Richesb
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A good buddy is simply another diver you can rely on in a critical situation - who doesn't create a critical situation.
What is a "good" dive buddy?
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pilot fish
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Where would you be diving in the New York area in the Spring? The water has not even begun to warm up then. Trust me, that is not something you want to do.
Just tell your friend the truth, you would not be good for EACH OTHER because you are both new divers. Tell him that you BOTH need a buddy that has more experience than you each have. If he's smart, he'll agree.
What dive shop in NY area are you using?
ian@1904
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Ones that don't put you under pressure to start a dive that you feel uncomfortable with.
Ones that don't grumble when you are cold and want to end a dive.
Ones that do check your kit during a buddy check
Points out interesting sights on the dive
Don't swim off without letting you know
Ones that don't grumble when you are cold and want to end a dive.
Ones that do check your kit during a buddy check
Points out interesting sights on the dive
Don't swim off without letting you know
This is why I think learning to dive at home is important. It gives you a close site that you are familiar with where you can go back and practice. I also believe new divers should do one extra dive at their check-out site with their buddy but without any instructor/DM/etc in the water the same day they finish their final check-out dive. That first dive on your own is scary but it also shows you "Hey, I really CAN do this." Same thing with your first dive with a new buddy. Go to a site you know and do an easy shallow dive. You are certified to dive in conditions similar to those in which you trained. There is no shame in wanting a nice easy dive to get used to being buddies, if he has a problem with that then no, I wouldn't dive with him.
I will never forget the day a diver I didn't know walked up to our picnic table and asked if we could answer a question. He had 5 dives (just certified), his friend had 7 dives and a third diver had 9 dives. Mr. 9 Dives wanted to go to 80 feet at the local site and Mr. 5 Dives wasn't sure this was a good idea so he asked us. The look on his face when I said "You're going to die" let me know he was going to heed our advice. This site requires an advanced certification, a deep dive plan and deep experience or instructor supervision to dive the deep part of the quarry. My buddy, also an instructor explained all that to Mr. 5 Dives and we offered to change our dive plan and take them with us to 60 feet. My buddy chided me for telling the kid he was going to die but after diving with them to 60 feet we both saw I was right. We gave them some things to work on and told them to get some shallow practice. Mr. 9 Dives was by far the worst of the three divers and the one who didn't want to ask anyone for advice.
Ber :lilbunny:
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ScubaAddictedLisa
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Oooh, where can I find the buddy who will pay my way!?!?!?! Just kidding!!
Someone you can trust your life with...
...and not be disappointed...
...and not be disappointed...
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Here's an article I wrote a few months back that might be helpful ...
Hey, Where'd my buddy go?
by Bob Bailey
I watched it happen … standing on the beach at one of my favorite dive sites and looking out I saw a lone diver surface. Watching to see what he’s up to I watch him look around for a couple of minutes, then submerge. A few seconds later, another lone diver surfaces 100 feet away. He does the same thing. A few seconds later the first diver pops back to the surface again. I holler out and tell him to wait on the surface … his dive buddy will be right back. He waits, and in a few minutes, the two are reunited.
We’ve all heard horror stories about the buddy of circumstance … aka the “buddy from hell” … the guy who gets in the water without a clue or a care, doesn’t follow the dive plan, or quickly gets separated from his dive buddy. Such divers are the bane of a dive vacation, in particular, because they frequently end up causing you to cut your dive short, or spend some stressful minutes underwater at a time when you’re paying big bucks trying to have a good time and maximize your bottom time.
And sometimes, perhaps, we are that buddy … even though we may not want to be.
So why does it happen? What can we do to make sure we’re NOT that buddy? And what can we do to help assure that the person we get paired up with on the dive boat isn’t either?
First off, let’s start with the assumption that most divers WANT to be good dive buddies. Perhaps they never got the skills to know how to be one. Perhaps they covered the skills, but aren’t in the water often enough to be comfortable executing them. The reasons are as diverse as the knowledge, skills, and motivation of the individual divers themselves.
