Should have known better

[lowviz]

...//... There wasn't any danger but I hate open water ascents, hate open water safety stops, and hate having to switch to my pony. Still my traning & experience & equipment made a potentially dangerous situation into one that was merely irritating.

This is the classic solo diver's misery. At your very core you know when enough is enough, how much is too much, and when to call it. Now try mapping that onto some poorly defined team dive. You are the one who loses every time, comes back alive every time, but loses...

In my opinion you didn't do fine, you were as poor a dive buddy as they were as you simply left them instead of...

Love to dive with you someday, I never dove with royalty. Not even once.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

If the OP hates switching to a pony he/she shouldn't have done so in the first place. The pony is meant for OOA emergencies. What would have happened if there was an actual emergency and her pony was empty. 500psi will last quite awhile at 25 feet.
A safety stop is not a required stop. If the OP was concerned about air supply or distance to shore then skip the stop, make a controlled ascent and check your surroundings. If everything is OK you can always descend and swim underwater toward shore. Once the OP had followed the group so far that his/her air was getting low he/she should have signaled that they were going up and there would have been more than enough air to go around with the rest of the group there.

 

[BRT]

I'm going to take the side of 500 psi at 25 feet with a pony for backup is not low on air. Even with terrible air consumption you should have 5 or 6 minutes before the main tank goes dry. With good air consumption you might make 15 minutes if you were ascending. And if the gauge is wrong and the pony doesn't work? Hey, you are only at 25 feet, go up!

 

[Storker]

When I hit 1500 psi I let them know, got an OK and we switched directions. Since I wasn't leading, I followed along expecting that we were heading back.

I kept checking my air and depth and it didn't seem that we were getting any shallower nor heading for shore.

Did you tell them you wanted to go shallower, or did you just follow mindlessly along?

When I got to 800 psi and we were still at 45 feet I finally broke off and headed for shore.

Did you tell them you wanted to abort the dive, or did you just leave them?

My mistake? - not following my personal first rule of diving: [FONT=&amp]You are always diving solo[/FONT]

No, the mistake was not communicating with your buddies. No matter your personal opinion about buddying up vs same day, same ocean 'buddies', you had agreed to buddy up.

[FONT=&amp]I should have broken off long before I did[/FONT]

No, you should have given them the thumb. Did you?

If I were in your situation, I wouldn't have needed wetnotes or a slate or to get my meaning across. There are simple, standardized hand signals covering everything you should have communicated to your buddies during that dive. I believe I learned most of those during OW class. Worst case, there's always the "you're number one" hand signal...

 

[Mike]

Love to dive with you someday, I never dove with royalty. Not even once.

Won't ever happen, I don't dive with bad same ocean dive buddies, I have no intentions of chasing somebody down if I need my emergency gas on your back.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

The scene: Grand Cayman, diving with two others from my scuba club. We agreed to dive as buddies and did the pre-dive discussion, etc. When I hit 1500 psi I let them know, got an OK and we switched directions. Since I wasn't leading, I followed along expecting that we were heading back.

I kept checking my air and depth and it didn't seem that we were getting any shallower nor heading for shore. Still I gave them the benifit of the doubt. My mistake. When I got to 800 psi and we were still at 45 feet I finally broke off and headed for shore. I was still at 25 feet when I hit 500 psi so I switched to my pony and did an open water column safety stop and then a surface swim to the exit.

My mistake? - not following my personal first rule of diving: [FONT=&amp]You are always diving solo[/FONT][FONT=&amp] no matter how many divers are in the water, or how many buddies you have, or how much experience they have or what you discussed during the dive plan.

They didn't let me down, I let me down. I should have broken off long before I did and headed for a slow steady exit - the same way I would have if I was solo diving (which is my normal MO). [/FONT]There wasn't any danger but I hate open water ascents, hate open water safety stops, and hate having to switch to my pony. Still my traning & experience & equipment made a potentially dangerous situation into one that was merely irritating.

Yeah, I think it is kinda funny myself. There I was, ascending from 45 feet with 800 psi and then I reach 25 ft with a mere 500 psi.. and I was all alone.. (just me and my pony bottle). Deep under the Ocean, subject to nearly DOUBLE the normal atmospheric pressure!

Thank GOD I was able to successfully switch to my emergency life support system and then ascend 25 ft in crystal clear water.


