insta buddy nightmares

[highlandfarmwv]

The place to practice is at home. I don't think new divers should expect to go to an expensive resort location and ruin some other paying customer's dive. Hire a DM if you can't be self sufficient. If I volunteer to dive with someone and help them, fine. But if I am out to take photos, I will tell you up front that diving with me will be like diving solo--I probably won't be watching you and I will go where I want.

 

[DCRS]

thought I could revive this old thread with my 1st insta-buddy experience ...
Hit up a local quarry for a treasure hunt. My usual buddy was going out of town and I thought I was still going to go tot he event.
Arrived and hung out even helped with out a little. Then informed a dive master that I would like to dive but had no buddy ....
They found me a fellow younger than me (i'm 40) and thin as a rail ....
Head to toe rental gear..(not knocking this we have all been in this situation, i'm just telling the story)
So jacket style BC, weight belt, al80, etc.
I'm suited up in water floating at dock waiting for him to get ready, had let him know that i was in no hurry, this was going to be a casual dive when ever he got ready was fine with me.....
1st attempt to don gear freeflow on reg, 2nd time again, 3rd time he gets everything on but gets ready to jump in and pushes the purge and it hangs again ...he gets it stopped and jumps in swims over to me ....
I express a concern about the reg and he just wants to dive .....OK?!
He wants me to lead, off we go, all good for 8 min then I look over my shoulder and see a dust cloud heading my way and then passing me ....
This guy in on the bottom, killing the silt dragging his 2nd reg line and computer through the bottom dirt ......and blows pass me like a man on a mission..
I caught up and we stop at the 1st sunken boat to look around ....I float around frog kick a bit and find a golf ball , well next thing i know here comes the dust storm again ....before I can get his attention or grab hold of buddy I cant see my hand in front of my face ..
He has done laps around this little 10ft boat around and around on the bottom till you could not even see ....
Figuring I have LOST my buddy, because i cant see him ...I float above the boat couple feet to see if i can see his bubbles or his smoke trail .
no luck cant see anything ...back down to boat again 5ft below me and wait for 5 min to see if he reappears.....no luck
So I start to swim back the path we followed to get there thinking again he would reappear....no luck
I see alot of bubbles just none are my buddy ...swim back to the dock ( now this is only a 8min causal swim so I got back in like 3 min )
Dive master attention informed of what happened and where, when, what wearing, etc...
15min later they are getting ready to enter the water and start searching or pulling people out or what ever their protical is ...
While they are searching the water I am doing a land search to see if he got out and got by us somehow ...
20min on the computer as surface time and I am starting to get worried not found and i can see him anywhere
I go to talk to the owner of the place just to see if i could help with anything else and the trailer that takes people around the quarry goes by us and I swear I see him...So I yell his name and he waves........
This fool got separated, and told us he thought I was just ahead of him so he kept going and swam the length of the quarry and got out with a group on the other side, somehow slipped by the person checking people in and out and told no one what happened ......then hit the shower and got dressed, waited a bit more to see if i was behind him, THEN took the carriage to the side he entered at.....????
All the while I am looking at the dive clock trying to figure air consumption and looking for him on shore and watching for bubbles in the quarry that looked alone.......all in all a nerve racking 8 min dive ....I would have had a better time on my own ....
I'm not perfect no one is so please dont rip me a new one ... I think i did the right thing...and i know i handled it better than my buddy did ...
thank you for letting me rant I''m better now

 

[Rich Keller]

I have never had a serious problem with an insta-buddy yet. The minor problems have all been due to their lack of experience. Mainly they burn through air quickly, take longer to get set up and in the water or spend the whole dive struggling with their equipment. These are at best minor inconveniences and do not detract from my enjoyment of the dive. I can usually get them settled down a bit from the start and by the second dive most of them do fine. I do not make deep dives with any of these people though so even if they make serious mistakes it is something I can handle.

 

[ev780]

This is the main thing that concerns me with diving now that I have my c-card. My wife does not dive, so when we go on our vacations I will be in insta-buddy land. I am pretty conservative and careful, and I would love to be paired with someone who feels the same way. But as illustrated in this thread it's a crap-shoot as to what kind of buddy you might get paired with. I'm still learning, and I want to learn. I really don't want to end up chasing someone around in the water just for the sake of staying with my "buddy". That doesn't seem to be the proper application of the "buddy system".

What do you experienced divers suggest as a way to mitigate this situation?

Don't worry too much. 95% of the time you will get a good diver. Just the fact that they dive alone usually selects a pretty committed diver. A lot of the time if the SO doesn't dive then the diver will abandon the sport. If they don't then they are probably pretty good divers. If they have no SO then they are pretty experienced insta-buddy. Just this second I think I stumbled on a new experience marker. I have "X" deep dives, "X" wreck dives, "X" night dives and "X" insta-buddy dives!

Anyway, you will have a horror story or two but on the whole it is an awesome experience to meet new interesting people. Most are just people like you, out to have fun. I have had the whole range from the diehard BWRAF, check your air, stay shoulder to shoulder types; to my personal preference, the Same Ocean Same Day buddy. I have become comfortable both ways and all ways in between. As I said in the other thread, if you want a perfect buddy marry one. Otherwise you get what you get.

All that said the advice I would give.

-Get comfortable with all types of divers.
-There is no SCUBA Police except here on SB so don't worry about differing styles.
-Get self sufficient. Have top notch gear and take solo training.
-Unless it is your emergency, it is not your emergency!! Help if you can, but don't die because you drew a crappy insta-buddy.
-Finally, a sample of 1 dive, does not tell you anything about the person. If a dive goes sideways talk to the new buddy. Was it a bad dive like we all have or was it a bigger problem.

Just my opinion. Now if we #killthebuddysystem then most of these issues go away.