Yipe! My significant buddy's dad just invited himself along!

[ClayJar]

Okay, so here's the story: My significant buddy, J., is off teaching English in Japan, so I've been relegated to diving with her older sister, Rachel. Rachel absolutely sips air (makes me feel bad, almost ), has spot-on buoyancy and trim, and has taken the effort to learn all sorts of useful things. We can use one-handed numbers and other optimized communication methods with impunity. All told, we're very well matched for buddy diving, and we've planned a trip to Blue Water in Pelham, AL, this weekend, as she's never been to a quarry.

Enter their dad. He was certified a long, long time ago, and he refreshed last year and has done a few Florida trips and a Cozumel week since then. He breathes his tank down like it was a SpareAir (the 1.7cf one, even), and his trim varies from vertical to slightly leaning. (His buoyancy isn't terrible anymore, but his splits and trim easily couple to make for a silt-storm.) He has not learned our numbers, and he has a tendency to wander off. Oh, and I found out this morning that he's invited himself on our quarry trip (and his wife is in favor -- she's a Cozumelian diver and as such wouldn't really want to go to a cold, dim quarry).

So, I have a question to whom it may not concern much: What would *you* do to make the weekend's diving work as well as possible?

My ideas:

• Grab an AL100, pronto! (I think it's the largest tank I can borrow, and it'll at least help our dive last a bit longer.)
• Serious weight check. (If we get him to the appropriate amount of weight, it'll help a lot.)
• Get the guy trimmed. (His weight-integrated BC has trim pockets, and I've got a spare weight pocket I can add to his strap or tank neck, and trim will help his air consumption *and* keep the bottom where it belongs.)
• Buddy him with Rachel. (We'll dive together, but I'll lead solo and have them solely responsible for each other -- I'd buddy with him, but Rachel isn't geared or trained for solo diving; I am.)
• Drill our communication methods into him. (One-handed numbers are easy enough to learn, and we'll go slowly for him.)
• If all else fails, pawn him off. (Okay, that's probably not going to work, but I'm just saying that if somebody has to go to pick up lunch... )

What else can we do to help him out? He's basically a novice diver, and he doesn't really listen well, but I actually think we have this one shot at getting a lot of his problems fixed (although that could be a reaction to the *amazingly* delicious 11-year Wisconsin sharp cheddar my parents brought for me from their vacation... that was *SOOOOO* good). If we could actually help him acquire the fundamentals, he could turn out to be a useful dive buddy asset (he has a small boat after all), and since we really don't have any choice but to dive with him, we may as well try to get things done. ("If you're falling off a cliff, you may as well try to fly -- you've got nothing to lose." --jms, Babylon 5)

His dive profile: Not counting whatever he did many years ago, he's been on five dives in Florida springs, one dive at the St. Andrews jetties at Panama City Beach, eight boat dives in the Gulf, and one 13-dive Cozumel trip. He's just an OW diver. His deepest dives were about 50' fresh, 70' Gulf, and 85' Cozumel; his coldest dives were 68°F; his longest were... short... maybe 45 minutes. When dry, he thinks he really enjoys diving, although he's often not that interested in the second (or more) shore dive. His gear is all the good stuff the LDS sold him, i.e. splits, AIR II, wireless computer, integrated BC -- all decent and diveable, but he'd have no idea if you asked him the pros and cons (i.e. he's a normal diver and not a ScubaBoard member).

 

[jepuskar]

Is the older sister cute?

 

[Firefyter]

Use the quarry time to help him trim out and get his weight right. If you can manage this, not only will his air comsumption improve, but he'll thank you after his next blue water trip. It's amazing how much more fun he'll have when he's not silting up the bottom and feels more streamlined in the water. Others who dive with him will thank you as well.

 

[CAPT HOOK]

If you are an adult(?), tell him straight out what you see as areas that need improvement and offer to help him correct them. If he can't handle a bit of constructive critism maybe you should refuse to dive with him.
Just MHO.

 

[spectrum]

Play the safety card.

You and Rachel have become a tuned buddy pair (What is J returning to?) and have your act together. Diving as a three some is never optimal but it can be made to work as long as visibility is reasonable. Since you have not been diving as a threesome (I assume) but are investing time away in diving you need to risk proof it. Tell him that you and Rachel need to go diving with him locally to get in sync so you'll be safe and effective when you hit the quarry.

I'd hate to be spending time away mucking around with remeidal dive instruction and configuration optimization. You'll need to walk the line here but you will either make him into a tolerable buddy pre-trip or he'll decide that you two are not compatible with his diving and he'll stay home.

Getting the 100 CF is a good hedge against a heavy breather. Be sure that the cylinder change does not throw him off even more. One more reason for the pre-trip dive day.

I don't know what a southern quarry is like but ours are cold, dark and deep. Once you go down a thermo-cline or 2 it's nighttime with near wintertime cold. This may be more adventure than a warm water diver really has an interest in.

In any case be careful, he could be your future father-in-law.

Another thought that comes to mind is to insist on diving only in pairs. make some sort of rotation. That way you get to dive at ease with Rachel, dad gets his time in the water and any of you can go solo or with an insta-buddy as you choose to when you are the odd diver.

This is a time for Picard, not Kirk.

Pete

 

[nolatom]

All good ideas. He's got almost 30 recent dives, so it's time for his trim and air use to start getting better.

