I need to find buddies to dive with. My instructor turned me on to this site and I've found some divers interested in diving with me but I'm not sure what's appropriate and what's safe in meeting someone for the first time and going diving.
First off I'm a girl, so I do have safety concerns about meeting a guy off somewhere alone for the first time.
Second, how can I tell if they will be a safe buddy? Are there certain questions I could ask to help me determine if they are safe divers?
Are there precautions I should take to keep myself safe under water, just in case they aren't safe once we get down there?
If I begin a dive and realize that I don't feel comfortable with this other diver possibly because of their behavior, would it be bad form to stop the dive?
If I choose to stop the dive for some reason and signal to go up and they refuse, am I required to stay with the buddy or can I surface?
Are there any safer options to finding dive buddies?
Thanks for any guidance you can provide!
Sherry
First of all...welcome to the site. You and I are nearly next door neighbors (I am in John's Creek).
Probably a reaffirmation of what has already been said, but let me say what is most important first...if you choose to thumb a dive, and your buddy refuses...then you a) should go ahead and surface (your safety should always come first against whatever their desire is), and b) I would find a new dive buddy.
I think the question about whether or not to dive with someone based on behavior is also a fair one. First, and this is my personal opinion...I take my obligation to the person I am diving with seriously. Having said that, my attitude on any dive...irregardless of how well I know my diving partner is very simply "I have no back up, and any problem I have will require me to rescue myself." Anything that happens beyond that is pure bonus.
I have been diving a bit north of 30 years now, and I can only remember maybe a handful of times where I refused to dive with someone. One time was this past July on a liveaboard where the person in question thought that it was vitally important that they make the deepest possible dive no matter what. At one point this person surfaced with the person they had been diving with and asked me why their computer was "acting weird" and what I saw was they had put themselves in decompression due to RNT being excessive from repetitive dives and stacking a deep dive on top of it, and didn't know it. The diver had done a 15 foot hang for 5 minutes, but still blew what the computer told them to do. Luckily the diver had 2 things going for them...first the computer was a brand known for very conservative algorithms, and second they were not DCI symptomatic (in other words the diver was lucky). The charter captain required that the diver not enter the water for 24 hours. I was approached by that person afterwards and asked if I would dive with them and after talking with them about what they wanted to do on the next dive, I simply said "No thank you".
Most of my diving now is technical diving, however if you wish, send me a PM. I dive pretty regularly with a dive shop as a "tag along" on some of their shops dives that are recreational (which goes to my second rule - Any diving is better than not diving). Generally when they are running an open water class, you will find "tag alongs" going...and while the instructors are over working with the students the rest (some instructors, some new divers, and some in between) are diving for fun or for skills development/practice. They go to various sites...including Ginny Springs, Vortex, and others you probably have been at or at least heard of. Some of them are weekend trips and some are day trips...just depends on what they have going.
