When you say "independent diver" is that the same as "solo diver"?
NO! And "independent diver" is one who has been taught the basic skills to "independently plan and effectuate" a dive -- that is, without having a "diving professional" guide them with either the plan or the dive itself. All "PADI Diving" is with a buddy.
Back to some comments made by Sirena: First of all, IF you are "constantly" looking at/for your buddy, why are you diving? Now I know you really mean: "Look at my guages, look at my buddy, look at the pretty fishies; look at my guages, look at my buddy, look at the pretty fishies; etc." which is how one "dives to stay found." That's how a well trained, comfortable diving team works -- but as you know, that takes time and practice -- and it also takes diving with someone who is on the same dive wavelength as you are. (Of course, as you know, an awful lot of "technical training" is focused on "situational awareness" and you have the benefit of that training -- the "diving" part is second nature to you.)
It seems that this dive was a setup for the problems the OP describes. Wall dives are tough to maintain good buddy awareness for many reasons: buoyancy control needs to be automatic and generally isn't with the inexperienced divers like described and being single file is hard to manage without good lights (requiring someone to turn around to look AND maintain buoyancy is a hard learned skill) -- I'd cut the "leader" a little slack here.
In the OP's case, since he had concerns about losing his "buddiness" (to coin a phrase) he should have changed his position so that he was on her outside shoulder making it possible for her to see him easily. Yes, that may very well hinder the joy of the dive, but, with a little bit of UW communication, you can switch positions periodically and/or when the "inside" diver sees something of interest, stop and invite the "outside" diver in to look. (If a drift dive, of course both divers can be head into the wall and drift it together.)
Re the debrief and the "shame on you" -- I apologize for using that phrase since this is a "flame free" forum. HOWEVER, from the very first pool dive, a PADI student is taught/should be taught that the "debrief" is a very important part of each diving session. It is the time to go over what went well, what perhaps went not so well and how could things have gone better -- i.e., a "teaching moment" for all concerned. It is my experience that one learns a whole lot more when things have NOT gone well (which appears to be the case here) than when the dive is wonderful.
The OP came onto this forum and discussed his unhappiness with this less experienced diver -- why didn't he discuss it with her? At the end of the dive, sit down, have a hot drink to warm up and go over the dive. Even today, it seems like it would still be a good idea to discuss the dive with her -- ask her, Did you like how things went? Were you OK with my "buddy skill?" Do you have any suggestions for me to make it easier for you to know where I am? And, by the way, there were a couple of times when I tried to signal you but I couldn't get your attention -- any suggestions on what I could do there?
I've referred lots of divers on OW courses and I'm English. I've also seen lots of divers who trained with non-English instructors who clearly never made the grade.