What I’d like to do is begin a discussion on what causes people to be poor dive buddies, and what we can do to help solve the problem.
Let’s start by looking at what I believe to be the biggest single contributor to poor buddy skills … awareness. Diving isn’t “natural” to us as human beings. Besides the fact that it puts us in a physical orientation we’re not used to (horizontal vs the vertical position we spend most of our waking time in), it also puts limits on one of our most important feedback loops … our vision. We’re used to being able to perceive things that are going on around us by using our peripheral vision … essentially a 180-degree field of view in which we can see and respond to things going on around us. Putting a dive mask on our face reduces our field of view to less than a third of what we’re used to. By narrowing our visual range, we inhibit our awareness and therefore our ability to respond to what’s going on around us. We have to learn a new behavior … that of turning our head from side to side to see what’s in our peripheral view, rather than simply moving our eyes. At first it takes conscious effort. Eventually it becomes more natural, and our ability to extend our awareness improves. So our skills, as a diver, must include teaching ourselves to look around more often than we’re used to doing.
Now that we’re looking around, what are we looking FOR? Well, our buddy, obviously. Are they in a position where we can see them easily? Are we in a position where they can see us easily? One thing that has always baffled me about popular dive instruction is that most instructors teach buddy teams the “lead-follow” style of diving … where one buddy swims behind the other. This is great for the person in the back … they can keep constant vigilance on their dive buddy quite easily. But it’s not so good for the person in front … as they haven’t yet invented a dive mask with a rear-view mirror. The diver in the front constantly has to turn around to check on their dive buddy … and that’s a pain. Because it’s a pain, the diver in the front is unlikely to be doing it very often. We develop a “trust” that our dive buddy will be there when we turn around to look … and that’s not always a good assumption to make. Suppose the dive buddy stops to look at something. Will you know to stop also? Or will you keep swimming, assuming that your buddy is still behind you? For this reason, in most open water situations, it’s better for two divers to swim shoulder-to-shoulder … or as we like to say, swim to be seen. When swimming side-by-side, two divers can easily and continuously keep track of each other simply by turning their head to look at each other. Even wearing a dive mask you will have a wide enough field of view to be able to see your buddy … and to “miss” him or her if they are suddenly not in your field of view when you turn your head slightly. Your ability to respond more quickly to their actions or hand signals is improved greatly.
Now we’re in a position to be seen … what else can we do? Or what if we’re diving a wall or a wreck … where side-by-side isn’t really practical? Well, in many situations, that’s where a good dive light comes in handy. A dive light can be an “extension” of the diver. Shining it where it’s easily seen by your dive buddy tells him you’re there … if they can see your light shining on the bottom or on a surface nearby, then they know you are not very far away. We call that “passive communication” … giving your dive buddy a visual cue as to your whereabouts. Dive lights can also be used for active communication, using signals analogous to those you normally provide with your hands.
Other things we can do to be good dive buddies? Slow down! Many divers … especially newer ones … tend to swim pretty fast. Sometimes it’s because swimming fast makes buoyancy control (seemingly) easier. Sometimes it’s just what we were taught to do. One of the selling points for many of the more expensive models of fins on the market is the “speed test”. But what’s the hurry? You may not even see that octopus or sea horse that’s sitting right there in plain sight … because you just blew right past it. Going slow has a lot of benefits … from improved air consumption, to seeing more, to giving your buddy a lot more of an opportunity to share your dive with you. Consider this … the faster you go, the quicker it’s possible to lose your dive buddy. I’ve seen it happen time and again … one buddy sees something, stops to take a look, looks up to show their buddy, and the buddy is nowhere in sight … he kept going and didn’t even realize that his dive buddy had stopped.
So these are some simple things that every diver can use, practice, and make an every-dive part of their routine … look around … swim to be seen … make use of a dive light when possible … and slow down.
There are other aspects of diving that can also be used to avoid buddy separations … making, discussing, and sticking to a dive plan … descending and ascending while facing each other … communicating with each other during the dive … and myriad others. I leave it for some of you to discuss them.
