Buddy system flaw?

[DevonDiver]

You're totally misunderstanding the role of a DM. They're not there to keep you alive; if you need that then you should not be diving. DMs are guides, that's it.

But the role of a buddy IS to keep you alive. That's a fundamental concept in recreational diving.

If the DM/guide offers to be your buddy, then they assume that direct responsibility for your safety during the dive... and vice versa.

Therefore, abandoning the buddy, for the sake of being a dive guide, is bad diving.

It always strikes me how quickly some people, usually fellow dive professionals, will jump on a thread like this and condemn the DM or instructor involved without any first hand knowledge of the situation.

A diver, low on air at the end of a dive, is directed to ascend and surface by himself, by a qualified dive professional.

What more is there to understand?

In this case, the OP showed up for a boat dive without his own buddy. That's more or less agreeing to solo dive

Absolute crap. It may be different diving where you are... but that's not the case for most parts of the world....certainly the tourist destinations.

The divemaster is there to arrange the logistics of the dive. That's part of the service you expect to be paying for. That means arranging partners etc.

Also...agreeing or not to solo dive..... you sure as hell shouldn't be informed of that situation ON THE DIVE.

...he could not have ascended early with the OP, without leaving the group.

As you said.... the DM is there as a guide, with no safety resonsibility towards the group. However, he does have a safety responsibility to his buddy.

Besides, we are talking about legal responsibility, according to his certification. He may still have a civil responsibility on the basis that a customer would expect rescue/safety provision as part of the service they are paying for.

Forgive me for being a little harsh, but if you can't ascend to a safety stop and hold it on your own in clear water, you probably need to rethink your training.

Forgive me for saying this, but if you feel that divers should be instructed to ascend to a safety stop and end the dive on their own, then you need to go back and re-take an OW course.

 

[Ana]

Forgive me for being a little harsh, but if you can't ascend to a safety stop and hold it on your own in clear water, you probably need to rethink your training.

Forgive me for saying this, but if you feel that divers should be instructed to ascend to a safety stop and end the dive on their own, then you need to go back and re-take an OW course.

This is actually a very good thread, I believe the OP described a situation that happens very often in many (if not most) tourist destinations.

The two quotes above are pretty much opposite to each other but both happen to be reasonable at the same time. And I don't mean that either one of the posters need to rethink or re-take anything. Also I don't mean just the little bit I quoted pretty much their full posts are very good.

I'd like to think that if I was a new diver I would see their differences in their approach. Notice Halocline refers to "training" while DevonDiver talks about "OW" .
So as a new diver, what do I care about?
1- what are the responsibilities and/or requirements of a good DM ?
or
2- what are the real situations new divers may encounter and how to deal with them?

Here on the board we go on and on about the rules of OW, dissecting each skill to its nth component.
That's fantastic for a typing session while the weather is crappy outside and there is no diving, but when the time of getting wet arrives and a new diver encounters him/herself in a location with the opportunity to dive what is it going to be:
1- I don't have a buddy but they are going to pair me up with someone so I'll be ok because the OW book says that whoever becomes my buddy will be next to me for the whole dive.
or
2- I don't have a buddy but I'm prepared to be ok AND enjoy my dive even if they pair me up with a moron.

 

[Ana]

You should have read some of the "spare death" threads that were all over rec.scuba back in the late 90's.....they were brutal....

Good times, ... I miss that place.

 

[vjones1957]

I was a solo dive traveler for a long time. I did many dive vacations as a solo diver and always assumed responsibility for myself, including going up to the boat when I was either low on air or cold. A divemaster has the resonsibility for the group, unless an individual has suffered an emergency situation. Each and every diver on that boat paid for a dive vacation and it is not fair to them to abort a dive because one diver's air consumption is not the same as the others.

On certain situations, I was "assigned" a dive buddy by the divemaster on the boat. In those situations, by prearrangement, my responsibility to that buddy was to monitor them for out of air and any emergency situations. I always dove with the divemaster group and when that buddy was low on air, I would ensure that they knew where the boat was and able to ascend safely, unless that diver indicated any difficulty. After all, I had paid the same as him for my dive package. In my experience, the divemasters usually return to the vicinity of the boat towards the end of the dive so that divers low on air can go to the boat and the remaining divers can continue their dive until either they are low on air or time.

We are all certified divers. My suggestion would be to dive with a club and travel with them. Often, there are other divers in similar situations where their partner does not dive. If you are not comfortable, and wish a personal divemaster, most dive resorts can accomodate with an extra charge.

 

[Splitlip]

Pretty much SOP in this part of the world. A DM/guide tows the float. Surface vessel follows the float. As buddy teams or individual divers need to leave the bottom, they do so while doing their best to stay close to the float line.

However with radical differences in the current from top to bottom, that 6 or 7 minute trip to the surface will result in the diver being a long way from the surface vessel.

