By far the biggest problem you will have with an instabuddy will be their air consumption versus your air consumption.
This is specifically my problem right now and any advice on how to handle it will be well appreciated!
I'm newly qualified (4 OW dives)! I'm going to be in Oman on business later this month and am planning a 2 dive day trip over the weekend that I'm there. Last time I was there, I went on one of these trips (to snorkel) and one of my colleagues dived his 2 dives. I know what to expect and I've seen how they pair up or sometimes trio up a few divers and away they go. In this case, pretty shallow down to about 16m, dead calm water with almost no current and 10m+ vis. Really lovely diving.
Anyway, I've got work do do on my bouyency, I realise that, and as a result I chew through air. These places usually work on 50minutes or 50bar, whichever comes first. With my very limited experience (in a pretty strong surge), I'm down to 50bar in about 35 minutes. Realistically in this water, I'm counting on 40 minutes.
The point being, I don't want to cut somebody else's dive short because I plow through air so fast - what is the etiquette in this situation?
My plan is to try get into a trio instead of a pair and then agree beforehand that when I'm getting low on air, let them know that I'm going to surface and then just wait for them on the top. This does mean that I ascend on my own (what's the etiquette on that?), but at least I'm not splitting up the pair and they can carry on with their dive.
Any advice would be really appreciated.
Thanks.