Challenging Poor Buddy Skills -

[runez]

These same questions and concerns apply to Instructors, especially Resort Instructors, who seemingly ignore their own advice in both pre-dive and in-water safety guidelines, and put not just their buddy at risk, but the entire dive party. This happened recently to me in Jamaica at a Five Star PADI shop and I reported two of them, including the Dive Master and Manger, to PADI.

Hi, what do you mean? Are you able to share more about what the instructor(s) did that put the dive party at risk? I think it may make a good case study.

 

[Phil_C]

Fortunately my Significant Other (SO) doesn't dive, a blessing on the one hand that we never argue on a dive and I only have to buy one set of kit, a curse on the other hand that on holidays she wants to do things other than dive, how unreasonable !

But on the score of solo diving - one of the reasons I have started to move over to diving open water side mount is to give me some redundancy and allow me to develop my solo diving, horror of horrors I'm even thinking of getting a solo card, and one of the reasons is I have so often dived with same ocean buddies, or people who should know better, do pre dive checks and have a plan, but then seem to get water madness as soon as they submerge - the dive plan immediately going out the window.

I had a classic example two weeks ago - I went to a local diving centre at a quarry - we planned to dive to a maximum depth of 22 metres - down to a sunken trawler, then back via a couple of other attractions. There were three of us, two DM level and a third who was AOW equivalent - with about t25 dives. We agreed the other DM and AOW would swim as a buddy pair and I would navigate and essentially be the third party. I had side-mounted 12 ltr tanks, the other DM a single 12 and 3 ltr pony and the AOW was on a single 12 ltr.

When we reached the trawler the other DM suddenly dropped down through a hatch and started to work his way through the boat - the AOW didn't know what to do - and fair play to him did not follow, we had a quick exchange of hand signals - some do not feature in any diving manual I know - and remained outside, after a few minutes when the other DM had not come out I also penetrated the wreck and found him in the engine room - I signalled we were going to move on - and basically he could come with us or not - his choice, and then followed my line back out.

He did follow, but the conversation when we got back topside was interesting to say the least - the AOW his buddy was not impressed and told him so, the AOW had neither redundancy or experience to go inside, and felt most fed up that there had been no consultation at all, no discussion whilst kitting up or in the dive plan, and he left his buddy to basically 'hang around' until he had finished his trip inside.

Despite us both saying we were unhappy with him, he couldn't see what he had done wrong. - Phil

 

[dbulmer]

PhilC,

I see where you are coming from - sounds like the Stanegarth to me/
Out of curiosity, did either of you (DM to DM ie diver to diver ) talk about the relative inexperience of the third diver beforehand? Was the DM known to you before starting the dive?

 

[DaleC]

Like TS&M many people I know dive this way as well. But not all. In my experience this is because they have never been taught better, aren't really committed to the team concept or are afraid of being out front. This last point shouldn't be overlooked. I know several people who are nervous when diving but do ok if someone else is out front acting like a human shield. The boogeyman factor of low vis diving can spook some people.

 

[Phil_C]

PhilC,

I see where you are coming from - sounds like the Stanegarth to me/
Out of curiosity, did either of you (DM to DM ie diver to diver ) talk about the relative inexperience of the third diver beforehand? Was the DM known to you before starting the dive?

Hi - yes it was the Stanegarth - and to be honest probably one of the easiest and benign penetrations if there is such a thing, all the rooms and hatches are linear, and most let some daylight in, the two central rooms have no light source, but with care you can navigate with relative ease even if you cannot see - provided you know this and do not panic, but it is still a 20 metre wreck with several rooms and an overhead environment and no direct exits.

Sadly in the group we all know each other well and belong to the same club - so there should have been no excuses for poor communication, and there was prior communication about the other diver, this is one of the reasons the other DM came along - the others are BSAC qualified, one BSAC "Ocean Diver" and one BSAC "Advanced Diver/Open Water Instructor" (OWI)- it is easier on here to say DM/AOW otherwise BSAC "Advanced" doesn't always get understood for what it really is - somewhere between a DM and Instructor. A side purpose of the day was for the other AD/OWI to sign off some skills for the Ocean Diver for his next grade, which I cannot do as I am not an OWI, so there was no misunderstanding on his behalf of what his skill levels were.

I had dived with the inexperienced diver before and he is actually very good, but although I have dived in groups with the other DM hadn't actually dived with him before as buddy etc. When we talked about it afterwards the guys attitude was 'so what?' it is an easy penetration, 'whats the problem?' - he really didn't grasp that it was the fact there there had been plan which had then been totally ignored which had upset both of us. - P

 

[bowlofpetunias]

I am so lucky that my SO (significant other) and I dive very well together. I have seen others who wind up fighting underwater We are fairly well matched in SAC, attitude etc. I am not so great at navigating so he does that but I am good at spotting things so that is my job.

---------- Post added December 7th, 2013 at 05:55 PM ----------

Therein lies the problem. The hardest buddies to "confront" are the highly qualified ones who get to the point where they are so used to people doing what they tell them or decide to do that they see no need to follow a plan. They have got away with "winging it" so long and spent so much time under water they forget it is NOT their natural environment!

 

[dbulmer]

Hi - yes it was the Stanegarth - and to be honest probably one of the easiest and benign penetrations if there is such a thing, all the rooms and hatches are linear, and most let some daylight in, the two central rooms have no light source, but with care you can navigate with relative ease even if you cannot see - provided you know this and do not panic, but it is still a 20 metre wreck with several rooms and an overhead environment and no direct exits.

Sadly in the group we all know each other well and belong to the same club - so there should have been no excuses for poor communication, and there was prior communication about the other diver, this is one of the reasons the other DM came along - the others are BSAC qualified, one BSAC "Ocean Diver" and one BSAC "Advanced Diver/Open Water Instructor" (OWI)- it is easier on here to say DM/AOW otherwise BSAC "Advanced" doesn't always get understood for what it really is - somewhere between a DM and Instructor. A side purpose of the day was for the other AD/OWI to sign off some skills for the Ocean Diver for his next grade, which I cannot do as I am not an OWI, so there was no misunderstanding on his behalf of what his skill levels were.

I had dived with the inexperienced diver before and he is actually very good, but although I have dived in groups with the other DM hadn't actually dived with him before as buddy etc. When we talked about it afterwards the guys attitude was 'so what?' it is an easy penetration, 'whats the problem?' - he really didn't grasp that it was the fact there there had been plan which had then been totally ignored which had upset both of us. - P

I think a quiet word with your DO might help in future as it's a club sanctioned dive and 2 of you were unhappy at the end of it.

 

[Phil_C]

Actually we both spoke to the DO immediately after the dive - it didn't do much good - and only the three of us from the club went diving that day ! - P

 

[ozarkdiver]

I think a pre-dive briefing/post-dive debriefing is an EXCELLENT idea! Dive agencies tell you to plan-your-dive/dive-your-plan, but don't really encourage anything more than that. Besides the obvious benefits, it would be a easy place to talk about buddy behavior without being confrontational. You could tell them you lost contact with them without pointing the finger. You could also see how they respond to feedback. This could simply be a "I need your undivided attention" for a couple of minutes before/after dives. There's a lot of good information you could get in a debriefing. I wish dive agencies would push this more.

 

[TSandM]

I wish dive agencies would push this more.

Some do . . .