How often do you check up on your buddy during a dive?

[Degenerate]

As title says, how often do you check up on your buddy during a dive?
If you're leading the dive and your buddy is behind you, how often would you flash the OK sign back to your buddy to check if he's alright?

Had a pretty heated discussion about this today, so many divers (instabuddies, anyone?) dive solely thinking about themselves and not really caring about the fact that you're a team.

 

[drjtprice]

When I was Dive Coordinator even if I was the leader I hung back and slightly above my buddy and let them go where they wanted, but was close enough to assist them if they got into trouble. With instabuddies it is a case of talking about it ahead of time. Two people who both have cameras are the worst, in my opinion, as both are paying attention to photography, not each other. If instabuddies who will make multiple dives, then trading off between dives. I have been with some divers who use a small mirror to check behind them (I have no idea if it actually works!).

 

[pauldw]

I check at the end of the dive. No sense leaving anyone behind.

 

[undrwater]

I check at the end of the dive. No sense leaving anyone behind.

Cute!

No sense getting heated; as was alluded to earlier, discuss before the dive and come to an agreement.

I prefer diving side by side as environment allows, and will inform my buddy of the same. Buddies NOT following the agreed upon plan was what inspired me to become "self reliant".

You must develop your own plan for diving with a buddy who nodded "yes" on the surface, but ignores that indicator down below. It's not easy, but it's manageable.

 

[Ben_3]

If I'm leading il look back every few kicks. Your buddy should always be an arm's distance or so.

 

[barth]

As title says, how often do you check up on your buddy during a dive?
If you're leading the dive and your buddy is behind you, how often would you flash the OK sign back to your buddy to check if he's alright?

Had a pretty heated discussion about this today, so many divers (instabuddies, anyone?) dive solely thinking about themselves and not really caring about the fact that you're a team.

I don’t want my buddy behind me. I want him/her next to me. If there is no reason I don’t ask my buddy if he/she is ok.

In a cave I want to see the light of my buddy if he/she is behind me.

I will check if my buddy is still there for every 15 seconds or something like that.

But with really poor visibility like 1 meter/3 feet that is not enough. I need to check more.

 

[Vitesse2l]

The buddy system culture is strong in my club. If I'm leading (and I'm only on 50ish dives) then I'm checking their position every 30 seconds or so alongside navigating by compass and we'll have briefed the dive beforehand. Vis is generally around 5m on those shore dives so I'd look pretty silly if I powered on while my buddy stopped to look at something under a rock. Torches are a big help in keeping general awareness. As far as monitoring air, I'll know my buddy's normal consumption and check at suitable intervals while keeping an eye on my own usage.

Having said that, we recently had a shallow ooa situation that was entirely down to complacency and lack of pre dive brief. The next weekly meeting discussed the incident and what should have been done. There's been a couple of local incidents this year and poor buddy discipline has been a factor.

 

[Degenerate]

I don’t want my buddy behind me. I want him/her next to me. If there is no reason I don’t ask my buddy if he/she is ok.

In a cave I want to see the light of my buddy if he/she is behind me.

I will check if my buddy is still there for every 15 seconds or something like that.

But with really poor visibility like 1 meter/3 feet that is not enough. I need to check more.

Thanks for bringing the light into the discussion, I meant to do that in the original post but missed it for some reason...

 

[BlueTrin]

I try to tell my buddies to stay next to me and not behind me.

If they stay next to me I try to check on them very often.

If they are behind me and I am leading, I try to check on them reasonably often but it’s easy for them to disappear. I usually give them one of my backup torches in low vis so they can signal me with the torch. I find it much harder to navigate if I have to turn around to check on my buddy every few kicks ... (but I am generally bad at navigating)

I’ll tell them after the dive that I’d prefer them to be next to me but I cannot do anything if they won’t do it and won’t be angry at them.

Of course if the person hasn’t dived much recently I’ll pay extra attention to them and check their gas more often.

OP, what was the argument ?

 

[Graeme Fraser]

I don’t want my buddy behind me. I want him/her next to me. If there is no reason I don’t ask my buddy if he/she is ok.

In a cave I want to see the light of my buddy if he/she is behind me.

I will check if my buddy is still there for every 15 seconds or something like that.

But with really poor visibility like 1 meter/3 feet that is not enough. I need to check more.

This^^^^. Nothing more annoying that a buddy above and behind unless circumstances dictate (i.e a restriction). Alongside all it takes is a slight tilt of the head to check all's in order.