Threesome instead of buddies?

[Land Locked]

We commonly dive in groups of 3, 4 and 5 divers. Communication is most important.

I'm really surprised no one has mentioned that with a threesome, if one diver calls the dive, ALL divers call the dive. Ie: diver 1 calls, someone has to keep an eye on that diver, they may have issues at the surface that would require an immediate responce. With larger teams a call can be managed by splitting up.

 

[darylb]

3 really great answers so far.
If the viz sucks that badly, I pull 20' of 3mm perlon line out of my pocket and hand each wingman a looped end around their wrist. I play intermediary in the middle of the line.

Great idea!

ON second thought though, diving with my wife, this would give her the reigns and she'd likely drag me around for the rest of the day.

 

[Thrillhouse]

I got back from our dives yesterday, they went really well. I can see 3 being the ideal number with good divers, as it gives you 4 hands instead of 2 if something goes wrong and, well, it's fun being with two friends underwater.

My buddies, however, were somewhat incompetent, one especially. He kept shooting ahead and my other friend would follow. This situation sucked because we were in an area very rich in animal-life, but we missed it all because of that. Where was he going? Why was he going so fast? I don't know. He's somewhat clueless to begin with, and his diving is an extension of that. As my friend was following him, I had no choice but to follow or be left behind. Neither of them were at all checking behind to see where the other(s) was(were). We got down to 60ft (we're only OW with 12 and 15 dives apiece) and He finally looks back. My tank is at 1000psi, I signal up, gesturing we level off at a shallower depth. He nods, goes up about 10 feet, continues to swim a marathon, and then dives back down deep, going to 65 feet this time. Hmmm. Finally I catch up, signal up. He nods, does the same. FINALLY I give him a very assertive thumbs up and we head up to around 30 ft. After my friend and I were out of air (around 500psi), he decides to continue the dive alone because it's faster to get back to the entry-point that way. I wasn't going to stop him, as it wasn't my life in risk and I'm not his parent.

He even had the nerve to scold me for "diving unsafe" for removing my snorkel from my gear as it's something I never use. Go figure.

 

[mislav]

Thrillhouse - that's some bad dive buddy you had there. In my experience, some people are forever going to stay bad buddies no matter what you do. They never listen or improve. Try to accept them as such and take their diving habits into account on your next dives with them, or preferably - find a new buddy.

What I might suggest in your case is that you make a point of each one of you taking turns as a dive leader on your future dives. I believe someone mentioned this already and it's a great technique for collectively improving skills and learning from each other.

Of course, if he won't listen... forget him. You want your dives to be safe and fun!

 

[ClayJar]

A friend from work just got certified this month. On his first saltwater checkout dives, he was tripled with two others. One diver was decently good (considering they were both on their checkouts), but the other was much like you described.

My friend now has a word for divers such as that. Henceforth, any time he needs to refer to a problem diver (especially one who doesn't pay any attention to anything), said diver will be referred to as a "Bo".

(Unlike the proverbial Bo, my friend and the diver he was buddied with are both quite interested in diving better (and more often), and apparently they're both planning to head back to dive the next checkout trip, coming in a few weeks. Depending on what's going on, I may end up diving with the pair of them, and if I do, I don't think I'll worry much about a bad triple -- if they're diving poorly, I'll just warn them that they're leaning toward Bo-ness. :biggrin