Please tell me Who was at fault?

[Gombessa]

Signals can vary depending on who trained you or where you trained. The slow down signal I learned(which also doubles as calm down), is simply both hands in front of you, palm down, raising them and slowly lowering them back down. The added perk on this one is that it's intuitive even if someone hasn't actually been taught the sign.

Yeah, my point wasn't that anyone should adopt that particular signal, just that it would be helpful to have some kind of "slow" signal that everyone understands and agrees to abide by.

 

[Scott L]

ok, i wont state the certification level of the 4 divers in this story as it may sway your opinion, lets say they were all certified divers.
2 guys and 2 girls, 2 guys buddy up and 2 girls buddy up for a shallow (12ft) beach dive.
guy diver #1 is married to girl diver #1, guy diver #2 and girl diver #2 are just friends.

I would shift blame back to your wife. Had she invited a more attractive female diver #2, guy diver #2 would not have ventured too far from her keeping all together...

 

[vladimir]

If the flagman can't trust his wife's safety to her own and her buddy's hands, then he should buddy with her.

As has been already stated, since you explicitly divided into separate buddy teams, the individual teams had no responsibility to keep track of each other. Each team should have had it's own flag, however, which makes me think some sort of foursome was implicit in the plan (I guess we should expect that in Hollywood ). Dive plans should be explicit, not implicit.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Best analysis so far! Thanks Val. We gotta dive together sometime. Now I'm just going out on a limb here but I'm guessing you are a younger couple. As such you may not know that you are in the wrong. Always. If something f's up you did it. You are sorry. She is always correct and you are scum. Now get down on both knees beg her forgiveness for your pigheadedness and promise her that from now on she can lead every dive and you will keep up with her and not lose sight of her. And buy her something shiny. They like that, kinda like crows.

And as a general rule. If diving as buddies or as a group (which just plain sucks) the slowest diver sets the pace. Or the decision is made that everyone will do their own thing and everyone is on their own.

 

[ReefHound]

The flagman should not have stopped, there was no reason. The other male diver should have noticed that he had and stopped. When the other male did not, the flagman should have followed the other male diver and stayed with him. The women are not relevant at this point in the tale.

The girls are absolutely relevant because they did not have a (legally required) dive flag and it sounds like they did not have the experience to be doing this dive on their own. It seems apparent that they were diving as one group of two buddy teams rather than independent buddy teams. The flagman/guide stopped because the girls were falling behind.

Although I still don't understand why the flagman did not signal his buddy to wait with him when he first stopped. Seems to be a serious inability for all of these divers to communicate with each other. Both before, during, and after the dive.

I'm with the camp that says it is the duty of the team to stay with the flagman. Sure it's possible for the flagman to recklessly dart off and make that difficult but that wasn't the case here.

 

[vladimir]

it sounds like they did not have the experience to be doing this dive on their own.

How can you be certified and not be qualified to do a shore dive in 12' of water? There was no mention of adverse conditions, like surf or current, in the OP's account. If not this dive, what does a certification qualify you to do? Cue DCBC

 

[ReefHound]

How can you be certified and not be qualified to do a shore dive in 12' of water? There was no mention of adverse conditions, like surf or current, in the OP's account. If not this dive, what does a certification qualify you to do? Cue DCBC

Maybe they should be but I'm taking my cue from the OP who did not think they were up for it. Certification qualifies you to dive in similar conditions as you trained, I don't know in what conditions they trained. Had they done a shore dive before? Had they dived in salt water before? Did they know how to navigate? Did they even have a compass?

 

[vladimir]

Maybe they should be but I'm taking my cue from the OP who did not think they were up for it. Certification qualifies you to dive in similar conditions as you trained, I don't know in what conditions they trained. Had they done a shore dive before? Had they dived in salt water before? Did they know how to navigate? Did they even have a compass?

Sorry, that's hilarious.

What is easier than a warm-water shore dive to 12' in benign conditions? Were they trained in a bathtub?

If they were trained in fresh water how should they make the quantum leap to salt water? Engage an instructor to do the arithmetic for them?

Did they know how to navigate? They should; they were certified. Even the most bare-bones certification course must include the basic navigation this dive entailed.

Did they have a compass? They should, but actually, in 12' of water, all the navigation that is required is the ability to swim in a straight line. When you reach your turn pressure, pop your head above the surface, face the shore, duck back under, and swim--repeat as necessary.

 

[Anh]

Buddy with your wife, so you won't be in a dilemma next time...

ok, i wont state the certification level of the 4 divers in this story as it may sway your opinion, lets say they were all certified divers.
2 guys and 2 girls, 2 guys buddy up and 2 girls buddy up for a shallow (12ft) beach dive.
guy diver #1 is married to girl diver #1, guy diver #2 and girl diver #2 are just friends.
so the plan is to submerge when possible and head out to the reef then after we hit the reef go south till the first diver gets to 1500psi and then head back in, guy diver #1 is the flagman who is leading the dive.15 mins into the dive the girls are falling behind bearing in mind the guys are not going fast.the flag man realizes the girls are falling behind and slows down, now the #2 guy diver is still going forward, the flagman is hoping his dive buddy notices this and too slows down for the girls and his dive buddy (flagman), he does not slow down and now he is fading ahead in the distant. the flagman is in a dialema, does he wait for his wife or does he catch up to his dive buddy who is not paying attention to losing his dive buddy risking losing sight of his wife and her dive buddy? the 2 girl divers must have turned or stopped now the flagman can not see his dive buddy or the 2 girl divers.
The flagman decides to turn back to ensure that his wife is ok,he travels in the direction that he last saw the 2 girl divers, on the way he is thinking his dive buddy has over 300 dives under his belt so he should know to come to the surface and locate the dive flag and swim to the flag. however, the 2 girl divers are least experienced certified divers and one of the girls being his wife will be the most important to him at this time.
he can not find the two girl divers for 1 min so he surfaces and looks for bubbles and does not see anything so he waits and waits, his dive buddy does not surface in the 7 mins that the flagman is on the surface nor do the 2 girl divers.so now there are 3 divers out there with no flag and one diver down, shouldn't they all surface in the 12ft water to locate the flag man?
The flagman is the first to exit the water and waits knowing that the other 3 divers still in the water have plenty of air so he does not raise an alarm.
Then shortly after the 3 remaining divers exit the water together, the wife blames the husband/flagman that he left them whilst guy diver # 2 and girl diver # 2 said nothing.

I know allot of you may say you shouldn't have lost each other in the first place and your right, i already know this and i always apply this to every dive i do.My wife and i argue about this all the time and cannot come to a solution or an agreement over it. its been over a year since this happened, now she wont dive with me because she said i left her behind even though i wasn't her dive buddy, i did turn around for her but she was out of sight.

Please can someone shed some light on this and advise me who was at fault so we can put this behind us. whether your and instructor or just got freshly certified.
Please.

 

[Anh]

Just assure your wife you will never more be more than an inch away from her on the surface, under the surface, and whereever else, and give you a chance to prove it...

But if you are still arguing about it after a year, you have greater problems on your hands, bud.