I'm only kidding (sort of) but I do agree with the others that you should have made sure the other two knew you were bugging out on your own. 500 psi is a lot of air, especially if you are alone at 25 feet. Now if you are at 60 or 80 feet and are vulnerable to a panicked diver raping you for your air.. well things could get interesting.

I would like to hear the other two diver's take on it. We were diving together close to shore at a shallow depth and the guy bails on us with no warning??? Is that what they would say?

 

[lowviz]

Won't ever happen, I don't dive with bad same ocean dive buddies, I have no intentions of chasing somebody down if I need my emergency gas on your back.

Precisely.

I assure you, your gas will never be on my back. A diver with a basic solo mentality has absolutely no business EVER passing him/herself off as a dive buddy. It is unnatural to them and people under stress tend to show their nature quite rapidly.

 

[KeithG]

i agree with other posters, as when i read "switch to pony at 500 psi at 25 ft on a non deco dive" my brain said wtf? why? what emergency just happened?

this sounds like an equipment solution for a skills issue: "i have the equipment and i am going to use it", just for grins?

my only other thought was blond obedience to the "500 psi on the boat or we will spank you" rule that may have caused an over reaction in order to avoid public humilation.

and yes, i have seen people that will do a surface snorkel swim far away from the boat in order to preserve that golden 500 psi so that they do not get spanked. it seems even worse when they end up "chasing" a liveaboard that does 200 yard swings on a long anchor line.

lots of things to learn & think about from this post. training & attitude comes to mind.

 

[Storker]

The scene: Coast of middle Norway, diving with five others from my scuba club. We formed buddy pairs and did the pre-dive discussion. I was carrying a camera rig, so we'd agreed that she'd be leading, but keep an eye on me and let me know if I hovered too long in front of the same subject or forgot to keep an eye on her. Also, since she was diving doubles we assumed that my gas would be limiting, so I should tell her when I reached turnaround pressure. My buddy wasn't quite keeping the contact I preferred, so I swam over to her and gave the "stay together" sign. She understood that I preferred closer contact than the clubmate she'd dived with on the previous dive, so everything was fine after that. When I hit 130 bar, I signaled "turn around" and "shallower", and since I wasn't leading, I followed her back and up as she turned and started a slow ascent.

I kept checking my air and depth and we got progressively shallower and closer to the drop point. When I got to 50 bar, I gave the thumb with a palm over it, followed by "five". We slowly ascended to five meters where we spent our three minutes, she looking for critters under the kelp, me folding up my camera rig and stowing it, then shooting a sausage and holding on to it. I was at 40 bar when we surfaced and gave the boat tender "OK"

Our mistake? Probably nothing serious. We planned the dive, dived the plan, communicated as necessary and were always there for each other.

 

[lowviz]

...//... lots of things to learn & think about from this post. training & attitude comes to mind.

Yes, I too believe that it is all about both. Tried to make that point, missed the mark completely and just came off as some ham-handed post.

First attitude:

...//... My mistake? - not following my personal first rule of diving: You are always diving solo no matter how many divers are in the water, or how many buddies you have, or how much experience they have or what you discussed during the dive plan. ...//...

I had a similar if not identical attitude. I am convinced that I was subconsciously taught my solo attitude. I was trained to dive solo from day one in OW and AOW wasn't much different.

Training A:
Instructor knows what you want to learn. The dynamics and focus is all instructor--->student. At odd times we were instructed to pair up, usually for a drill. It was obvious that the pairing was only for convenience. Lip service was given to being a good buddy, done.

Training B:
Cavern and Cave. Buddy is EVERYTHING. Diving, classroom sessions, discussions during meals together, gas planning (we had mis-matched SAC's), everything done as a team. Instructor--->(buddy<--->buddy) Very, very different dynamic.

How hard is entering an easy no restrictions outflowing cave (spring) hitting your turn and floating back out? Been there. Right now, I wouldn't consider it for a second without a trained and tested dive buddy and some serious re-training on my part with a good instructor. Unused skills erode quickly.

So my point. Being a buddy is a lot more than being someone else's gas mule at arm's length. Being an OW buddy should require a class and get you a piece of plastic that actually means something. You can't become a functional buddy by assignment or even by desire. There are things that just have to be taught and drilled in. And the instabuddy problem just comes down to two "my dives" instead of the one "our dive" that it should be.