Collapse of the "Buddy System"

[Doomnova]

I guess part of the issue is training and where you are at. Diving here if your 20ft away half the time your not going to be seen as is due to how much algae and company are in the water for all but 4 months of the year. So most buddy groups are within about 10ft. Of each other or less. Conversly I also think the major issue with the buddy system is its "my way or the highway" style of diving that many people have. instead of a group of people diving it a bunch of individuals with differing goals. Some people are looking for large things like fish, octo's(in our ares) and the like. other are more interested in looking at the small things. Yet still some may just be doing to dive to work on skills as they go along. Others are looking in every crack and behind every rock. When you get all of this the main issue is compromise and/or finding those with like interests(which can be hard as I like looking around every rock). Which when I go out most of the time its 2 dives so pretty much we plan o do one dive as one person see's fit and then switch that way both get what they are after. This is also the main issue with most things in the world is many people its "my way or the highway" and all you have to do is turn on the tv to see this in pretty much every tv show and news run there is and since people are inundated with it they see it as "ok" which in truth is not.

So the answer to how fix the buddy system? Is simple but not easy people in general need to get off their high horses and compromise and people who do not do that when I'm diving with them well they after the dive get their 1 and only warning on the issue and then they find their way to my"I won't dive with you for reason x" list. Most of the time I go with the flow but there are some sites here where when your just swimming around you miss 90% of what is there.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Dive with a camera and you dive alone. As you have found.

Not really ... depends on how much emphasis you want to put on being a dive buddy.

That statement's only valid if you decide to make it that way.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[JohnN]

Not really ... depends on how much emphasis you want to put on being a dive buddy.

That statement's only valid if you decide to make it that way.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

While I cannot disagree with you for local dives, let's put in this scenario to anchor the other end of a continuum :

You take the once-in-a-lifetime/bucket/punchlist dive to (Truk/Bikini/wherever). You're out many $Ks and have a limited number of dives on a variety of sites at that destination (let's make it two)

Would you (graciously) forgo your 'experience' to babysit a photog who wouldn't/couldn't dive independently?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

If I take a once-in-a-lifetime dive trip, I'm either going to have the foresight to bring a dive buddy with me, or I'm going to make arrangements for a paid dive guide ... specifically so I'm not faced with that kind of problem. It's called planning, and it's a fundamental part of what you're supposed to do as a diver.

Coincidentally, I just returned from a once-in-a-lifetime dive trip where I had no regular dive buddy. I did about a third of my dives with a paid dive guide, and the other two-thirds with other divers on the boat. At no point did either I or they feel constrained or as though we were diving "solo". Quite the contrary ... among the ways I engaged them was to turn them into models for my photographs. I got what I wanted (some nice pictures), they got what they wanted (souvenir pictures of themselves at some amazing dive sites), and we managed to stay engaged as a dive team throughout the dive.



Like everything else in diving, it boils down to thinking ahead and making reasonable choices ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[ev780]

While I cannot disagree with you for local dives, let's put in this scenario to anchor the other end of a continuum :

You take the once-in-a-lifetime/bucket/punchlist dive to (Truk/Bikini/wherever). You're out many $Ks and have a limited number of dives on a variety of sites at that destination (let's make it two)

Would you (graciously) forgo your 'experience' to babysit a photog who wouldn't/couldn't dive independently?

That, my people, is one additional and not insignificant problems with forcing an instabuddy on a diver. I will do what I can but I am not going to waste my precious vacation dives on some random "schmoe" any more that I would expect someone to waste theirs on this "schmoe". I do not apologize for being a single diver. Just the cards I have been dealt. Why is my dive enjoyment tied to somebody else?!?!?!

KILL THE BUDDY SYSTEM!!!!

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

FWIW - there are many times, including some on the trip I mentioned previously, when as a photographer I would prefer to be diving solo. But that's more a matter of personal choice than because I see anything wrong with the buddy system ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[OMANDIVER]

FWIW - there are many times, including some on the trip I mentioned previously, when as a photographer I would prefer to be diving solo. But that's more a matter of personal choice than because I see anything wrong with the buddy system ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Paying for the privilege of nannying a photographer is not something I call the buddy system. Good idea to pay a guide, selfish and unreasonable idea to expect another diver who turns up, paying the same, to do it. I'm not talking about taking a couple of snaps, I mean the guy who spends an hour glued the eyepiece of a DSLR trying to get the lighting right on one nudibranch. If the cap fits wear it!

 

[Storker]

Dive with a camera and you dive alone. As you have found.

Bullsh!t. I (usually) dive with a camera. And always with a buddy. And that buddy also has a buddy. Because it IS possible to not let the camera take control, did you know that?

Would you (graciously) forgo your 'experience' to babysit a photog who wouldn't/couldn't dive independently?

And where's the law stating that camera = incompetent buddy?


--
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Typos are a feature, not a bug

 

[OMANDIVER]

Bullsh!t. I (usually) dive with a camera. And always with a buddy. And that buddy also has a buddy. Because it IS possible to not let the camera take control, did you know that?


And where's the law stating that camera = incompetent buddy?


--
Sent from my Android phon
Typos are a feature, not a bug

Little bit grumpy.....

 

[Storker]

Little bit grumpy.....

Nope, not grumpy at all. Just calling BS when the bovine manure is spread.

Both the "you don't REALLY have a buddy" meme and the "photogs can't buddy up" meme are quite popular here. Doesn't mean that they're universally true, though.

--
Sent from my Android phone
Typos are a feature, not a bug