Buddy Checks - do you do them?

[MXGratefulDiver]

Not to hijack the thread and take it off topic, but this seems to be a good opportunity to discuss large diving knives. Large diving knives, such as the 12.5 inch-long Wenoka I have, were often called "diver's tools" because they were designed to serve multiple purposes. The knife I have has a point, but the same knife came with a blunt tip option for prying. When underwater hunting was more popular than it is today, the blade was a perfect place to engrave a ruler. My blade is 7.5 inches with hash marks and numbers measuring 6 inches and hash marks showing every 1/2 inch. This was helpful for such things as hunting abalone and making sure that you were taking legal game. The blade is for cutting while a saw is on top of the shank. The front top of my blade is forged to act as a screw driver. It has a hammer on the butt end. The wide flanged grip is designed to protect your hand from slipping when wearing gloves. Most old wet suit gloves did not have any grip material on the palms and fingers so that feature helped.

Other than the obvious tools built into a knife's design what you do with such a tool is as ingenious as the user.

There seems to be a sort of mockery toward these tools among divers today. While both technical and recreational divers prefer small, strategically-worn cutting tools, most of these tools do not have the well-rounded capability of yesterday's knives. Small knives reduce entanglement possibilities and are less bulky when traveling, but I cannot tell you how many times I've been doing work underwater and I wished I had my frog sticker.

I replaced the commercial buckled straps with surgical tubing and kept my snorkel on the back of my calf with my knife inside to reduce entanglements when diving from boats that required snorkels be worn.

While the knife looks like a weapon in reality it is a pretty smart set of tools.

Most divers today don't hunt, don't do working dives, and frankly don't need a knife with a measuring device, hammer or pry bar ... hammering or prying "souvenirs" isn't as socially acceptable as it was years ago when there were very few divers around and nobody really much cared how much they damaged or destroyed things ... if a dive site got too hammered up there were plenty more where that one came from. Today we try to instill a better sense of environmental stewardship in a diver's mentality.

There's a reason why a lot of diving destinations have established "no knife" policies ... and most of them involve cases of people misusing equipment simply because they had it and didn't know any better. Almost nobody who dives today, outside of those who are hunting or taking prizes off of wrecks, needs a Bowie knife strapped to their leg.

Pretty much the only reason for any recreational diver to carry a knife is to deal with potential entanglement ... and you don't need a 7.5 inch blade with a hammer on the pommel to accommodate that need.

As the saying goes ... use the right tool for the job.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[kate b]

Always do the checks. There are so many stories of silly things going wrong when checks have not been done. Doesn't take long and then you can have an awesome dive.

 

[orm]

Just by the replies here.

There are those that are experienced enough to figure it out themselves, and if they miss something, it's not the end of the world, they can fix it in-water or go back to the boat.

There are those that have modified the buddy checks and have an expanded/reduced check to suite their needs and this will grow/shrink as needed.

There are those who religiously perform buddy checks as they did when they took their first water session, and won't deviate.

There are also those divers, probably silent on here, that have just passed their initial open water cert or have relatively little experience and omit checks because (probably) they look like the new divers. (Shudder the thought.)

There are also those divers that probably would have done them, but they get buddied with a (slightly) more experienced diver that says, "hi, what's your air like? See you in the water."

And I suspect, quit sadly, there are also those that would do them, but the boat staff 'bully' them into the water quickly without time.



While not doing buddy checks may not kill the diver. It can cause heightened anxiety for either them or their buddy or, if they're part of a group and the group has to wait at the surface while the boat turns around to come back to give them their mask/computer/compass/whatever it was they missed, anxiety to another group member.

- Say go were dropped in at a spot, good surface current, didn't do your buddy check, didn't notice you didn't have your weight belt. Everyone's in, Oh hang on... no weight belt. Signal to the boat, boat turns around comes back gives you your belt. You pop it on, you're now 800 yards away from the dive site against a surface current.

- OK, say you got your belt, no surface current, you try put the belt on, and it slips, falling under and whacking the person who's just gone down below you?

- How about this? Again... you forgot something, turn the boat around, while the other group of diver have gone under, the boat returns, one of the other divers from the group had equalization issues, and came up, the boat hits him.

There's more and more scenarios that can happen, all because you can't be assed doing a 20 second check.

This is not even including the OOA scenarios, tangle hoses, air not fully on etc, that can have far greater consequences.


This posts is mainly for those new to diving, ignore those people who have bad habits around you, stick to your training and be a safe diver.

 

[DaleC]

A good summation orm but I would also add that new divers should not look at the externals that other divers display and make assumptions because of it either way.
There may be more going on than can be observed (or not). Each dive(r)/team should stick to their own game plan and not be swayed by peer pressure or public opinion.
Most importantly, learn the why behind what you are doing. If you understand the why, the what will become common sense.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back to the knife for a moment.
Easy to mock those big pig stickers in 2010 but there was a time when very little was known about what went on underwater. We tend to forget that it has only really been since JYC that we have begun to understand aquatic animals and their behaviors. Pre 1940's many people believed there were gigantic squid that would drag divers to their death, sharks were thought to be mindless man eaters, giant eels would hunt you down and pull you into their lairs etc... Some people still believed in the Kraken! The first "freedivers" were really crossing a huge psychological barrier that reaches back to primordial times. If I were diving during then I too might have used a big knife, and a speargun, and a bangstick... and some dynamite (just in case). It's hard to kill those Krakens I been told.
Now we know different of course, but how many divers of today would have dived in the uncertainty of the 50's or 60's with a 3" blunt tipped knife? Just like the topic of this thread there may have been more going on than that which is immediately observable.

