refusing an instabuddy

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Yeah the biggest issue I have had personally is air consumption. Had to cut a couple of dives rather short and then I started talking about it openly and it upfront it helped with the issue.

Its good to have an open discussion about this point specifically so they are thinking about monitoring their air and you can both proactively address it to get the most out of your dive.
 
Just a story . . . I was on a dive boat in Southern California with two friends, and we had intended to dive as a group of three. I was sitting at a table, chatting with two other divers, when one of the boat crew came up to them with a diver who didn't have a buddy, and he asked them if they would take on a third. They looked a bit embarrassed, but it was abundantly clear that they were not comfortable accepting this person. I immediately said, "Sure, you can buddy up with me," and went to let my other friends know that I had done this.

He had a GUE T-shirt on, and was probably one of the best divers on the boat, as well as being a very nice man. My good luck, and their loss!

(What makes the story even funnier is that, on the next dive, we had another guy come up to the two of us and tell us he was practicing for his UTD Tech 1 class, and could he join us; I ended up with two instabuddies who were fantastic divers and really well trained!)

Man, it's almost like they were part of a standardized diving system or something...where everything was the same...:confused:
 
This is specifically my problem right now and any advice on how to handle it will be well appreciated!

I'm newly qualified (4 OW dives)! I'm going to be in Oman on business later this month and am planning a 2 dive day trip over the weekend that I'm there. Last time I was there, I went on one of these trips (to snorkel) and one of my colleagues dived his 2 dives. I know what to expect and I've seen how they pair up or sometimes trio up a few divers and away they go. In this case, pretty shallow down to about 16m, dead calm water with almost no current and 10m+ vis. Really lovely diving.

Anyway, I've got work do do on my bouyency, I realise that, and as a result I chew through air. These places usually work on 50minutes or 50bar, whichever comes first. With my very limited experience (in a pretty strong surge), I'm down to 50bar in about 35 minutes. Realistically in this water, I'm counting on 40 minutes.

The point being, I don't want to cut somebody else's dive short because I plow through air so fast - what is the etiquette in this situation?

My plan is to try get into a trio instead of a pair and then agree beforehand that when I'm getting low on air, let them know that I'm going to surface and then just wait for them on the top. This does mean that I ascend on my own (what's the etiquette on that?), but at least I'm not splitting up the pair and they can carry on with their dive.

Any advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks.


If it's possible, get a bigger tank. I have the same air consumption problems compared to the people I dive with. I know that over time, my consumption will get better, but I decided to replace my AL80s with LP108s. That should give me the extra 15 minutes I need to stay down for an hour.

Another option because the visibility is so good, dive shallower. Staying 5 to 10 feet above your buddy will get you closer to their bottom time too. Just make sure they know where they can find you.
 
If it's possible, get a bigger tank. I have the same air consumption problems compared to the people I dive with. I know that over time, my consumption will get better, but I decided to replace my AL80s with LP108s. That should give me the extra 15 minutes I need to stay down for an hour.

Another option because the visibility is so good, dive shallower. Staying 5 to 10 feet above your buddy will get you closer to their bottom time too. Just make sure they know where they can find you.

Being that this is just a tourist dive while I'm out the country I'll be using all rental gear, same as everyone else. Here at home I have a 15l steel tank which is bigger than the normal 12l we see around here.

Great tip on the depth though, thanks for that.

I really need to work on my peak bouyency - I expect that will come with time (and when I do my AOW in August). When winter (here in the S. Hemisphere) is over I'll be spending a lot of time in the pool practising!
 
none at all? so if a guy showed up with no octopus on his tank, the DM would still pair him up with someone?

I dove with an op, where the DM would escort the low on air diver to the surface and re-pair his/her buddy with someone else, if the buddy didn't want to go up before they had to.

My husband was rebuddied with someone without an octo. It took him a minute or two to realize this, as he did a once over to check all the safety conditions, since he hadn't done a buddy check on the boat. When he realized there was no, second regulator around the neck, Air2 or octo he was out: his way of refusing the insta-buddy- he immediatly thumbed the remaining portion of the dive and joined me (I had already ran out of air at 45 minutes) on the boat.

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Someone mentioned on another forum that the idea of the air hog getting a larger tank is good in theory, but if something happens late in the dive, remember that you buddy may not be carrying enough reserve for you, since you use air at a greater rate then they do, and they have a smaller tank.
 
Being that this is just a tourist dive while I'm out the country I'll be using all rental gear, same as everyone else. Here at home I have a 15l steel tank which is bigger than the normal 12l we see around here.

Great tip on the depth though, thanks for that.

I really need to work on my peak bouyency - I expect that will come with time (and when I do my AOW in August). When winter (here in the S. Hemisphere) is over I'll be spending a lot of time in the pool practising!

Another way to conserve air, often overlooked and can be a real pain, is to not use the power inflator on your BC. This takes some practice and again can be a pain, but you can inflate your BC my mouth. Just another option to save a little air. If you are diving from a boat, this can easily be done before jumping in. It won't get you a ton of extra bottom time though.

