Buddy ditches the dive plan

[chrispete]

When I was a new diver (in the 10-15 dive range) I got paired with an insta-buddy. We planned for a nice slow paced dive around the lake and to a particular sunken boat. I specifically told him that I did not feel comfortable going into the boat. He agreed.

We hit the water and he was off like a shot. I finally caught up to him as he was entering the boat. He silted it out within seconds and (unknown to me) climbed out a window on the other side of the boat. He left me there for a few minutes before coming back around and signaling me to follow him back into the boat. I thumbed the dive and he proceeded to argue with me. I surfaced as he went back into the boat and surface swam back to the dock. Needless to say I never dove with him again and he didn't make it very long with the group having that kind of attitude.

 

[XXXL]

It depends on who I am diving with & more importantly what diving I am doing.
If it is deco diving then no all of use follow the same plan & stick to it.

If it is rec diving we tend not to have a plan, jsut a few simple rules, max depth 40m, time approx 60 mins etc., we both breathe about the rate, so we know when its time to turn a dive. The hardest part is usually trying to find her, she likes to swim off & do her own thing especially watching turtles & sharks. If there is a good group of us, the women tend to leave us alone & we sometimes surface by ourselves.

 

[plclark196]

I dive Florida caves ..where the RULE is 1/3 in 1/3 out 1/3 in reserve in regards to air consumption. I actually had a "dive buddy" continue further into the cave even after I hit my turn around 1/3 and had turned the dive and got an acknowledgement ...but he indicated he would continue a bit further .... which of course means we are both going to exit solo. I blame him the first time this happens...blame me if I ever dive with him again!

 

[tstormdiver]

I have dove with 1 gentleman who, at the time was beginning to show some dangerous tendencies, at least by the accounts of others who had dove with him, or had conversations with him. I should have taken the hint at that time & not gone on that dive, but not having really dove with him before, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. We were supposed to, by plan, drop down to the deep part of the quarry. The plan was for us to swim up the slanting road to the shallow end to to look at the attraction, but there were no plans made to penetrate them. As we were making our way along, he suddenly decides to start penetrating the boats, vans & other such attractions down there. I try not get into overhead environments, personally (since I have no training), so I just waited outside. Keep in mind that we are both OW divers of the same level (rescue) After him doing this attraction after attraction, I'm starting to get low on air & pushing close to deco limits. I let him see both my SPG & my computer, so there was no mistaking what I was trying to communicate. I signal to him that it's time to start ending the dive. What does he do? He just goes on to the next attraction & penetrates it. OK,.... well,... I guess I'm on my own to get myself to the surface. I begin my ascent, do my deep & safety stops & surface. He cames up a little bit later (would have been after I would have run out of air). I asked him what he was doing, going inside the attractions & ignoring my call of the dive due to no deco times & my air supply. He replied that he was doing the penetrations to "practice" because he wants to become a technical diver & that he had been teaching himself to do solo & deco diving & thought that my air supply would have been enough. Not long after that day we both basically wound up going to another dive shop. Me because I wanted to take the Dive Con course there & had a little interest in technical diving & him because he wanted the technical training. We both wound up going through the Dive Con course together. He failed the course miserably. He failed the exam twice & got caught cheating on it the second time, was never prepared for the course, gave inaccurate & dangerous information on his classroom presentations, could not complete his swim tests & the list goes on. He even recently told an instructor that he was a Dive Con & could help with a class. Also just after we started going to the second shop I heard it through the grapevine (& it's a pretty accurate grapevine) that he had presented himself as a certified cave diver, trying to get the other cave divers to take him with them. In fact I was there one day when he got caught trying to do that. There were some fireworks! A little time later, I was working at the dive shop. This fellow called up & after a brief conversation, he tells me that he had just completed a rebreather course from yet another instructor, then proceeded to ask me if I wanted to go with him to the quarry & learn how to use a rebreather. I politely said "no", that I had to work that weekend. Unfortunately, from all that I have seen & heard from this fellow, I'm afraid that he one day, will wind up hurting himself or another diver or worse. To be honest I think this guy really doesn't understand fully what he could be getting himself into. I believe that he actually has good intentions, but has completely deluded himself about his abilities & how to reach his goals. Instead of taking the proper training, which is available, he is trying to train himself. Now that hind sight is 20/20, that dive should have never taken place, but I did learn to trust my gut instincts on people & their demeanor, as to how they will or will not follow a dive plan. That is about the only time I've ever had a buddy NOT follow a dive plan, or if it was to be altered, not communicate it with me.

 

[Swan1172]

Any time you are paired up with an insta-buddy, you are really just "diving alone, together".