It was easier to surface within general proximity of the float before safety stops and when we surfaced ~ 60 ft per minute.

The reason shooting a DSMB from the bottom is a useful skill. They are shot by divers on every charter.

JDC032.flv video by mm2002_bucket - Photobucket

An exception here is the Scuba Club of Palm Beach. They put 3 to 4 guides in the water. They endeavor to escort divers to the surface. The guides will shoot their markers, bring the diver or divers up, then depending on timing, they may even re-drop upstream of the surface float and do it again.

The boats I have worked as guide from have all "allowed" solo ascents. It's up to the buddy members to make this decision. I tell my solo group members that if they are not OK with a solo ascent I will join them until they surface.

If a boat or guide "allows" solo ascents, it is likely they also allow "ascent teams" to be formed when one member each of two buddy teams reaches ascent pressures at around the same time. By waiting until the last minute the team members will at least have had a dive or two to size up their potential teammate.

If the guide tells you they are your buddy, just like with any insta-buddy it's up to you to communicate before the dive what you expect from your buddy. I carry a large slate, so I explain to my charges that we can converse during the dive if they need.

I have had a couple new "my buddy" divers ask me to be their ascent buddy and I have had buddy teams ascend with lots of air in one tank, probably just because the "other" low tank was attached to a moron.

For 3 of the dive boats I'm talking about that is the company policy for their guides. On the 7 other dive boats I have guided either my personal groups or an employers groups from, the Captains are familiar with and allow this practice.

Here in Hawaii I get the feeling this is SOP for the vast majority of dive boats.

 

[halocline]

I think you missed the point DM. As the OP I was confortable ascending solo but pointed out, as you do, that the DM role is NOT responsible for my dive safety UNTIL he volunteered to be my buddy and told me that the buddy system was in operation.

I agree that in your case, the DM should not have offered to be your buddy, as it could have (and eventually did) conflict with his responsibility for guiding the group. Or at the least, some arrangement should have been agreed on before the dive about how you would surface if necessary before the rest of the group.

So now you know that a DM can't be your buddy and fully guide the group at the same time. The way I would have handled this would be to put you in a buddy group with two other divers, if there were no other single diver.

But, assuming conditions were such that you could easily ascend on your own, with the rest of the group in sight, and you weren't having any problems, I don't think it's such a bad thing. Neither did you, from your first post. I've certainly seen worse!

The reason I equated showing up for a guided group dive alone with (sort of) solo diving is because you never know what you're going to get with instabuddies. I've been in situations where I'm buddied with divers that I would not count on, so I try to be as self reliant as possible in those situations.

 

[halocline]

....but when the time of getting wet arrives and a new diver encounters him/herself in a location with the opportunity to dive what is it going to be:
1- I don't have a buddy but they are going to pair me up with someone so I'll be ok because the OW book says that whoever becomes my buddy will be next to me for the whole dive.
or
2- I don't have a buddy but I'm prepared to be ok AND enjoy my dive even if they pair me up with a moron.

I think realistically you have to consider #2 to be the case. If you are diving with an unknown diver, you can't be sure he/she will be there for you if you need it. Trust is earned....that's why diving in dangerous and/or challenging environments really relies on a team approach in which each diver has earned the trust of the other(s). Alternatively, solo divers in these environments rely on extensive solo training and redundant gear.

In a perfect world, all instabuddies would be excellent buddies. Most that I've encountered are, but occasionally you can get someone not reliable or skilled enough to really function as a buddy. In those cases, you are de facto solo diving, or at least 'semi' solo diving, by which I mean your buddy might be there to help you should you get into a jam, but might not.

 

[jcfahy]

But, assuming conditions were such that you could easily ascend on your own, with the rest of the group in sight, and you weren't having any problems, I don't think it's such a bad thing. Neither did you, from your first post. I've certainly seen worse!

The reason I equated showing up for a guided group dive alone with (sort of) solo diving is because you never know what you're going to get with instabuddies. I've been in situations where I'm buddied with divers that I would not count on, so I try to be as self reliant as possible in those situations.[/QUOTE]

As I said I had some training and the confidence to handle the solo ascent but the DM buddy did not know this when he waved me on. On a few occasions I was not in view of the group as they were at depth (>18 m) and I needed to climb over a sea mount. I subsequently learnt that I was more conservative with my final air reading than others but that is not really my point. I agree wholeheartedly that training is the key here and that is my approach but the DM-buddy could not have known that in advance. I wrote this thread not because I was aggrieved but thought that some valid safety issues are at stake and other divers should consider them too.

 

[cbm32]

I for one appreciate your starting this thread. I am sure that for the forseeable future I will be diving on resort type trips with groups or instabuddies. Having read this thread I will now make sure that any instabuddy, DM or not, and I have a clear understanding of what we are going to do should one of us need to surface before the other.