---------- Post added July 3rd, 2014 at 10:50 AM ----------

Someone mentioned on another forum that the idea of the air hog getting a larger tank is good in theory, but if something happens late in the dive, remember that you buddy may not be carrying enough reserve for you, since you use air at a greater rate then they do, and they have a smaller tank.

This makes little sense. If you and your buddy are smart, you are back to the surface with 500 lbs left in your tank. Even if you are at 100ft and have to share air, 500 lbs should be enough to get you and your buddy back to the surface.

Two things to remember are, if either of you has an air problem, you would be calling the dive and making an immediate ascent and forgoing any safety stops. Getting to the surface when one is out of air is more important then the benefits of a safety stop. Second, the air in the tank and in your hoses will expand as you ascend giving you an extra breath or two.

So your buddy should always have more then enough air to share with you in such an event.
 
Another way to conserve air, often overlooked and can be a real pain, is to not use the power inflator on your BC. This takes some practice and again can be a pain, but you can inflate your BC my mouth. Just another option to save a little air. If you are diving from a boat, this can easily be done before jumping in. It won't get you a ton of extra bottom time though.

If that is saving you enough air to make a significant difference in your dive time, you are either doing a very unusual dive or you need some work on buoyancy skills.

First, if you are properly weighted, it will take very little air in your BCD to be neutrally weighted. Your BCD should be barely inflated during a dive if you are properly weighted.

Let's next consider a dive with a square profile. Once you hit your depth and add the correct amount of air in the BCD, you should theoretically not have to add any more air for the rest of the dive. Your changes in buoyancy with your minor depth changes should be accomplished by your lungs. Now let's look at a multi-level dive. You should be starting at your deepest point and then moving progressively shallower, so the only changes to the BCD should be removing expanding air, not adding more air. It is true that you will probably not follow the square and multi-level profiles perfectly, but extra descents should not happen often for most divers.

Finally, let's look at a dive in which you are going over terrain with varying contours and thus varying depths. In that case, you may have more than one descent that requires adding air. For most divers on most dives, that won't happen a whole lot. I once did a cave dive in Mexico where I was indeed going up and down a whole lot. My computer profile looked like an EKG printout. In that case I was using my inflator more than I would like, but that was very unusual, and it is not something the average diver will encounter.

If you are overweighted and diving shallow, you may have more of a problem. Every pound of excess lead requires nearly a pint of air in the BCD to compensate. The more shallow your dive, the more that excess air will react to minor changes in depth. The more air that is expanding and contracting with those changes in the BCD, the less your lungs will be able to overcome those changes. In that case, the better solution is to cut back on the excess lead.
 
This makes little sense. If you and your buddy are smart, you are back to the surface with 500 lbs left in your tank. Even if you are at 100ft and have to share air, 500 lbs should be enough to get you and your buddy back to the surface.

Well, if you and your buddy are smart, you won't have a LOA/OOA situation at all. (Unless of course there is equipment failure.)

But if you stupidly ignored your gauges and you ran dry, and your buddy is low- if you were relying on a larger tank to "match" their dive time, then their reserve air may not be enough for both of you. Because you need more air then them, so they need to have EXTRA reserve air for you; basically in the same proportion your tank was larger than theirs to begin with.
 
Quote Originally Posted by ballastbelly
...none at all? so if a guy showed up with no octopus on his tank, the DM would still pair him up with someone?

My husband was rebuddied with someone without an octo. It took him a minute or two to realize this, as he did a once over to check all the safety conditions, since he hadn't done a buddy check on the boat. When he realized there was no, second regulator around the neck, Air2 or octo he was out: his way of refusing the insta-buddy- he immediatly thumbed the remaining portion of the dive and joined me (I had already ran out of air at 45 minutes) on the boat.

I can understand why someone would not want to dive with a buddy that had no octo, however it has nothing to do with the skills of the diver without the octo. It is now is a problem for new divers to buddy breathe due to their lack of training and the fact that most believe buddy breathing involves an octo. In the mid to late 80's I started to carry an octo, most of the time, because divers were not being trained well, or at all, to actually buddy breathe due to the ubiquitous "safe second".



Bob
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That's my point, people, by and large, are not taught that diving can be deadly, they are taught how safe it is, and they are not equipped with the skills, taught and trained to the level required to be useful in an emergency.
 
I can understand why someone would not want to dive with a buddy that had no octo, however it has nothing to do with the skills of the diver without the octo.

No, it doesn't say anything about the skill of the diver (this guy however was a bit of a mess, not so much as a bad diver, but a horrible group diver, and group is the nature of dives in Cozumel). But not having an octo or a set up for primary donation definitely ruins their value as a buddy if the other person hasn't been trained to buddy breathe.

And quite honestly, while I've praticed buddy breathing with my husband- I wouldn't want to even attempt it with someone I didn't know previously. The idea seems terrifying.
 
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