Buddy Diving Includes...

[bletso]

Either dive with a buddy who is a independent and self sufficient as you or leave him topside and go and enjoy your dive. Unless you cross my palms with a few sous and I as an instructor take the responsibility, I will either not dive or dive by myself. In either case I will know before I leave the dock.

The dive industry have been negligent in producing self sufficient divers and have instead placed a burden and false sense of security by teaching a type of buddy dependency. A dependent buddy is or can be a real hazard when Murphy stops to visit. A buddy is or should be someone to share a dive with not someone who can't set-up his own gear without checking.

Now in technical and cave diving a buddy only serves to check that which I can't such as a small leak behind my head, etc....

Dale

 

[TSandM]

I don't think Don is suggesting that divers should tolerate weak skills, or expect functions of the dive to be managed by someone else as a matter of routine. But I love his post . . . it's how I dive. I go into the water with you, descend with you, dive with you, and end the dive if you need to do it WITH YOU. We have a plan, for navigation and gas, and we stick to it.

The vast majority of people I dive with are strong, capable divers who are extremely unlikely to need me to rescue them from anything. But over the last six years, there have been plenty of minor issues that are simply EASIER for a buddy to solve than for the diver to do himself -- I've had somebody's spool descend past me. I've hooked up hoses that have come loose. I've untangled light cords and put things back in pockets. A mobile set of eyes and two hands that can reach can be a very handy thing. And I also know that, if for any reason I am impaired or disabled on a dive, my team will do everything it safely can to get me out of the water.

 

[daniel1948]

I have been on (many) boat dives with a randomly-selected buddy, since I travel alone for lack of a scuba-diving friend to travel with. Frequently, to take advantage of the DM's knowledge of the dive site, several buddy pairs will stick with the DM. It often happens that divers run low on air before their randomly-assigned buddies. When this happens, the DM will often re-pair buddies, so that the two with the least air ascend together, and those with more air can continue diving, now with a different buddy. I have no problem with this. As long as nobody is left alone or ascends alone, It does not bother me to switch buddies when I was paired at random anyway.

(It would be great to have a wife or friend who I trusted, to dive with. I don't have that luxury. I am single, and none of my friends enjoys the activities I do. So I go places and do my activities with whoever else happens to be at the same place. Often the DM is my buddy because I'm the odd man out on a boat where everyone else is with a friend or spouse.)

The "no exercise after surfacing" is a new one for me. I was on a dive once with several other people, where we missed our intended point of interest, and ended up swimming fairly hard back towards the boat. We ascended slowly as we swam, staying in a group, did our safety "stop" together while swimming, and then surfaced together, still swimming moderately hard. The boat was still some ways off, and we continued our swim on the surface back to the boat. There was a tender out picking up divers, but we all wanted to just keep swimming rather than wait for it. It was a fun swim in warm, flat seas and beautiful warm weather. I had no idea that the exercise was considered a no-no. This was a recreational dive at moderate depth, and was limited by air, not by NDL.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Buddy diving starts with an understanding and commitment to some fundamental concepts ... perhaps the most important being ...

"This is not my dive ... this is our dive."

Others being ...

"Do what my buddy expects me to do."

Buddy diving is based on a concept of "predictable behavior". You can't talk to your buddy underwater ... but you can communicate. Communication begins with a dive plan, and generally the best buddies will have a commitment to sticking as closely to the plan as is practical. That doesn't mean you can't deviate from the plan ... but that if you decide to you must first ...

- Communicate that desire to your buddy, and receive confirmation back that your buddy understand what you wish to do.
- Ascertain that you have the resources to do so ... and that your buddy also does (i.e., check to make sure you have adequate air first)

"Pay attention to what's going on around me."

Diving is very circumstantial ... we often react to things we see or conditions we didn't plan on. Paying attention to our surroundings, our adherence to the plan, interesting stuff we see off in the distance, or a chance encounter with a moving creature we want to follow and observe helps reduce reaction time and gives us time to communicate with our buddy before we make changes in speed or direction that might otherwise result in a separation.

"Signal before taking action."

This works just like it does on the freeway. Before you change lanes or exit, you signal first to let those around you know what you're planning to do. Diving works the same way. In fact, to take the driving analogy a bit further, let's say you've got someone following you somewhere that doesn't know where they're going. You take extra care to use signals to make sure they know what you're about to do. Diving with a buddy works pretty much the same way.

