Are you a sharer?

I was lucky enough to do a dive last night with my favorite dive buddy, who I rarely see these days. At the end of the dive, I told him that I had realized one of the reasons I enjoy diving with him so much is that it takes almost nothing to get his attention -- the minute I move my light, he's looking at me, and I can point out the cool critter I've found, or ask a question, or change directions, or whatever.

His response was, "Well, part of the fun of diving to me is sharing the dive. So staying in communication is something I WANT to do."

I talked to my husband this afternoon. We often have friction about how our dives together go, and mostly it's either separation or communication issues. He said, "When I dive, I'm in my head. I'm singing to myself, or thinking about something." And I thought about Rick Murcar's (GDI's) description of cave diving as a solo dive done as a social activity, and there is a lot of truth to that. In cave diving, unlike open water diving, one rarely points out anything of interest to the rest of the team. Everybody just dives and looks at whatever strikes them.

I'm a sharer. Spotting stuff and calling someone else over to see it, or flying over to see what my eagle-eyed buddy has found, is my idea of fun. But it clearly isn't universal.

What are you? Sharer, or mutual soloist?

I'm a sharer for sure. Just back from Maui, my wife, son and I were diving most every day and we were constantly pointing things out to each other. I did an awsome dive with Shaka Doug and he was pointing out things I would have never seen. I think if I'm pointing things out to other divers I'm also keeping an eye on them and them on me.

Sharer, here!

A couple of weeks ago, I dove for three days in Monterey. Insta-buddies and i'net-buddies the first two days. Diving was OK, but it took too much bandwidth to keep track of them and to communicate.

The last day, one of my dive club buddies came down. What a total joy! Great communication. Pointing out cool stuff, VERY cool stuff, to each other. Totally predictable. Quickly responsive. SO much better.

Sharer.

Both with caring sharing tendencies
Depends on the dive buddy.

A proper wreckie is more interested in a boiler than a fish or lobster getting in the way

A proper fish prodder can't see the point of a rusty piece of metal if no fish or lobsters are in sight

As for rocks underwater, well , who cares ?

Sharer and like diving with other sharers.

sharer.

I would say both, also. It really depends on what the dive objective is. I'll be honest, one of my favorite parts of cave diving is the "solitude, within a team" that goes with it. On the other hand, I also enjoy seeing what the others see & sharing the experiences. One of the most rewarding parts of being an OW instructor is the chance to share such an unique environment with my students for the first time!

Love to share. Love to dive with buddies who share, or make it easy for me to do so.

Having the experience by yourself just feels empty....being able to share it makes each dive far more enjoyable.....I also used to feel the same way about doing high speed cruising runs ( skiing) at slopes like Vail or Killington.... flying down with 2 or 3 friends was exponentially more fun than just doing this by yourself.