I recently did a liveaboard trip in Thailand. It was a fairly small boat with two guides/instructors/dms and we were split into two groups. My group was 4 Italians who were friends plus me, the other a larger group of Chinese (7 people) also all friends. Before our first dive I asked my guide how the buddy pairs was going to work and he told me that he was my buddy, so I said OK....that makes me yours.
Within a couple of dives it was clear that our group was very tight. Good skills, good awareness - basically nice experienced good divers who I can't see anyone having a problem with. We dived together for a couple of days....8 or 9 dives. We then made a dive from the boat which was moored and one of the Italian couples decided not to dive that one and rest...so we were 4. As we descended I realised, as did the Italians, that our guide, my buddy, was having problems with his reg. He switched a couple of times to his backup and fiddled with his main 2nd stage - even taking it apart at one point and reassembling it. We had reached the bottom - about 70 ft - and were all just hovering waiting for Raoul to fix his problem before starting to move. He decided that he couldn't and indicated that I should join the Italian couple as a third and he was going to surface. I signed no...I'll come with you and call the dive. This started a minor argument UW as Raoul didn't want me to call my dive and wanted me to continue with the Italians. He was our guide....an instructor with MUCH more experience than me - we were still basically directly under the boat. I gave in and let him go and we made our dive as a three man team.
Later I told Raoul that actually I felt really bad about it and he just laughed. It all went OK, but as I told him...what if something had happened? Under any other circumstances I wouldn't have allowed myself to be talked into allowing my buddy to ascend alone, especially when I already knew he had a problem. This was the 'boss' though and he really didn't want me to ascend with him.
What would you have done?
(if you want to flame me feel free but please do it politely....deep down I feel bad enough already....)
Within a couple of dives it was clear that our group was very tight. Good skills, good awareness - basically nice experienced good divers who I can't see anyone having a problem with. We dived together for a couple of days....8 or 9 dives. We then made a dive from the boat which was moored and one of the Italian couples decided not to dive that one and rest...so we were 4. As we descended I realised, as did the Italians, that our guide, my buddy, was having problems with his reg. He switched a couple of times to his backup and fiddled with his main 2nd stage - even taking it apart at one point and reassembling it. We had reached the bottom - about 70 ft - and were all just hovering waiting for Raoul to fix his problem before starting to move. He decided that he couldn't and indicated that I should join the Italian couple as a third and he was going to surface. I signed no...I'll come with you and call the dive. This started a minor argument UW as Raoul didn't want me to call my dive and wanted me to continue with the Italians. He was our guide....an instructor with MUCH more experience than me - we were still basically directly under the boat. I gave in and let him go and we made our dive as a three man team.
Later I told Raoul that actually I felt really bad about it and he just laughed. It all went OK, but as I told him...what if something had happened? Under any other circumstances I wouldn't have allowed myself to be talked into allowing my buddy to ascend alone, especially when I already knew he had a problem. This was the 'boss' though and he really didn't want me to ascend with him.
What would you have done?
(if you want to flame me feel free but please do it politely....deep down I feel bad enough already....)