"Don't assume."

Putting on a dive mask removes something we've taken for granted our entire lives ... peripheral vision. In order to see what's going on around us ... or to pay attention to our buddy ... we need to learn a new behavior, which is the act of turning our head to see what's going on outside a relatively narrow window of vision. It's something we initially have to put conscious effort into doing ... and a bit of a pain. So a lot of divers don't do it. They assume that their buddy is where they expected them to be, and so when they eventually think to turn and look they end up asking themselves ... "Hey! Where'd my buddy go?"

Also, if your buddy signals that they need to turn around ... or make an ascent ... or that they're uncomfortable with something ... don't assume that you know why. Unless the reason is visually obvious, opt to err on the side of safety and talk about it after you've surfaced or gotten back on the boat.

Rules are great ... they help everyone on a team get on the same communications wavelength and base their decisions and actions on the same criteria. But they need to be built around the basic skills required for a shared experience in any endeavor ... communication, a bit of self-discipline, and a commitment to us rather than me.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Jim Lapenta]

The following is from a presentation I developed on the Failure of the Buddy system and is also included in my book if you want to read the entire essay. It's from Chapter 3: Buddy Skills. pages 22-23

"How do we as divers and instructors develop good buddy skills?
The answer is to start using them as early as possible. The best place to start is in the first pool session, during
the swimming and snorkeling portion of the OW course. By pairing up students from the beginning, we
demonstrate the importance of the buddy system. There are a number of ways to develop and practice good
buddy skills. I emphasize all of the following in my OW course because I consider them essential:
1. Communication between the divers, both on the surface and underwater.
2. Position. From day one, divers should be buddied up and required to stay in position.
3. Buoyancy control should be introduced immediately, to facilitate position.
4. Horizontal positioning from the very beginning, for skills. Skills are actually easier to perform in a
horizontal position.
5. Looking like divers. Divers who look like divers will think, act, and feel like divers.
6. Speed during descents, swims, and ascents. No matter what, the slowest diver sets the pace of all
aspects of the dive.
7. Good judgment, demonstrated by choosing appropriate dive sites, equipment, dive buddies, and
whether or not to do a given dive at all. These are all parts of being a good buddy.
8. Rescue skills. Even basic skills such as tows, bringing an unconscious diver to the surface, air shares,
assisting a panicked diver at the surface, and knowing how to release each other’s weights are
skills that every Open Water Diver should have. Unfortunately, many OW programs no longer
include them all.
(list continues on next page)
22
9. Choosing the right buddy. This goes back to good judgment, but also includes other considerations
such as size, strength, skill, training, attitude, and personality.
10. Personal responsibility. The best divers always maintain ultimate responsibility for their own safety
and should not expect their buddies to “carry” them through any dive.
Having summarized these ten essential elements of strong buddy skills, we’ll now expand on each one a
bit further.
Communication
Establishing and developing good communication skills is essential to any endeavor involving two or
more people. For dive buddies, this actually starts long before they enter the water; it begins when the
decision to dive is made. This is when good dive buddies will begin to discuss a plan for the dive or dives,
including choosing a site, discussing the dive, considering entry options, or deciding on a boat operator. Each
of these tasks requires the divers to communicate effectively. At the site, you will agree on hand signals and
possibly also written methods such as a slate or wetnotes. During the dive you will monitor air pressures,
depths, times, and course. Not only will you monitor these items and more, you will effectively communicate
them to each other. Failure to do so can lead to situations where the end result is anything from a minor
inconvenience to a tragedy.
Position
The importance of position in true buddy diving cannot be underestimated or overemphasized. Good
instructors will see that new divers are buddied up with each other whenever possible from day one. Buddies
then stay in position throughout all pool sessions. Even when repeating skills demonstrated by the instructor,
the diver’s buddy will be within arm’s reach at all times. I require my students to do this; when a student is
asked to move forward to perform a skill, the buddy also moves forward."

None of this is beyond the ability of the new OW diver if they are taught how to effectively use the buddy system from day one. It does not add anything to the actual class time. In fact it makes it more efficient and cuts down on confusion when people show up for class. They know who they need to be with and what they need to do.