What sets off your alarm bells?

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I've had three instabuddy experiences that were unpleasant, and in all three cases, it was because the person took off on me. In two of those cases, the pre-dive briefing had included, "All I ask from you is to stay with me.". In the third, where I was shoved off on another buddy pair as the "instabuddy", I did not lead the briefing, and it wasn't discussed. In none of the three cases was there any red flag in the on-land interaction that would have warned me. Two of the three had a whole raft of excuses why they did what they did; I didn't debrief the third.

I make no assumptions about anybody's diving skill before I see them in the water, unless they've had training with which I am familiar. There are some instructors around here (like NW Grateful Diver) whose classes I know, and I will expect a different level of commitment from their students. Otherwise, I set any dive up with an unfamiliar person to be a dive I can do with my eyes closed, and whenever possible, I arrange a third, known buddy for my own peace of mind.
 
The idea of an instabuddy sets off alarm bells. We generally charter our own boat and when that's not possible I'll dive alone. If diving with a new diver for the first time I usually vet them ahead of time and attempt to make an easy shore dive locally before we get on a boat together.

I like to dive with people at BHB first. If they look good and are good buddies, then I'll dive off a boat with them.
 
"I haven't been in the water for a few months, but I'm a rescue diver and have about 150 dives. I don't log dives though."

Run away, quickly.

I plan on doing two #149 dives and then just going to #151.
 
Nothing. I'm extra cautious with anyone I don't know... unless/until they give me a reason to believe otherwise, I start with the assumption they have no idea what they're doing.

It's always less stress when you start out assuming that everybody is clueless with a death wish.

If it looks like a disaster is brewing and I'm not responsible for preventing it, I'll generally stay on the boat and take a nap. If it's my buddy, we'll stay very shallow (20' or less), hang out in a small patch of bottom, not too far from the boat and watch fish. Maybe the next dive will be deeper/harder. Maybe not.

The cool part is that it works out great all the way around. I get a nice relaxing dive and someone who was all stressed out and nervous gets one too. In fact, there are any number of relatively new divers who have never experienced stillness and quiet in a low-risk environment; they've always been in a class or on a tour.

One summer, I infected close to a dozen people with this heresy and it was a lot of fun to sit on the boat and watch buddy pairs having a ball in water that wasn't much deeper than standing-up height.

The most stressful dives are when I take a cruise, sometimes without my buddy, and end up working instead of playing. Even though legal responsibility for a buddy might be poorly-defined, I have a personal rule about nobody dying while I'm watching.


flots

---------- Post added April 1st, 2014 at 04:01 PM ----------

Smell of alcohol from somebody assembling their gear and getting kitted up

My favorite is watching someone put the tank on backwards then attach the reg upside down, then complain the "hoses are too short"

I gave up saying anything. People just get pi****.

edit: I did have one worse than the "short hose" problem above. One woman asked if anybody had a wrench because the "hoses were in the wrong place". They would have been in the right place if the tank was facing the right direction . . .
 
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weight belt on the wrong way ding ding. Oh your weight belt should be right hand release - I'm left handed, ding ding ding ding ding.

*usually good divers but not always good buddies.

ive seen this in at least one SSI book (stress & rescue) where the divers weight belt should be worn to facilitate a strong hand release rather than right hand release. 20% (% of leftys) of SSI divers may be doing it wrong.
 
My spouse does not dive, so I often find myself with an instabuddy. Had some great ones, and a few not so great.

But I did have one instabuddy that left me wondering. He said he was a DM, and talked profusely. warning one... We were diving the Speigel Grove, so it was to be a deep dive and I wanted to coordinate our dive plan and see what he was interested in. He deferred to me because I had been on the ship multiple times.

Then it happened- he was diving air (a DM?), and I was on Nitrox (with my true instabuddy, my pony), so I mentioned that he would most likely determine our turn around time based on his NDL time, being a deep dive. I noted we would probably have 20-25 minutes of time on the ship. He countered that he would be able to probably last for 45 minutes on the ship! I put up my wrist, put my computer in planning mode, and showed him that my being on EAN 28 gave me 28 minutes or so at 95-100 feet.

Well, we went on the dive, and he dove adequately, following me around like a puppy, which actually made it easier, so the viz was about 30 feet with a moderate current. In the end, we came up because he ran out of gas in 20 minutes, still having several minutes to his NDL. I came up with almost half my tank.

As I said on on another thread, had lousy dives (not necessarily this diver) with very experienced divers, and very fun and satisfying dives with new divers, and vice versa. After you dive a fair amount (and especially teach), I have found you can figure the various types of divers out.

Terry

---------- Post added April 1st, 2014 at 05:20 PM ----------

ive seen this in at least one SSI book (stress & rescue) where the divers weight belt should be worn to facilitate a strong hand release rather than right hand release. 20% (% of leftys) of SSI divers may be doing it wrong.

We recently had a student with a deformed left arm that couldn't be used for much. We set up a BC with the air fill on the right, and a few other interesting customizations. She was a adequate student, but worked very hard in spite of her disabilities, especially since she had to learn everything basically with one arm.

We got to the quarry for our checkout dives, and all of the BCs were on a picnic table. Another group of "expert" diver were adjacent to us. I happened to be at the picnic table setting up for some activities while the students were away learning how to use a compass. Well, one of these experts, upon seeing the deformed BC, decided to show his astounding knowledge to his buddies, likewise of astounding knowledge, and belittle that person who could ever screw up a BC like that one.

Several minutes later this handicapped diver came back and grabbed the BC, at which point the experts became extremely quiet and dumbfounded. Really did want to make a comment to them, but would have disrupted the enthusiasm this women showed.

Terry
 
They say, 'I'll race you to the surface!'

They say, 'These new dive computers sucks, they put me into deco when I still had 1500 psi.'

They say, 'I don't need fins, it makes it too hard to walk on the coral'

They ask 'What's the hand sign for 'my computer's broke, can I borrow yours?'

The Geardo Diver: A diver who looks like they covered themself with superglue, then went running through the Dive shop.
 
I think it's a good question. At my job we'd get new divers from all over the world to do research. Young and Old. For me the first alarm is when divers would swim perpendicular to the bottom. Instead of being comfortable swimming along peacefully and horizontal they'd be stopping a lot, adjusting gear a lot, and constantly wanting to have their head up and feet down. Adventure-Ocean
 
When the Captain of the diveboat I frequently go on asks me as a favor to buddy-up with a diver who's never been on the dive site before, s/he only having a single tank AL80 and with no dive light --on the HMCS Yukon wreck in San Diego, 11deg C water temp with 6m viz at 21m. (Oh well, there went my original 40min bow-to-stern penetration traverse plan at ave 27m depth with O2 deco for 8min).

Please tell us you were not paying for this dive charter, or you were being reimbursed for the charter fee and gas fills. If not you are a saint!
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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