Buddy Diving - Can be more Harm than Good

[bluefabian]

Well, I can say that when it comes to something underwater, there is nothing more that I am afraid of than another human being. Much more if he is a buddy. Much, much more if he is an INSTANT buddy.

Sharks you say?

It's hard to form a life-entrusting bond with somebody you just met, especially when you can't gauge his competency underwater. While I am okay with lack of mastery (Well, I am a fairly new diver as well), I really can't accept dangerous behaviours underwater such as going too far away from you/the group, not measuring air supply, going too deep... It's taxing enough that you need to be somebody's babysitter and then be blamed if you did not adhere to the Buddy System, when it's clear enough that you are not responsible for the action of another diver.

I guess the best lesson that I learned from my diving trips was that - you are your own buddy and that you are responsible for your own safety. Not the dive op, not the DM, and especially not your instant buddy. You are alone down there, swimming around with a bunch of humans strapped with tanks.

Talk to your buddy on the boat on what both of you agreed to do when it comes to separation, when one can't equalize, on what depth you'll dive, time of the dive and most importantly - the range of freedom that both of you agreed on down there. Is it okay to wander on a site to look for marine life as long as you are still visible by the other? Do you really need to be really, really close by all the time? Can the other terminate the dive, leaving the other to still follow the group?

I guess, certain things became clearer when experienced in real life.

 

[Hotpuppy]

I think it's important to go over your expectations. From reading your post it sounds like distance to your buddy is an issue. I'm in the same experience group as you from a number of dives point. I like my buddy to be close, but not on top of me. I dislike "underwater races" where people swim to quickly.

In a group situation you may not be the closest source of assistance, and the reality is that the closest person should render assistance. If you run out of air next to me I'm not going to point to your buddy 50 feet away and tell you to swim for it. I'm going to offer you my octo and we'll figure it out from there... either up we go or take you to your buddy and let the two of you abort on his air. Probably we are going to make a safe ascent.

Visibility and dive conditions play a big role in this. If you are in high viz I see no point in holding hands on the dive. 15 to 20 feet is quite fine, but again it depends. When I first started diving the DM told me not to stay so close and I adjusted. Like you, I was trained to stay within arms length of my buddy.

It's good to be self-reliant whenever possible, I recently took my Rescue Diver class and I got alot out of it. Mainly it teaches you to rescue yourself.... but you do practice things like out of air, panic diver, and more. These help build confidence by showing you that it can be handled.

 

[String]

I guess the best lesson that I learned from my diving trips was that - you are your own buddy and that you are responsible for your own safety. Not the dive op, not the DM, and especially not your instant buddy. You are alone down there, swimming around with a bunch of humans strapped with tanks.

Thats potentially the most important lesson in diving. Sadly a lot of courses over-emphasise buddy diving creating a dangerous reliance on 3rd parties. They should be hammering the "YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY" message far harder.

 

[bluefabian]

I guess the Buddy System was created as a way so that there will be somebody who is looking over somebody in case of anything. It might as well be implied as the Group System, but then again it's harder to monitor someone in a large crowd of people. By making it one-to-one, it is assumed/assured that everybody is looked after. But then again, not always.

 

[Mike Boswell]

I have done a lot of "same ocean" buddy diving where you never really see your buddy, some solo diving, and a lot of buddy diving where you are side by side.

Any form of diving, buddy or solo, works fine. The important thing is, be prepared to do the dive you planned, and follow the plan. A reliable partner is someone who does what they said they were going to do.

 

[fnfalman]

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

If it weren't for insta-buddies, I wouldn't have met a bunch of wonderful divers.

 

[SangP]

Your experiences are one of the reasons why I did tech. The training n skills I've learned really made me a lot more self reliant. Cept for when I'm in unfamiliar territory, I usually won't need a buddy.

However, when you get instant buddies make sure the both of you know what the ground rules are.

SangP

 

[TSandM]

I've dived with a lot of people I hadn't met before the day we went diving (although admittedly, most of those dives were set up on the internet). I've had two bad experiences, a couple of kind of marginal ones, and the vast majority have been good ones. It's been my observation that the quality of the pre-dive communication is the biggest factor in ensuring that the dive is a good one for everybody involved. If you really spell out how you want things to go, most people are pretty willing to go along with it -- or they'll tell you before you get in the water. I've only had two people take off on me underwater, after having been told that staying with me is one of my non-negotiable things. I wouldn't dive with either of them again, but I'd dive with anybody else I've "insta-buddied" with so far.

 

[elmer fudd]

I do both buddy and solo diving and I've had buddies help me out more than once underwater. Never anything life threatening, but I have seen plenty of instances of a buddy helping to make sure a mask was seated right, drysuit hoses actually got plugged in, (once at 25' under water), and bullkelp or fishing line got removed from an entangled diver.

I still wouldn't want to rely on my buddy blindly though. I've been separated several times as well and it seems very obvious to me that one reason you might become separated is because you have a problem like an entanglement. So at the moment you need your buddy most, he's not there to help.

There are also dives I'll only do with a buddy. I pretty much limit solo diving to 60' or less, minimal currents and no overhead environments and I always want a redundant air source.

 

[Codiak]

I too dive with pickup buddies quite often after a couple bad experiences I chose to become alf sufficent. While having a buddy is preferable as a social activity if he chooses to be anti social under water I'm fine with that!