 

[dbulmer]

TSandM,
I did this last Sunday. Dive plan was to 30 metres for 35 min on 32%. The cylinders were analysed at 25% - the shop ran out of 02. Plan was amended out of the water to add more deco at 9 6 and 3.

On the descent I managed to get a partial drysuit flood and called the dive at 28 mins (most of the dive was done at about 26m with about a minute at 30m) and did the deco with my buddy. As far as I'm concerned, being cold and deco do not mix so I aborted early but I should have done a better job of telling my buddy what was wrong ie wet notes are not just decoration

When I got back on the boat, I found my drysuit full of water and I was cold so for me aborting early was the right thing to do.

 

[ClayJar]

I've had some that have been close to what you describe. Hindsight and experience have made it now abundantly clear that they were actually *not* signing on for the plan but rather merely exhibiting a case of the "yeah-yeahs". (You know the old, "Yeah, yeah, we'll do that...", like the old smile and nod while not paying a bit of attention to what the other person is saying.)

These days, I spend more effort getting the other divers to actively participate in the planning. I have never yet had someone who actively participated in dive planning who has intentionally scrapped the plan during the dive. Such an occurrence would make me many times more displeased than all the times, combined, where I have foolishly allowed passive ignorance to rear its ugly head.

(I had a one-day buddy at a quarry a while back. He agreed to a dive plan, basically a shallow constant-depth wall dive around the perimeter, but his execution was less than stellar. I basically dove at constant depth while he sine-waved all over the place, even right to the surface. I consider such a thing a simple lack of skill and attention, much different thing than a calculated, intentional deviation from the plan. The former I have oft encountered, the latter, thankfully, never.)

 

[TSandM]

dbulmer, I wouldn't call what you did "ditching the dive plan", at least in the way I meant when I began the thread. No plan should be rigidly adhered to in the face of changing conditions -- I've learned that one the hard way! Deciding the plan should be changed, discussing it with buddy, agreeing, and proceeding with the new plan is just very reasonable buddy diving. But the key is communication and agreement!

 

[Sas]

Any time you are paired up with an insta-buddy, you are really just "diving alone, together".

I disagree with this strongly. I have had a few instabuddies and all but one of them have been great and I felt comfortable I could rely on them if I a problem arose. (and the guy that was not great was only because of inexperience rather than deliberate messing up the dive plan).

For example, my first time diving without an instructor or DM I had two boat dives where I was paired up with a different instabuddy each dive in locations I had not dived at before. They both went through the dive plan thoroughly with me, went over the dive site and how we would navigate, went over hand signs, talked about what would happen in an OOA situation, if we got separated and a few other issues, they showed me their equipment such as how to check their gas, etc, we went over gas management and what we both wanted to get out of the dive. Before the dive we did thorough buddy checks. During the dive they both stuck very close to me and followed our agreed upon plan exactly as we had discussed on the surface. I don't see how this would be considered 'diving alone, together' to be honest as it is the procedure I go through with regular dive buddies. I doubt that most people who are willing to discuss all that on the surface in detail are going to abandon it underwater. It is the people that show no interest in planning on the surface, that I would think more likely to abandon an agreed upon dive plan.

So yea, in answer to the original OP, no I haven't had an instabuddy ignore a dive plan.

 

[Charlie99]

The funniest case I've had was where I joined up with a husband-wife buddy pair on a Florida Keys boat. Nice easy dive on a shallow, well defined spur and groove reef. He will lead. We will meander up and down 3 or 4 spurs to the East until we are aound 1/2 tank, then come back past the boat and do a couple spurs to the West of the boat.

The dive starts with him jumping in and immediately swimming off to the West. His wife is still on the boat. I catch him. Motion to wait for her. She gets in, joins us. He takes off like a rocket again, swimming straight past the ends of several spurs, never going into the reef structure, never looking back. I chase him down. Stop him by grabbing his fin. We wait while his wife appears out of the haze and joins us. I signal for us to go up the groove structure, which he does for a couple.

She signals she's about 1/2 tank and time to meander back towards the boat. I wait. He never looks back and keeps swimming away. For about the 4th time, I chase him down.

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I have a little private discussion with him about his poor awareness of others. He kind of sees the point of the discussion. Maybe. I'll find out for real on the next dive.
I told him that his wife was going to lead the next dive. No discussion allowed.
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Before the 2nd dive, the wife comes over to me and says it will be just the two of us on the next dive. "Oh, is your husband sitting out the dive?" I inquire.

"No. I told him to go buddy up with someone else."

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When even your spouse is rejecting you as a buddy, it's time to take a hard look at your underwater behavior.