Saving Myself from my Buddy

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He was a highly selected instabuddy, though, Peter. Not an unknown quantity at all.
 
Just got caught up on this thread. I didn't catch the part about giving up your husband as a buddy, I thought you two took on a third. Everyone here is going on about the guy claiming DIR, let's get back to the fact that you gave up a known buddy for some unknown. May I ask what were you thinking? Were you working? Were you not on vacation? Did you have to babysit? I'll bet the answer to those questions was NO. There we are back to that word again.

Tonight, when no one else is around, go into the bathroom, stand in front of the mirror, and practice saying NO. Try different inflections, different faces, the stern look, the puzzled look, whatever works best for you. Make your husband practice also, at his size it shouldn't be too hard for him. Might even keep him out of trouble when he's out with the boys.

I find diving to be a very personal experience. There are not too many people I will consider buddying up with. Many times I will dive solo. There are some people I will babysit, but they are close friends. I've actually said no to people on boats who wanted to buddy with me and my wife. They looked at me like I was some kind of monster, they got over it.
 
Still another situation where an "insta-buddy" created a problem. The number of cases where this has occurred, documented on this board alone, over the past six years or so should make any vacation diver extremely reluctant to be paired up with another diver on a boat.

It might be one thing to identify a single diver on the shore, and do a quick check-out dive to see whether you might be compatible with them. But to meet up with someone on the boat, and 15 minutes later drop into the open ocean with them, is insane.

I'm sorry this happened to you, and glad that you came out of it relatively unscathed.

Seems like you will be diving with your husband from now on, no? :wink:

Hope the rest of your dives are never this eventful!

Doc

The problem is that many of us don't have a choice. I usually travel with my mom (non-diver) so the choice is insta-buddy or don't dive at all. Even locally, I usually dive with SBers that I have never met before because I don't have any friends that dive.

Although in this instance the OP did have a choice, and like many of you, I am still scratching my head as to why she agreed to dive with this guy over her husband. :confused:
 
The OP had me laughing outloud... even my cat has come over to read it!

I feel your angst. I have the good pleasure of diving with MANY, MANY insta-buddies, mostly because of ScubaBoard! Most are great and obviously think things through, but there are a few that scare the bejeebers out of me.

I approach each and every dive as if I were diving solo because of that. I have an exit strategy as well as my buddy's exit strategy figured out. However, being put in your position it would be hard to NOT rabbit punch him (sorry Ber) during the initial ascent.
 
Maybe you should have gone all Sea Hunt on his azz and cut his air hose! :D

That's not fair... Mike Nelson and the dives in the show were wearing double hose regulators and only the exhaust side was cut.

I share the question about why the OP gave up her usual buddy to dive with this guy.

I have had a number of "insta buddies" while traveling internationally that "ruined" my dives in terms of my dive goals. They fall into two types:

(1) the ones that overstate their qualifications and/or ignore the rules set down by the divemaster and the plan we set down before descending. These are hard for me to tolerate.

(2) the ones that acknowledged before we agreed to dive together that they had issues with their diving such as being air hogs. Although that may have prevented me from completing what I desired on the dive, I had accepted them as buddies knowing their limitations and felt nothing negative towards them when the expectations they laid out ahead of time were realized.
 
I'd still rather dive with the second kind of diver, Bill. At least they are forthright and I know what to expect from them. I can't say I'd have much restraint towards the kind of buddy that DD had. Yeesh...

I used to hog through my air, and diving with new divers who do it, is generally no problem for me. Usually, they feel bad about ending the dive earlier than everyone else, and are apologetic. I end up having to reassure them that I honestly don't mind, and that they will improve with experience.
 
I don't know about DIR -- but nothing he did was taught in PADI rescue class either.

PADI specifically tells their rescue students to not rip an air source out of a breathing diver's mouth as that's a great way to kill someone.

PADI specifically teaches to not dump weights and ascend unless there's compelling reason as an overly rapid, or worse, out of control ascent can create far more problems than it will solve.

PADI specifically teaches to not force your help on someone who is not in distress.

PADI specifically teaches that after rescuing someone, never make a big deal out of it as that's a great way to embarass or humiliate the person who needed rescuing (let along the person who didn't).

Forget DIR. This guy couldn't pass any NAUI or PADI rescue course out there.
 
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