Recreational Dive Poll - Buddy checks

[billt4sf]

Buddy-check?

 

[CWK]

My last recreational course taught self check.

 

[49north]

I have yet to see anyone do any sort of buddy check. We sometimes get funny looks for going through our GUE EDGE.

 

[Hoag]

If I am diving with somebody new, an "insta-buddy", I will do a thorough buddy check especially for the first few dives. I want to know where everything is stored or clipped on, and I want them to know the same about my set-up. If, on the other hand, I am diving with somebody with whom I have been diving for years, then the buddy check will be some variation of "Your air turned on?" "Yup." "Ya ready to jump in?" "Yup." "OK, let's go."

 

[scubadada]

I dive almost entirely solo, I'm responsible for myself. It's been a long time since I jumped in with my gas off or without my weights

 

[Wookie]

Again, having seen a lot of divers jump off a boat, I'd have to say it's very evenly split between divers completely responsible for themselves to divers doing full on buddy checks and everything in between.

 

[Kimela]

My buddy and I do a check, but I don't think anyone could tell that we are doing it - and it's not all necessarily in one shot. I.e., over a period of 15 minutes we might ask one another about weighting, how much air we have, are you sure it's turned on, etc. But we don't sit/stand there and go through the steps all in one shot. I can't say I've ever witnessed another set of divers doing it either, but didn't want to cast a vote knowing that it might be happening anyway.

 

[Akimbo]

I dive almost entirely solo

Me too. I rarely see buddy checks with the people I usually dive around. At best, we are same-ocean-buddies. But most are old-timers like me.

 

[scubadada]

Again, having seen a lot of divers jump off a boat, I'd have to say it's very evenly split between divers completely responsible for themselves to divers doing full on buddy checks and everything in between.

I do a lot of my diving in SE Florida and see a very wide range of divers, rec, OC tec with doubles, rebreathers, just about everything but SM. Easily, the divers I see doing buddy checks most often are the OC tec divers. This is particularly true of the divers from one of the training organizaitons who often do it very formally. The rebreather divers I see are almost always solo.

Frank did a large amount of technical diving off the Spree, that may contribute to his observation of the even split.

 

[Sam Miller III]

In the early very intensive 3 month long LA Co UW instructional program , the Underwater Instructional Certification Course aka UICC it had a program called VIP - aka Visual Inspection Program , long before it was adapted to SCUBA Tank inspection's by John Gaffney's NASDS and now universally accepted VIP.

Every Saturday AM a candidate as selected to be paraded before the class in full SCUBA gear (or as it was called FOG - (Full ocean Gear) for a VIP, with one or more glaring possible problems - straps loose or entangled or some hose not connected - as the program progressed the VIPs progressively became considerably more difficult to identify-- but It was a true example of progressive instruction and most did identify the problems

The students wrote their answers on a 3X5 card for grading then the candidate was once again paraded and the potential problems once again pointed out to the class

After 3 months of VIP all developed techniques for immediate diver checks as well as buddy checks-- some began at the fins and worked up others the top of the head and down with a final over all check of the entire diver.

The LA Co ADP has been lost in the dust of dive instruction, but should be reinstated in to all dive instruction programs and certainly practiced by buddy teams.

I only now dive with my son, who happened to be a NAUI (Life instructor- very few "NAUI Life" ) a PADI instructor and a SSI Pro 5000 diver was well as a ER & Hyperbaric doctor. As we have done for over 40 years we always make a complete head to toe buddy check-- and often a recheck-

Buddy checks apparently is that distant cousin that is mentioned in training but so few perform and if they do it is only a cursory check, then a splash.

I have provably spent entirely too much of my Sunday morning on buddy checks - but it is so important to eliminate problems on the shore or boat by a simple buddy check before entering the water

Sam Miller, 111