Jewls
Contributor
Consider this scenario as well...you are shore diving and there is no one else around. You lose your buddy and go to the surface and wait for a while and then what? There is no boat.
You can get out of the water and call 911. You are safe but will this help your buddy in time? Do you go back down in case they are stuck somewhere? Do you end up endangering yourself? Would diving solo endanger yourself? Many questions to consider and many different variables.
It's a much easier question if you are on a dive charter and there are others around to help. Shore diving is where many of us do most of our diving and of course many others primarily do charter boat diving. Different scenarios different solutions perhaps?
I would stay as close to my buddy as possible. As mentioned in my previous post, I would stay arms length to 5 feet away. Discuss with buddy the 1 minute rule pre-dive.
If I lost my buddy, I would wait at the surface, inflate surface marker and look for a bubble trail (as another had mentioned and good idea!). Follow bubble trail with head, mask and reg in mouth while trying to locate the diver u/w. Find diver and descend if it looks as if a problem is occuring.
If unable to locate lost diver at the surface, remain at surface with surface marker inflated. Search around, continue looking for bubbles and probably occassionally stick my face back in the water to look for the diver. Blow whistle a couple times every few minutes in case the diver has surfaced and I can't see the diver and diver can't see me, at least the diver can try to swim to my direction.
If unable to locate diver after 20 minutes, continuously blow whistle hoping someone on shore will hear this and call for help or the other diver will hear me. I think at this point, I would slowly move towards shore but keeping an eye on the location where I had surfaced to see if my buddy surfaces.
After thinking about this, I hope that any buddy I have also has a surface marker. I'm thinking I might buy spare to let a buddy borrow, just in case..