My wife and I have an agreement to meet back up on the anchor line for any boat dive we do if we get separated.
Tom
Tom
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SS - yes. Is it a deco stop? Yes. Should you decompress on deeper dives - even if you don't exceed an NDL? Many researchers will say "yes". Bottom line is... Putting yourself potentially in harms way to worry about your buddy isn't a great idea. If something DOES happen to you, because you blew your stop, and something DID happen to your buddy. Now there's two victims instead of just 1.Is a SS required or not? I don't really know (I didn't write the PADI manuals) In the PADI RDP it says required. That's all.
People who dive should carry an SMB. Be it a safety sausage, lift bag or whatever. (should - many don't)Does everyone carries a bag and spool/reel? I don't assume so. I do, and my main buddy group does and I can deploy it in about 30 - 45 seconds. As another poster wrote not everybody buys one or practices with it. In PADI AOW we shot one once and that was it.
Is the buddy experienced or not? That throws a big monkey wrench into things. I would worry much more about seperation from an inexperienced buddy than my regular dive group.
And currents... ahh yes... My most gut wrenching lost buddy incident involved low/no vis, SS's and high current. Nothing like sitting on the surface for 20 minutes waiting for the CG and coming to terms with the fact that your buddy just died.
Ok... let's try this again... WHY is the safety stop even in question? If it's a simple separation issue the "lost buddy" should be doing a SS anyway which... assuming you both realized each other got lost at about the same time... would put both you and your buddy on the surface at about the same time... what is so urgent about getting to the surface that you can't do a safety stop?
Or is the REAL question more related to the inherent value of a safety stop and the "lost buddy" bit just a rational sounding arugment for justifying NOT doing a safety stop?
Sorry... but I really fail to understant the basic thrust of the OP's question...
Sorry... but I really fail to understant the basic thrust of the OP's question...
what is so urgent about getting to the surface that you can't do a safety stop? ... Or is the REAL question more related to the inherent value of a safety stop and the "lost buddy" bit just a rational sounding arugment for justifying NOT doing a safety stop?
...iif you choose to assume that nothing urgent is taking place then you could choose to do a safety stop you could also choose not to.
If someone is a lost buddy they might also be a buddy having a heart attack on the surface or some other problem. It's hard to know with a lost buddy. You have to make assumptions and if you choose to assume that nothing urgent is taking place then you could choose to do a safety stop you could also choose not to.