By knowing, and using, these techniques … most diver separations that occur would never happen …
… Bob (Grateful Diver)
Hey, Where'd my buddy go?
by Bob Bailey
I watched it happen … standing on the beach at one of my favorite dive sites and looking out I saw a lone diver surface. Watching to see what he’s up to I watch him look around for a couple of minutes, then submerge. A few seconds later, another lone diver surfaces 100 feet away. He does the same thing. A few seconds later the first diver pops back to the surface again. I holler out and tell him to wait on the surface … his dive buddy will be right back. He waits, and in a few minutes, the two are reunited.
We’ve all heard horror stories about the buddy of circumstance … aka the “buddy from hell” … the guy who gets in the water without a clue or a care, doesn’t follow the dive plan, or quickly gets separated from his dive buddy. Such divers are the bane of a dive vacation, in particular, because they frequently end up causing you to cut your dive short, or spend some stressful minutes underwater at a time when you’re paying big bucks trying to have a good time and maximize your bottom time.
And sometimes, perhaps, we are that buddy … even though we may not want to be.
So why does it happen? What can we do to make sure we’re NOT that buddy? And what can we do to help assure that the person we get paired up with on the dive boat isn’t either?
First off, let’s start with the assumption that most divers WANT to be good dive buddies. Perhaps they never got the skills to know how to be one. Perhaps they covered the skills, but aren’t in the water often enough to be comfortable executing them. The reasons are as diverse as the knowledge, skills, and motivation of the individual divers themselves.
What I’d like to do is begin a discussion on what causes people to be poor dive buddies, and what we can do to help solve the problem.
Let’s start by looking at what I believe to be the biggest single contributor to poor buddy skills … awareness. Diving isn’t “natural” to us as human beings. Besides the fact that it puts us in a physical orientation we’re not used to (horizontal vs the vertical position we spend most of our waking time in), it also puts limits on one of our most important feedback loops … our vision. We’re used to being able to perceive things that are going on around us by using our peripheral vision … essentially a 180-degree field of view in which we can see and respond to things going on around us. Putting a dive mask on our face reduces our field of view to less than a third of what we’re used to. By narrowing our visual range, we inhibit our awareness and therefore our ability to respond to what’s going on around us. We have to learn a new behavior … that of turning our head from side to side to see what’s in our peripheral view, rather than simply moving our eyes. At first it takes conscious effort. Eventually it becomes more natural, and our ability to extend our awareness improves. So our skills, as a diver, must include teaching ourselves to look around more often than we’re used to doing.
Now that we’re looking around, what are we looking FOR? Well, our buddy, obviously. Are they in a position where we can see them easily? Are we in a position where they can see us easily? One thing that has always baffled me about popular dive instruction is that most instructors teach buddy teams the “lead-follow” style of diving … where one buddy swims behind the other. This is great for the person in the back … they can keep constant vigilance on their dive buddy quite easily. But it’s not so good for the person in front … as they haven’t yet invented a dive mask with a rear-view mirror. The diver in the front constantly has to turn around to check on their dive buddy … and that’s a pain. Because it’s a pain, the diver in the front is unlikely to be doing it very often. We develop a “trust” that our dive buddy will be there when we turn around to look … and that’s not always a good assumption to make. Suppose the dive buddy stops to look at something. Will you know to stop also? Or will you keep swimming, assuming that your buddy is still behind you? For this reason, in most open water situations, it’s better for two divers to swim shoulder-to-shoulder … or as we like to say, swim to be seen. When swimming side-by-side, two divers can easily and continuously keep track of each other simply by turning their head to look at each other. Even wearing a dive mask you will have a wide enough field of view to be able to see your buddy … and to “miss” him or her if they are suddenly not in your field of view when you turn your head slightly. Your ability to respond more quickly to their actions or hand signals is improved greatly.
