Dealing with a buddy's decisions

[Jax]

If you are diving as a team, then the team's concerns should be addressed.

If you are diving Same Day, Same Ocean, then each is responsible for themselves.

Good communications establishes this up front.

 

[wedivebc]

Sounds like your buddy didn't know (or was ignoring) the number one rule of diving!

Well I'd like to think that I was ignoring GUE's rule one.

 

[BabyDuck]

larry & i were talking about something similar a week or so ago. in the plane crash in dc 10-15 years ago, the one where the wings were iced, the black box shows the co-pilot stating several times that he could see ice on the plane ahead of them in line, it had been a while since their own de-icing, shouldn't they go back and get de-iced again, all very appropriate comments that were dismissed. he did *not* say something to the effect of thumbing the flight - but what if he had? he'd get a rep for being obstructionist & a goody-two-shoes, and get his pilot severely annoyed at him for making them late, and the end result is that they took a real but slight gamble and lost. but how many times does someone take a similar risk and have no problems? how far out do you stick your neck for something quite unlikely but devastating if it actually happens? when the set-up isn't clearly an accident waiting to happen and nothing ends up happening, that's powerful but bad reinforcement.

 

[pocky21]

This is an interesting discussion, and made me think about my own diving practices. For me, it's dependent upon the situation. My mindset and demands placed on my buddy vary greatly whether I'm diving an inshore wreck, spearfishing offshore, or now in a cave.

If I'm doing a leisure dive on a shallow wreck (less than 100'), chances are I don't have a buddy nor do I want one. I spend a large amount of my dive inside the wreck and most others on these boats are neither comfortable with my dive plan nor trained for overhead environments. To bring one along for the sake of "having a buddy" would mean every room gets silted out with a high probability of line entanglement - at the very least. If another person on the boat had demonstrable experience in wreck penetration, I may reconsider, but this is not the case 99.9% of the time.

Reef dives vary - many times I'll take a buddy, even if they're a little uneasy. On many of these dives I go into DM mode and keep one eye on them and another eye on stuff to show them. At that point, my fun comes from their fun, and I'm assuming a mentor/leader role. If there is another diver on the boat with similar experience and comfort, I will make an effort to pair up with them in either a standard buddy role or a same ocean role (which may even switch mid-dive). If I'm diving with another pro, I will probably take a lot for granted, and assume they share the mindset of self sufficiency. I will help them if I can, but I will allow them the freedom to dive how they wish to dive. I will make suggestions and discuss gear, mindset, etc... but often this does not alter my dive plan unless a red flag is raised - we all know arguing with most dive instructors is an exercise in futility.

If I'm spearfishing - it's exactly like DD brings up. When hunting is involved, all rules seem to go out the window. In this instance, even if I'm with someone - I'm psychologically solo diving. I'll help if I can, and I'll point out stuff that doesn't look right, but once you splash it's every man for himself. I pack my own pony and O2, and am usually the only one to do so.

Over this week I received my intro cave card, which has had a huge impact on my mindset. The demands placed upon you in that environtment allow zero tolerance for errors and malfunctions. It was both refreshing and totally enlightening to understand what it meant to be a dive "team" - something I've never had the pleasure of experiencing. In this instance, just as the environment is zero compromise - so must every team member be. An equipment failure is a called dive until resolution, period. Same with a psychological inhibition, and it's the responsibility of every member of the team to ensure 100% operation of every member's equipment and psychological status at all times during the dive. In this instance, I'm not only ALWAYS diving with a buddy, but I'm constantly evaluating his equipment and mental status because my life could easily depend on it. For that reason, I'll never berate someone for calling a cave dive - chances are, I'll be that guy someday as well. (The take-away: carry a HUGE save-a-dive kit )

 

[scubadada]

larry & i were talking about something similar a week or so ago. in the plane crash in dc 10-15 years ago, the one where the wings were iced, the black box shows the co-pilot stating several times that he could see ice on the plane ahead of them in line, it had been a while since their own de-icing, shouldn't they go back and get de-iced again, all very appropriate comments that were dismissed. he did *not* say something to the effect of thumbing the flight - but what if he had? he'd get a rep for being obstructionist & a goody-two-shoes, and get his pilot severely annoyed at him for making them late, and the end result is that they took a real but slight gamble and lost. but how many times does someone take a similar risk and have no problems? how far out do you stick your neck for something quite unlikely but devastating if it actually happens? when the set-up isn't clearly an accident waiting to happen and nothing ends up happening, that's powerful but bad reinforcement.

Thoughtful post, thanks

We all get away with taking risks, including, in our diving. Sometimes this leads to increasing the magnitude of the risk. Personally, I take less risk in my diving today than I have in the past. I scared myself quite badly once and decided I did not want to find the limit, when I would no longer get away with it.

