-up my pre-dive checks, is because of dive-buddies and buddy-checks. I have never screwed up when solo-diving, and solo-checks, which is 95%+ of my diving. Buddy-checks screw up my routine, and distract-me. Secondarily, they also make me semi-reliant on the dive-buddy. I also often find I feel rushed with buddy-checks, as dive-buddies may ask when I'm mostly setup, but before I've done my own pre-dive check.

I dove with new buddies yesterday and explained to them my long hose config and how I would donate in an ooa emergency. The response I got was, “If I run out of air, I did something wrong” I’m thinking yeah, that’s the point of reviewing this stuff. Prepare and have a plan for an emergency, but it’s like they think it’s never going to happen to them so they brush it off.

Some context may be needed to judge. Perhaps not the most "diplomatic" response.

If a brand-new diver said that, they should consider not-diving. For an experienced diver, you can generally build a highly-reliable and intuitive understanding of how much air you have left, based on depth, exertion, and time, even without looking at your gauges. (although you should also watch your gauges anyway) Personally, I dive with my own redundant-air-supply. I've still never come even remotely close to running out, or being caught by surprise on how much air I have left.

I personally much prefer to solo dive personally. Much of your frustration appears to be insta-buddy problems. Metaphorically speaking, act as if your insta-buddy is trying to kill you. I mean maybe don't shoot them in self-defense, but you should generally assume any assistance you'll receive from them isn't worth the paper it's not written on. If you have an air-emergency, they may have wandered off into some cave, or chasing some random fish. Their pre-dive check might as well be "he's wearing a BCD!"

On another dive with a new buddy, I take responsibility to do a pre dive check and everything’s good. This is where I make a mistake, second dive, I don’t check his gear and he giant strides with tank valve closed… his bc had air, so I simply opened his valve when he said his reg didn’t breathe but that could’ve easily ended in drowning if he didn’t fill his bc. I take full responsibility for this. I should’ve checked his gear.

Moderate disagreement. I mean, yes, I will always try to keep other divers safe, do dive-checks, air-sharing, and everything else.

But you can't really save every diver who is hell-bent on getting themselves killed. Every diver should first be 100.0% responsible for their own safety. Perhaps you save them one one dive, but then they drown themselves on the next. Unless you're being paid as an instructor or perhaps DM or guide, whatever you do to assist other insta-buddy divers should always be after you've taken care of that first-responsibility of ensuring your own safety.

This may be a little "cruel pragmatism" (or anti-social) but when I dive with an insta-dive-buddy, I treat it as solo-diving with a buddy-hazard. It's nothing against the dive-buddy. It's just a recognition that I cannot rely on an insta-buddy in an emergency, and I have no idea how reliable, panic-resistant, responsible, etc the dive buddy is. Any time I see an accident-and-incident thread where two divers die, I'm reminded that one diver was likely a buddy-hazard for the other.

When you get to know a dive-buddy, and they're reliable, that dynamic can change of course.

 

[Bigbella]

I am adverse to anyone handling my gear and expect those I dive with to be responsible for themselves -- though I am more than happy answer any hands-off questions.

Years ago, while working overseas, I had been frequently diving with a fellow crew-member, whose very last stage of gearing up had always been pressurizing her tank; so she took it upon herself, in a true dimbo maneuver -- while I was hitting the head -- to also crank my valve, which already happened to be open, without ever asking.

I was down almost ten meters, before I realized that I had no air and had to make an ascent. After sheepishly admitting that she had just been "confused" about the “direction“ of my valve, since she had been seated on the opposite side of a central bench from me, back to back -- and my WTF tirade that would have made Linda Blair blush -- she never touched my gear again . . .

 

[SlugLife]

Let my instabuddy check my air one time after gearing up and heading to back of boat. They turned my air off! I hit the water, had a good breath with the pressure in the line but knew that was it, then reached over my shoulder and turned my air back on. I’ve done several dives now with insta buddies. I cover what I need with them and see what gear they have, but don’t press if they don’t care to ask anything more. In most cases, I’d rather dive solo if that option is available.

Yikes! I'm also a mostly-solo-diver. Nobody touches my equipment as a rule, and I'm anal about that for safety reasons. I avoid people buddy-checking me because I find it distracting, unless I'm actually ready to jump in the water, at which point it doesn't matter. However, any buddy-check would have to be hands off - you can ask me to check my air, but not do it yourself.

When we finished our Rescue Course scenarios at the beach there were two other divers at the shore doing a very formal by the book buddy check. Our instructor told us these would be divers to keep an eye on because if you see someone doing that they are probably very new divers and may have problems.
I've also been told that many buddies who have dived together forever really do a good check, but they know each other (and each other's equipment) so well that it looks really slack and quick.
That's just the way it is. I too have rarely seen formal buddy checks on charters or elsewhere.
Since I always got an "instabuddy", I made sure of two things-- how we drop each other's weights and where each other's octos are. Then a brief talk on the dive plan.
I don't complicate things too much.
Actually two buddies could just stand their and re-check their own equipment instead of each other's I suppose. Would that count the same?

That makes sense that "by the book" is a sign of new divers. It's nothing against by-the-book of course, but a useful observation.

With my "dive-buddies" (we solo-dive), the only dive-check I do is verify their BCD has some air in it, and ask them to verify their air is on. They've jumped in or nearly jumped in with their air off before. It's nothing too dangerous since they're properly weighted, but always an annoyance and potential hazard. If they forget their mask, computer, etc ... well ... they're just doing a "walk of shame" up the boat-ladder.

 

[RobPNW]

I am quite adverse to anyone handling my gear; expect those I dive with to be responsible for themselves -- though I am happy answer most any hands-off question.

I'm no germ-o-phobe but I don't let anyone put my regulator in their mouth unless it's an emergency. So I just show my buddy that I can breath from both regs and ask that person to do the same. Then I would focus on anything that appears out of the "ordinary" like weight pockets vs weight belt, inflator vs air2, primary donate vs octo, air vs nitrox, any diver disabilities etc.

 

[Pearlman]

Years ago, while working overseas, I had been frequently diving with a fellow crew-member, whose last stage of gearing up had always been pressurizing her tank; so she took it upon herself, in a true dimbo maneuver -- while I was hitting the head -- to crank my valve, which was already open, without ever asking.

I skipped the last few pages, but wait what? When did buddy check become touching or meddling with other peoples gear??!! I thought it was always about asking for verbal confirmation while doing a visual inspection of each other’s gear configuration in a memorized sequence.

For me it was the boatman who “helpfully” turned the valve all the way after I opened it fully and went to the bow of the boat just minutes before we were going to don our gear. Thankfully I was watching and reversed it immediately.

The only time I ever touched another persons gear was when I noticed integrated weights for the first time in my life and asked my instabuddy about it for a quick demo (“How do you dump the weights?”). After that brief initial cold stare she remembered to let me… but yeah it can be a challenge with instabuddies who feel they are way more experienced than their instabuddy of the day. People can forget about the possibility that they might become physically incapacitated and unable to perform basic tasks.