 

[TSandM]

The issue of being rushed or even mocked by dive boat staff is real, and it is difficult for a newer diver to resist. We have had to be a bit harsh on occasion, to get boat staff off our necks. Checks just don't take that much time!

 

[Trace Malinowski]

A good summation orm but I would also add that new divers should not look at the externals that other divers display and make assumptions because of it either way.
There may be more going on than can be observed (or not).

Yeah, divers do nothing but b***h about one another and are often ignorant of what others are doing while judging everything that goes on around them as if they know better like self-elected Mike Nelsons or Captain Nemos.

It may be because the playing field is mostly invisible. We catch one guy in a bad moment and brand him a poor diver because we didn't see 100% of the dive. In other sports, we often get to witness 100% of the activity so we know that a great wide receiver is still great even when he drops a pass in the first quarter. In diving, that dropped pass might be all a team witnesses of another and an instant opinion is formed.

 

[ScubaFeenD]

I also like to mess with the minds of students and buddies. When I mention my wet notes, I get into detail on every item contained within such as, "Two pencils. One yellow and one green. One space pen - blue. One bolt snap with cave line loop - white line. Two black hair ties. One gray hair tie. One back-up necklace - black with pre-tied mouthpiece loop. One signal mirror. Three line arrows - white. Two cave cookies - white. One orange back-up cutting tool. Three black zip ties and a collapsible dive (air, nitrox or trimix) tables. Got that? Okay what do I have in my notes?"

Note to self, when Trace is telling me what is on his person, take notes on my own wetnotes--at least now I know one good use for the wetnote investment

 

[Sas]

Yeah, divers do nothing but b***h about one another and are often ignorant of what others are doing while judging everything that goes on around them as if they know better like self-elected Mike Nelsons or Captain Nemos.

It may be because the playing field is mostly invisible. We catch one guy in a bad moment and brand him a poor diver because we didn't see 100% of the dive. In other sports, we often get to witness 100% of the activity so we know that a great wide receiver is still great even when he drops a pass in the first quarter. In diving, that dropped pass might be all a team witnesses of another and an instant opinion is formed.

I think this only happens on the internet though?

 

[SubMariner]

A cautionary tale:

We were on a liveboard in the Red Sea with Pearce's son & daughter-in law, whom we had certified a couple of years earlier in Bonaire. On this particular dive we were to take one of the RIBs from the ship to The Carnatic, a wonderful wooden wreck. We were stoked!

Not long after gearing up & doing our buddy check, step-son comes to us saying that his wife doesn't want to dive. (She had bit of a bad moment on a prior dive after a mouthful of seawater.) Pearce talks her into doing a very easy dive just off the back of the ship while I would go with step-son on the RIB to the Carnatic. Everyone likes the idea.

On the way over in the RIB SS & I discuss strategy & signals. All good! A backroll into the water and down....

About 15' down step-son's eyes go a bit wide. He shows me his spg. It's at "0" in the red! I hand him my octo, which to his credit he clears easily & starts to breathe off of. I put a extra air in my bc & drysuit to support both of us while, on a hunch, I reach over to check his tank valve. It's CLOSED!

So I crank it open, check that his spg is now nicely in the green, and hand his own reg back to him. He takes it back, clears & starts to breathe off it. We exchange OK signals & go down to the wreck.

After the dive on the way back to the ship in the RIB I give him the 3rd degree. How did he miss the closed tank valve during his buddy check? Turns out that he & his dive buddy (wife) geared up but never did one! Duhhhh?????

Lesson learned!

 

[TMHeimer]

Dale, going to have to disagree! (from my own experience). Basically most people don't seem to do buddy checks beyond their OW. The ones that do continue it tend to be conscientious enough to have checked themselves fairly well before buddy checks are done. So basically buddy checks are only catching mistakes (which everyone makes). It is not often I find a problem in my buddy's gear and vice versa. But anyway, perhaps your experience is different.

Yes, I guess that's what I've really been seeing for 5 years. I solo dive at times, so I'm not too concerned if someone doesn't check out my stuff. I help my regular buddy on with his drysuit and get him set cooling off in the water while I gear up in my wetsuit. We all get into routines. Out of all the posts, I've seen 2 or 3 that basically sluff off doing the checks, and quite a few more who do a trimmed down version. It probably has a lot to do with how often one dives. As stated, it doesn't take long to do a check, because there are just a few things to check, and it's not rocket science. After a while it probably just gets done real quick. And yes, once or twice I have forgotten to turn the air on, fortunately on shore dives. But quite a big number of posters give very detailed descriptions of their checks (ours was Bruce Willis Ruins All Films). Still can't remember seeing anyone actually doing such detailed checks. Maybe it's just me....