 

[acidrush]

I posted this in another thread but it seems relevant here. I would like to hear opinions and discussions:

I have asked myself this question many times:

I have been in serious down currents, if me and my buddy is holding on and he/she suddenly gets swept down should I go after them??? If its my regular dive buddy, than yes of course (she's my younger/baby sister). But I have told her many times, if it happens to me, stay where you are and work your way to the surface. I sometimes travel alone, if its an instant buddy on a liveaboard in Indonesia, I honestly DONT KNOW what I would do......... There is a possibility I would stay put and try to keep myself alive, but I honestly will not know until I am in such a situation.....

 

[pocky21]

There is a possibility I would stay put and try to keep myself alive, but I honestly will not know until I am in such a situation.....

There's a saying that is pounded into your head during any training that involves rescue of any kind: "One victim is better than two"

There is typically an allowable amount of increased risk, and it's hard to objectively assess when a life is at stake, but if you have to ask yourself "will I die?" - then there is absolutely no reason to attempt rescue.

 

[TONY CHANEY]

I have dived with long time team members, pick-up divers, students etc. I have been deep in oceans and places like Lake Jocassee, in caves, same-body-of-water like Cooper River where you just will not see the other divers, quarries, wrecks etc. Plane and simple, I try to make suggestions and explain why I feel that way. i.e. Had a friend, a very good diver, who showed up with both, pri. and alt. regs bungeed under his chin. I tried to explain why it was a bad idea. It fell on deaf ears. So we went for a dive and I gave him on OOA signal. He tried to remove the reg and donate it to me. So there goes his mask, I'm still (pretending) to be OOA, he can't see, starts to silt out the vis. I cut the drill and we had a great dive. He removed the bungee on the pri. from that day since. Seems that he had practiced it on the surface and forgot about the mask getting in the way. I was not an a@@ but made the point the best way I could. Everyone that dives with me has a good understanding that I told my wife and daughters that I will do everything to ensure that I will be back to include who I dive with. I also do not want to be the one to go to your house and inform your family that you died and I did see a problem but did not say anything or push the issue. (Thinking about tanks marked for one thing but dives says that he really knows what is inside the tank and you trust him). I enjoy diving with my buddy Ryan we both keep checks and balances on each other. i.e. when the water level was real low twice we had to exit the Orange Grove spring (crawling over lime stong with a ton of gear due to equipment issues. His BC was leaking and then his burst disk was leaking). Another time we were heading out of the cave and were within the cavern zone, but still very far back, and I wanted to check out Exley's Mistake. I ran a line and Ryan stayed on the main line and pretty much stated after the dive that that was not in the plans. He was right! Don't be the one to not point out something wrong, or withhold your point of view or even walk away.

 

[mikeb21072]

I posted this in another thread but it seems relevant here. I would like to hear opinions and discussions:

I have asked myself this question many times:

I have been in serious down currents, if me and my buddy is holding on and he/she suddenly gets swept down should I go after them??? If its my regular dive buddy, than yes of course (she's my younger/baby sister). But I have told her many times, if it happens to me, stay where you are and work your way to the surface. I sometimes travel alone, if its an instant buddy on a liveaboard in Indonesia, I honestly DONT KNOW what I would do......... There is a possibility I would stay put and try to keep myself alive, but I honestly will not know until I am in such a situation.....

I have wondered that myself, I would hope I would act the same for my dive buddy as that for an insta buddy I might have just met 30 minutes before on the dock. Since my dive buddy is my wife, I naturally have a greater sense of responsibility for her safety.
As to the original post, we are all responsible for our own actions, but I think we need to listen to our dive buddies and those with higher experience levels or different training disciplines when they have an issue/suggestion with your setup.
If your buddy has an issue with you or you your buddy; I feel you need to work that out before you hit the water. If my wife thumbed a dive because of something I was doing, it would be a long trip back to the dock.

 

[beaverdivers]

So that got me thinking about high risk behaviors, and what you do when your buddy's risk tolerance is clearly different from yours. In my case, today, if I had had to, I was prepared to say that I was not going on the dive until the leak was fixed. (Luckily, it didn't get that far.)

So do any of you out there have stories of situations like this? How did you handle it? Were there any hard feelings or problems afterwards?

This dilemma is the very reason that I lead group trips. We have our own boat and I set the standard. We are all diving nitrox. We are all using at least one dive computer. (On exotic live-aboards, we all have at least two computers.) We are all trained & we all do a checkout dive. We all have our gear checked/serviced before the trip. We all dive as a family. We all respect the environment, crew & fellow divers.