How long do YOU look for a lost buddy.

[tomfcrist]

Insta buddys= Darwin waiting to show his face. I dive solo off boats.... the one time i had to dive with a group unwillingly it was 2 girls, whom immediatly upon reaching the wreck decided to go two seperate directions. I decided to continue my dive....quite frankly i didnt pay $150 to do a bounce dive to 120'. OBTW they eventually met back up, and surfaced after an hour, AND omitted thier DECO obligation( they were diving air). The DM on the boat apologized for putting me in that situation, and has always allowed me to dive solo since then.

 

[nolatom]

What OP described is a "run-away" buddy, which to me is different from a "lost" buddy, even though both will end up out of my sight.

Lost buddy, I agree, wait then surface. Runaway buddy, for me it depends. If I think buddy's running toward trouble, I'll follow until I reach my "turn to avoid trouble myself" point. If I'm already at that point, I'm not going to follow and make it two divers in trouble. It happened to me once. Buddy left the ascent line and disappeared behind the Stetson pinnacles. I had insufficient air to follow so I continued my ascent. She was already on the boat when I boarded. I was a fairly new diver then, but was told by the capt and DM that I'd done the right thing.

 

[cloudflint]

Im lucky that I rarely have to dive with insta-buddies so generally we all know what to do, those of us who are reasonably experienced look around for a minute or so then come up, those of us who are less experienced just come straight up.

The few times ive had to team up with an instant buddy (Ive only ever dived with an instant buddy about 3 times), about half of the time its ended with me physically grabbing them and taking them to the surface. The reason for this is that if im diving with someone i don't know I go over the dive plan quite thoroughly before hand and tell them that if they deviate from the plan ill signal for them to stop it and if they ignore these signals ill assume they are narced or otherwise incapacitated and initiate a rescue. This may be a wee bit extreme but at least in these cases my buddy was alive to be slightly annoyed at me!

 

[DevonDiver]

What OP described is a "run-away" buddy, which to me is different from a "lost" buddy, even though both will end up out of my sight.

I don't see a difference: whether voluntary or involuntary, it is still a buddy separation (which is the term more often used). That means your buddy is unsupported and unsupervised - if they get into difficulties, they will not receive critical and timely assistance. Thus, it is a dangerous situation for them... and you.

If you don't have immediate contact with a buddy, and haven't otherwise planned/prepared for that as a deliberate dive procedure, then you are in a 'buddy separation' scenario. Your pre-dive planning should have provided both members of the buddy team with a decisive contingency plan for that scenario. You should enact that contingency plan (plan your dive-dive your plan) as agreed/decided in advance.

Making assumptions, deviating from agreed plans/procedures... or not making those plans in the first place... is a short-cut to dangerous errors.

 

[RonFrank]

Having a Buddy who can't stay together, who races around, who ignores the dive plan, and who ignores his buddy is worst than diving solo. Hence regardless of the buddy police on SB I will gladly dive solo, and am prepared to do so. This is on a shallow reef. I would prefer to have a good buddy but my wife does not dive, so I end up pairing with unpredictable divers.

Most folks have a SO who dives, but I would love to see how these same folks react given a string of poor buddies when on vacation. You are paying for these dives and one going wrong not a big deal, but it gets old when the buddy pool is incompetent. My solution is I am prepared to dive solo on almost all family vacations. I do have buddies I vacation with and that is ideal. But if in FL with the family I plan on being solo and bring a 19CF along so I have some redundancy.

If I end up with a buddy who is good other than being an air hog, I accompany them to the boat and then continue my dive. Gary (Conch) planned on me being solo on shallow reef dives, so solo diving is acceptable even if most Ops will not advertise that. Let's face it, a 20-35ft reef dive is a little risk dive as one can easily free swim to the surface if necessary. And you are often surrounded by other divers even if not buddies with them.

On deep dives I make sure I have a reasonable buddy. If I can not find one (rare) then I skip the deep dive. I find many experienced divers will not do the shallow stuff which I find odd....

 

[gypsyjim]

I really can not add a lot to what has been said here. Many good comments.

The insta buddy in this scenario exhibited no buddy skills what so ever (and pretty darned poor self control afterward too, from what OP says), and when the soon to be lost diver descended beyond the agreed upon max depth for a second time, after being requested by his buddy to ascend, I think the OP did all that was required when he lost sight of that diver.
He descended to what he considered his max, and possibly a bit more, looked for the "buddy", and then surfaced when he was unable to locate him in a reasonable amount of time. The one minute rule has always made sense, unless you have specific knowledge of the site and diver to cause you to adjust that search time a bit.

The description of the lost buddy's actions, post dive say an awful lot about the character of that person, and support the impression of someone too focused on themselves to be a safe dive buddy.

For many years I had no buddies of my own, and traveling, I experience quite a few insta buddies, and have to honestly say I have had a few poor buddies, but never any I felt truly put themselves and myself in any real danger. I have had some who I would not do a second dive with because they simply were not my buddy on the first dive. I don't bother to make excuses, or explain, I just say I am picking another buddy, going solo, or sitting out the dive, if that is my only option.

 

[h90]

Well that is crazy......
I most probably wouldn't like to agree on 20m if the first dive was just 26. But after I agree I would stick to that.

Than how much time and what to do, should be agreed before.
Continue to dive solo or accent after some minutes.
Instant buddies are often worse than solo diving.

 

[DevonDiver]

Instant buddies are often worse than solo diving.

I don't see it.

If an insta-buddy leaves you... then you are solo diving (even if just for a solitary ascent). Solo diving has certain risks. Those risks can be mitigated through effective preparation, education, decision-making and diligent application of training. Any diver can prepare for a dive as if it were, or might become, a solo dive. They can also prepare for the unknown quantity that is an insta-buddy. Some might call that 'self-sufficiency'.

Self-sufficiency negates the risks posed by a bad buddy, just as it mitigates risks when diving alone.

 

[Sheri SGR]

Sounds like your "buddy" needs to learn some basic buddy rules. I normally talk about lost buddy eith new buddies, look for 1-3 minutes then surface to reconnect and return to dive. in some cases depending on my buddy, we agree that if we get sepaprated we will continue dive and meet back on beach and we agree on maximum dive time so if we return separately tothe beach or boat we know after that set amount of time each other should be there.

Sounds like you tried to create a dive plan with him (he obviously wasnt paying attention) next time just add a lost buddy procedure so that when you get back on the boat if he didnt surface to reconnect there are no hard feelings with them thinking you ditched them.

 

[NCBusguy]

For me, it depends on the situation....my dive buddy and I are certified solo divers so if we get separated we just go our own way. With a instabuddy....well, I had a couple of bad experience with them hence getting solo certified. If the DM ask me to pair up, I will but I won't mother them. If they don't stick to the plan, I'll let the DM know and go solo for my second dive.