Instabuddy vs. Dive Safety

[barth]

It depends on the situation. But most of the divers I know who are very good divers prefer to do their own dive and have their own planning and goals and dive without dive master.

They also practice their skills during fun or training dives.

They do have holidays with wife and/or family but also have dive trips with with buddies they met at earlier trips, during coarses and things like that.

If you want to dive with divers who are great buddies and divers, you should become one of them and spent a lot of time at diving an training.

It harder to organize a dive trip with your buddies then to go somewhere alone. But for me it’s more fun and rewarding to have a dive trip with friends/buddies.

 

[Darnold9999]

Photographer here. I like to look at stuff and hate following a DM, they tend to swim way too fast so as to give divers a 20,000 foot view of the reef. Fine for beginners and those who like that sort of thing. I much prefer to spend time looking at a small portion of the reef and rarely find nothing interesting to see. Occasionally I miss something like the dive I did where everyone but me was playing with a pod of sea lions while I was playing with a wolf eel, but on balance I tend to see way more interesting (to me) stuff.

I have a conversation with a new buddy before the first dive, I like to dive slow, will be taking pictures and unless there is a good reason don't follow a DM. (A good reason is a dive with a specific pickup point or destination) My test for instabuddies is to find something interesting in the first 5 minutes of the first dive and stop to take a few pictures. If the buddy keeps nearby looking for other interesting things to see then we will likely finish the trip as buddies, if they follow the DM I wave by by and dive solo for the rest of the trip. I am absolutely positive that is annoying to some people, but I have absolutely no interest in a swimming tour over reef after reef day after day which seems to be the norm in most (not all) dive locations.

 

[Esprise Me]

Not saying that it is the only way, but there is already one diving agency focused on this: GUE.

I've been on the fence about suggesting that. It's kind of the opposite of the solo route, since they don't condone solo diving. Some find them annoyingly prescriptivist; others find their tribe there.

 

[johndiver999]

Rather than trying to interrogate a potential "instabuddy" with respect to safety philosophy and determining their attitude toward performing pre and post dive briefings; a more productive line of discussion might be toward the dive objective.

Photographers (macro especially) are incompatible with most other divers. The members of the prospective dive team need to have goals and objectives that are more or less compatible, once that has been established, then you can fine tune the discussion and work out a mutually satisfactory dive plan.

If you fail to do that, one or both divers are not going to have fun, the buddy team will be weak and it is unlikely that there will be enough coordination to provide a sufficient emphasis on safety.

 

[Jafo19D]

Just out of curiosity, can you define "stupid crap" in less "opinion-based" terms?

Where you diving on a wall or near the bottom?

We were on a wall; had it been on a bottom it wouldn’t have been as bad but he was constantly going further down the wall than what the DM wanted us to be. During the surface interval when I mentioned to him that he was going deeper than the rest he said that he was a free diver and that his SAC was awesome. On the second dive he had to end his dive before the rest of us. As for stupid crap, how long can you stare at a lion fish?

 

[TMHeimer]

The last few posts point out the necessity of talking to the dive Op beforehand (or before a dive vacation) to see how everything works with them and convey what you would like to do. A photographer definitely should mention that is what they want to do. I always make sure shell collecting is allowed and offer to an instabuddy that we spend half the time pretty much on the bottom, while he/she leads the other half as they wish-- this seems fair. Not a good idea to blindly sign up then be upset when things don't go your way.

 

[Landau]

- talk with them before the dive

With "Instabuddies" IMHO the key thing is honest communication.

On a few occasions I've been instabuddied with divers who spoke a different language than me. The DM gave the briefing in multiple languages and everything worked out great. These were simple warm water "let's look at the coral and critters" dives. One of my instabuddies was much better than I or the DM at spotting and pointing out interesting things. Apparently pointing works in many languages.

I was very glad to dive with him.

Never had a bad insta buddy, though some went through their air faster than I would have preferred.

 

[David Novo]

We were on a wall; had it been on a bottom it wouldn’t have been as bad but he was constantly going further down the wall than what the DM wanted us to be. During the surface interval when I mentioned to him that he was going deeper than the rest he said that he was a free diver and that his SAC was awesome. On the second dive he had to end his dive before the rest of us. As for stupid crap, how long can you stare at a lion fish?

Depends on how easy it is to identify the species, if I am photographing, if it is showing any specific behaviour, among others, so hard to say

I would not classify a lionfish as "stupid crap" though. I don't get to see them that often.

 

[Hoag]

Hoag,

I assumed nothing, did not state an opinion. Finding something to be offensive is a statement not an opinion.

Some mention being paired with an ''insta-buddy'' like they've been handed a death sentence, the highway runs in both directions.

I respect your opinion.

Rose.

I never mentioned the word "opinion". Please do not put words in my mouth (on on my keyboard) or infere that I said something which I did not.

 

[Jcp2]

I wouldn’t mind being a buddy to a photographer as I like to see interesting small things too, but if the photographer is really engrossed in their work, aren’t I functionally just solo diving if I get into trouble? I’m looking out for him but he’s looking out for a critter.