Reku
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Planning, Execution and follow through are the most important parts of solo diving - do these well and you will survive to dive another day. As others have said - take small steps.
Solo Diving!!!
- Thread starter kodo
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Kharon
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Just how do you improve the buddy skills of someone else? It's not my skills I'm worried about. It's the muppet I'm diving with that will get me killed.
Bob DBF
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As I said in my last post, you plan the dive before you splash and have a nice long talk afterwards, most people want to be better divers. I'm not the "warm and fuzzy" type, but more often than not the second dive, if the diver hasn't stormed off, is much better. When someone is not trained well and/or expected to dive well, rarely will they get better without help and a better example.
As for a muppet killing someone underwater, I doubt if they could take out anyone aside from another muppet, unless you let them prepare your gear for you, and that's a stretch.
Bob
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oldschoolto
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This is what I'm talking about... If your buddy is not able to take care of themselves, How the hell are they going to be any use to me.. When I was diving with my wife for the 50 dives after her OW card, She was not my BUDDY... She was a student that I was baby sitting... She was learning to be a solo diver... We spent a lot of time working on skills.. And , I would give her stuff out of the blue... Today she is a buddy... She's a real WRECK diver... She really knows how to NAVIGATE... She knows how to deal with a diver in distress...
I think it was Bob "Grateful Diver" that said to a dive boat captain in Hawaii that he would need to be paid and comped the dive fee's for the day if they wanted him to buddy dive with a new diver... BECAUSE IT"S BABY SITTING... NOT BUDDY DIVING..
Jim...
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I do it all the time ... because I make it a point to "adopt" newer divers as dive buddies and help them learn how to improve their diving skills.
As an example, yesterday my dive buddy was on his first-ever dive in doubles. The purpose of our dive was supposed to be to help him get his trim and buoyancy control in the new configuration. But we spent the greater part of our post dive discussion talking about buddy positioning. It's not that there was a lot "wrong" with what he was doing ... but it was obvious to me that there were some things that could make it better that he hadn't really given a whole lot of thought to in terms of positioning and spacing. And we're in the midst of our first seasonal plankton bloom, so visibility is somewhere on the order of a body length above 50 feet ... so spacing and positioning become very important.
Simple answer to your question ... "just how do you improve the buddy skills of someone else" ... you go diving with them, then talk to them about things you're not comfortable with. Spacing and positioning are just two of the things you might want to talk about ... others could include descent/ascent techniques, swimming speed, eye contact, use of signals (including lights if you carry them), and mental aspects such as thinking in terms of "our" dive rather than "my" dive.
Buddy skills are predominantly based on how you think about your dive ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
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Yes I did say that, but not because I considered it baby sitting ... it was because they automatically assumed that due to my instructor cert they could pair me up with their least experienced diver. Under different circumstances I would have been delighted to take that person diving. But not on a dive where I'm paying a lot of money to get a certain level of service out of the dive op.
We were all babies at one point ... and somebody had to baby sit us while we gained experience. As an experienced diver, I'm happy to dive with newer divers under what I consider appropriate circumstances. Going out on an expensive charter isn't one of those circumstances.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
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There is the tipping point for me. If there is a real reason for it to be "our dive" then it really will be and I will do my very best to meet the team standard. I rarely dive that way, it is unnerving.
If not, then it is solo. Solo is an absolute, there is no "mostly" solo. When I dive solo there is no long hose anymore and no watching out for anybody else either. If I happen upon a fellow diver in distress, I'll do my very best with what I brought for me.
BDSC
Contributor
Same here. I have been solo diving for several years even though I've never taken a solo course but I believe common sense, assuming a person has some, can carry you a long way.
I typically keep my solo dives to a max of 50ft or less and usually it's around the 25 to 30ft range. It's generally going to be in easy diving conditions like Bonaire, Little Cayman, Roatan, etc. I carefully pick my solo dives spots but have no reservations when I decide to go solo.
oldschoolto
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But, You are a mentor... I'm all for being a mentor... But don't use the word "BUDDY DIVING"... Because they are a student and you are a teacher... If I was on a dive boat and they said to me... This is your buddy, And they clearly were not Buddy caliber... I'm going to say NO... Now if someone came to me and asked If I would Mentor them... THE ANSWER IS ALMOST ALWAYS YES... I love helping people become better divers...
On the last trip to Bonaire in February, I was coming out of the water from the Hilma Hooker when 2 guys started talking to me and the wife... They were asking about the wreck and how to dive it... I asked how experienced they were , And they replied " We're very good divers , One had 22 dives and the other had 26 " ... I said OH
.... Then offered to take them on the dive with Fran watching one and I'd watch over the other... Did our surface time and had a great time taking them safely down to the hooker... I could have just shook my head and made a face as they tried it on their own, They were smart and learned... Jim...
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