Now we’re in a position to be seen … what else can we do? Or what if we’re diving a wall or a wreck … where side-by-side isn’t really practical? Well, in many situations, that’s where a good dive light comes in handy. A dive light can be an “extension” of the diver. Shining it where it’s easily seen by your dive buddy tells him you’re there … if they can see your light shining on the bottom or on a surface nearby, then they know you are not very far away. We call that “passive communication” … giving your dive buddy a visual cue as to your whereabouts. Dive lights can also be used for active communication, using signals analogous to those you normally provide with your hands.
Other things we can do to be good dive buddies? Slow down! Many divers … especially newer ones … tend to swim pretty fast. Sometimes it’s because swimming fast makes buoyancy control (seemingly) easier. Sometimes it’s just what we were taught to do. One of the selling points for many of the more expensive models of fins on the market is the “speed test”. But what’s the hurry? You may not even see that octopus or sea horse that’s sitting right there in plain sight … because you just blew right past it. Going slow has a lot of benefits … from improved air consumption, to seeing more, to giving your buddy a lot more of an opportunity to share your dive with you. Consider this … the faster you go, the quicker it’s possible to lose your dive buddy. I’ve seen it happen time and again … one buddy sees something, stops to take a look, looks up to show their buddy, and the buddy is nowhere in sight … he kept going and didn’t even realize that his dive buddy had stopped.
So these are some simple things that every diver can use, practice, and make an every-dive part of their routine … look around … swim to be seen … make use of a dive light when possible … and slow down.
There are other aspects of diving that can also be used to avoid buddy separations … making, discussing, and sticking to a dive plan … descending and ascending while facing each other … communicating with each other during the dive … and myriad others. I leave it for some of you to discuss them.
By knowing, and using, these techniques … most diver separations that occur would never happen …
… Bob (Grateful Diver)
My take on a good buddy:
For me, there are two categories. First would be your personal buddy. This is the person that you dive with all the time. It may be a friend, spouse, relative or (dive related business) associate. This person knows who the leader is but is also confident in their own right. They know your strengths and your limitations as well as you know theirs. Communication is instinctive and decisions are mutual. They would also sacrifice a great deal to save your life, and you would do the same for them.
If you have one of these precious buddies, count yourself among the very fortunate.
The second category is the occasional or instant buddy. These are club members, occasional dive buddies, acquaintances and strangers you just met on the dive trip. In these you will find all ranges of competencies and experiences. Their personalities range from arrogant braggarts to the nicest people you have ever met. You decision to dive with these people is up to you. Your life may depend not on their dive and buddy skills but more on your ability to ferret out the right person to dive with and a little dumb luck.
I count myself very fortunate as my perma-buddy is my own lovely bride.
For me, there are two categories. First would be your personal buddy. This is the person that you dive with all the time. It may be a friend, spouse, relative or (dive related business) associate. This person knows who the leader is but is also confident in their own right. They know your strengths and your limitations as well as you know theirs. Communication is instinctive and decisions are mutual. They would also sacrifice a great deal to save your life, and you would do the same for them.
If you have one of these precious buddies, count yourself among the very fortunate.
The second category is the occasional or instant buddy. These are club members, occasional dive buddies, acquaintances and strangers you just met on the dive trip. In these you will find all ranges of competencies and experiences. Their personalities range from arrogant braggarts to the nicest people you have ever met. You decision to dive with these people is up to you. Your life may depend not on their dive and buddy skills but more on your ability to ferret out the right person to dive with and a little dumb luck.
I count myself very fortunate as my perma-buddy is my own lovely bride.
A good dive buddy keeps you in his/her sight at all times and is comfortable and competent enough to assist you in an emergency situation. A good dive buddy plans the dive with you and sticks to the plan. A good dive buddy makes sure you get back on the boat (or back to shore) at the end of the dive.
Don't mistake your buddy for a crutch. You must be equally as good a buddy to your buddy. No good buddy wants to dive with a bad buddy... although some buddy will dive with any buddy. Choose wisely.
Don't mistake your buddy for a crutch. You must be equally as good a buddy to your buddy. No good buddy wants to dive with a bad buddy... although some buddy will dive with any buddy. Choose wisely.
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