freewillie
Contributor
At first I was going to post this thread about preserving the buddy system. It seems to me that whenever a diver posts a thread with either questions about the buddy system or more commonly a bad experience with a buddy and what to do we can't get through the first page without somebody posting that you are always a solo diver and should dive solo. Why?
For starters I checked the DAN website and roughly 40% of fatalities were during a period of time when one diver was separated from their buddy or group. There was a subset of the fatalities noted that 14% were declared as solo divers on a solo dive. While there may be extenuating circumstances why these may or may not be accurate, for the average diver it seems like almost a third of the fatalities involve separation from your buddy as one of the triggers.
But as I started thinking about diving with your buddy and why we should be embracing the buddy system it got me thinking about what makes a good diver. In point of practicality buddy skills are part of your basic Open Water course. So while you are training for even your basic certification you should be able to be a good buddy. That means that it is not an advance skill or a skill for technical diving. It's basic.
As a proud Dad I think my 16 year old daughter is a pretty good diver. She is a very good buddy and stays near my just about all the time. For the few times we don't keep in very close contact she really isn't that far away either, or she is next to our guide. I will admit that when I dive with her it's about 90% vacation dives. And when I book the dives with a dive company they almost always put guides in the water with us and discourage diving on your own.
She has very good buoyancy control. She is comfortable in the water. She has the basics of navigation. She can use her compass if pushed to it but doesn't routinely use or check her compass. By and large she depends on Dad or the guide to get her from point A to point B and then back again. Now, some of you will say she is really on a "trust me" dive if she can't get back to the boat? Or, is it more that she knows either I am leading the dive or the guide is leading the dive so she didn't pay attention to the navigation portion of the dive. If I told her before the dive she was leading and I wanted her to get us back she could. We would have to take a few minutes prior to the dive to review the compass and navigation but she can do it.
So she can plan a dive and dive her plan. But she doesn't really feel comfortable taking the lead and would prefer others to lead. Is that really doing a "trust me" dive? She is a good buddy and dives within her limits. So at what point are you no longer the "newbie" diver and become a "good" diver?
For starters I checked the DAN website and roughly 40% of fatalities were during a period of time when one diver was separated from their buddy or group. There was a subset of the fatalities noted that 14% were declared as solo divers on a solo dive. While there may be extenuating circumstances why these may or may not be accurate, for the average diver it seems like almost a third of the fatalities involve separation from your buddy as one of the triggers.
But as I started thinking about diving with your buddy and why we should be embracing the buddy system it got me thinking about what makes a good diver. In point of practicality buddy skills are part of your basic Open Water course. So while you are training for even your basic certification you should be able to be a good buddy. That means that it is not an advance skill or a skill for technical diving. It's basic.
As a proud Dad I think my 16 year old daughter is a pretty good diver. She is a very good buddy and stays near my just about all the time. For the few times we don't keep in very close contact she really isn't that far away either, or she is next to our guide. I will admit that when I dive with her it's about 90% vacation dives. And when I book the dives with a dive company they almost always put guides in the water with us and discourage diving on your own.
She has very good buoyancy control. She is comfortable in the water. She has the basics of navigation. She can use her compass if pushed to it but doesn't routinely use or check her compass. By and large she depends on Dad or the guide to get her from point A to point B and then back again. Now, some of you will say she is really on a "trust me" dive if she can't get back to the boat? Or, is it more that she knows either I am leading the dive or the guide is leading the dive so she didn't pay attention to the navigation portion of the dive. If I told her before the dive she was leading and I wanted her to get us back she could. We would have to take a few minutes prior to the dive to review the compass and navigation but she can do it.
So she can plan a dive and dive her plan. But she doesn't really feel comfortable taking the lead and would prefer others to lead. Is that really doing a "trust me" dive? She is a good buddy and dives within her limits. So at what point are you no longer the "newbie" diver and become a "good" diver?