Hold off on making him use the one-handed signals, it's one extra task he doesn't need this weekend. Use whatever signals he already uses, or just agree to show each other your gauges at 2000, 1500, etc. If he's such an air hog, you'll need to know his signals, he really won't need to know yours, at least as to psi. And agreeing to check gauges visually may keep him from "wandering off".

Ask him to position himself just above you. If he has to keep looking down for you rather than up or sideways, it may help him keep more horizontal trim.

Long-term: find him a safe, reliable, air-hog buddy, and you're golden.

 

[ClayJar]

I'd much rather not have to deal with remedial dive instruction (well, "mentoring", if "instruction" is a loaded word), but it seems as if it's the card I've been dealt. There's no time to work out anything ahead of time, as he remoraed himself onto the trip last night/this morning and we leave tonight. (There's no way to diplomatically pop him off the roster, as he's J.'s dad and offending him just now isn't something I can risk.) Since his addition to the weekend is a foregone conclusion, I'm just trying to mitigate the actual or potential downsides.

I'm certainly aware of the different buoyancy and weighting issues throwing an AL100 into the mix will add, but as he has never spent the time to lock in proper weighting and trim with his AL80s, there's nothing lost by using the larger tanks. (If Rachel and I got to dive AL100s, we'd obviously have to make adjustments.)

The quarry is fairly cold, but not nearly as cold as other quarries and lakes I've been in. Probably 50s (my computer said 61°F on a dive, but it was lagging and probably on too tight). The bottom on the side of the quarry where most of the fun stuff is makes it to about 85' (with all but a few "wrecks" more in the 20-50' range). The several times I've been to the quarry, I've been impressed at how clear it is and how much light is still present at 85'. Rachel and I were going to pop over the road bed and decend along the gentle slope to the century mark so she can do a narc test (so she can see how much or little it affects her), but if her dad's along, we'll have to see whether we're both confident in him.

This is a time for Picard, not Kirk.

Ha! Excellent. (And so apropos on this, the 40th anniversary.)

nolatom: We'll certainly be checking his air ourselves, but the last time we were all in the water (Rachel, her mom and dad, and myself), his attempts to signal just plain didn't work. Using two hands or flashing fingers to try to say what you've got left is not a tenable position, and one-handed numbers are easy enough. One through five are given palm toward the reader and hand to the side (like taking an oath of office), and six through ten are given palm toward the signaler and hand in front (like rubbing your tummy); zero is the normal zero signal. With this system, it's one signal per digit, making it completely timing-independant (unlike the flashing 10-20-30-40-50-7 style), night-compatible (shine the light with one hand, signal with the other), and orientation-insensitive (works as well inverted as upright). Both J. and Rachel picked it up with very little difficulty (just a bit slow the first couple dives), and their dad is quite intelligent. Shouldn't be hard to pick up.

 

[Charlie99]

......we've planned a trip to Blue Water in Pelham, AL, this weekend, as she's never been to a quarry.


My ideas:

• Grab an AL100, pronto! (I think it's the largest tank I can borrow, and it'll at least help our dive last a bit longer.)
• Serious weight check. (If we get him to the appropriate amount of weight, it'll help a lot.)
• Get the guy trimmed. (His weight-integrated BC has trim pockets, and I've got a spare weight pocket I can add to his strap or tank neck, and trim will help his air consumption *and* keep the bottom where it belongs.)
• Buddy him with Rachel. (We'll dive together, but I'll lead solo and have them solely responsible for each other -- I'd buddy with him, but Rachel isn't geared or trained for solo diving; I am.)
• Drill our communication methods into him. (One-handed numbers are easy enough to learn, and we'll go slowly for him.)
• If all else fails, pawn him off. (Okay, that's probably not going to work, but I'm just saying that if somebody has to go to pick up lunch... )

What else can we do to help him out? He's basically a novice diver, and he doesn't really listen well, but I actually think we have this one shot at getting a lot of his problems fixed

First of all you need to ask yourself and Rachel what you intended to accomplish with your quarry trip. If your intent was to just get wet and do a few shallow water drills, then Rachel's father should fit into those goals nicely.

Rather than AL100 I'd just do repeated dives with whatever tank he is most used to --- probably AL80.

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Working on weighting helps, but what in various casual experiences with inexperienced divers in the Keys it seems that their biggest problem is failure to stay neutral. If he is swimming at an angle and not ascending, then he is negatively buoyant. (Overweighting makes this problem more likely, but overweighting is NOT the same as tending to be negatively buoyant).

The test for having the right amount of air in the BCD is to simply STOP. Stop finning and stop waving arms and see what happens.

In several cases, a couple minutes discussing this between dives has dramatically decreased air consumption of my insta-buddies.

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Triangle formation, with you leading, and the other two buddied behind you is one of the easier ways of managing a 3 person group. The rule should be that you need only see one of the other two as you frequently check behind you over one shoulder or the other, but that the other two must maintain good contact at all times. Don't be in a hurry, and make frequent stops ---- that kind of forces him to get neutral when stopped.

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Make sure your lost buddy protocol is explicit, clear, and mutually agreed upon. This is particularly true since you say "he has a tendency to wander off".

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Just take it slow and easy and you should all have a good time.

 

[cfelliot]

...This is a time for Picard, not Kirk....

I don't know Pete, it sound's like Lwaxana Troy to me! :11:

 

[TheRedHead]

He's a certified diver and therefore must be in agreement with the "mentor" relationship you propose. He might not appreciate it and you have to take that into account.