Would you let a stranger tag along?

[nkw5]

Ladies,

My female buddy and I were shore diving yesterday in Monterey. A man asked if he could "tag along." We said, sure. We told him our dive plan and started out. This guy lagged so far behind and vis wasn't more than 8 feet in the good parts. Then he decides to grab my buddy's hand and take us off on his own dive plan. She jerks her hand away. He tried 3 times to grab her hand! (Remember, he's a total stranger, and he was coming with us.) He motions "follow" and takes off. In seconds we can't see him. My buddy is ticked and writes, "This was our dive." I motioned to continue on as we planned. She writes, "I don't feel right about leaving x." We waited for a few seconds, and x comes back. I motion buddy and I are going east, did he want to come. He said okay and again started lagging behind, way behind. It's time to head back and we hit a really dark spot thru kelp. It was all I could do to see my buddy and she was one fin length ahead of me. I wasn't stopping to check on x. When it got clear, we stopped and waited for x. He never came out. We waited for a minute and surfaced, totally surrounded by kelp. We were worried because he was the lowest on air. We looked for his bubbles and finally saw him way ahead of us, very close to shore. (I personally think he ditched us.) Now we have to descend to avoid the kelp crawl. I had trouble dumping air from my rear dump and got tangled in kelp. Buddy had to untangle me. After dive, x goes up to buddy and says, "Like that dive?" And she says, "Not really!" in a not so friendly voice.

I'm irked for several reasons: x spoiled our dive (after our boat dive was cancelled for the day so we were already bummed), and x has soured us on diving with strangers. I think the second thing is really sad, because I have dived with strangers before, and they have made the best dive buddies. So I wanna continue to think divers are the greatest people and that there are very few chauvinist, rude divers out there. What d'ya think?

 

[MSilvia]

I'm willing to give a stranger a chance, as I've had both good and bad experiences doing that. I try to be more careful with my screening now than I used to be though... just showing up and asking if you can dive with me isn't going to cut it. I like to have a little conversation first, find out what kind of experience they have, and weigh their skill/ego ratio, etc...

 

[Northeastwrecks]

While it depends on the dive, I strongly prefer to avoid diving with strangers. Its far more stressful than diving with established buddies. IMHO, it also has far to great a chance to turn into the CF you experienced.

If I'm doing a purely recreational level dive (no objectives other than to dive, no deco, no overhead, good conditions) with an established buddy who is also comfortable with the potential buddy, we'll talk with them and check out their rig. If they seem to know what they are doing, are properly equipped for whatever we've planned and won't be able to dive unless we let them join us, then I may give in. However, I make it clear that (1) we are diving as a team; (2) we are diving a plan; and (3) we will stick together and to the plan.

 

[Scuba_John]

Strangers in diving? Best way to handle this one. Pick a leader before hitting the water and with no ands if or butts respect the leader. Basic to what is written above.