insta buddy nightmares

[farsidefan1]

I've been on 4 trips where I have had an insta buddy. In each case we stayed together the entire week and had no issues that I was aware of (uh oh, guess I'm the bad buddy) but since no one asked for a new buddyI assume they were as satisfied as I. The interesting thing is that I'm off to Palau for 2 weeks. One on the Aggressor and one at Sam's. Untill reading this thread I had assumed all would go smoothly, as usuall. Now, Hmmm. Thanks a lot:mooner:. I think I'll just maintain my previous attitude. Report to follow in March.

 

[BKP]

Very similar to J.doe post I agreed to dive with this guy that wanted to do a dive in a spring. He was OW but been to 150' 1000'in a cave you know an idiot. I did not know that at the time but anyway his idea of a long deep dive is to shoot down to the bottom like he is holding a weighted sled. Stay there till he is about out of air then GET THIS Fill his BC up and rocket to the surface. Does not know or care about ABT's and NO-DECO limits.

I have never seen such stupidity in my life and will never dive with anybody like him again. Since this experience I have made my self very self reliant. I only now dive with people I get to talk to first making sure that they are not going to try to kill themselves.

A buddy and I were just blowing bubbles at Blue Water quarry, in Alabama, a couple of years ago, when we had a similar experience. A solo diver asked to join us, which was no problem, until he told us how he enjoyed descending to bottom (which is about 125' at this quarry), and then corking.

Not only did we opt out of the dive with him, but we mentioned it to the staff in the dive shop. They don't appreciate that flavor of liability...

Darwinism at work...

 

[KY]

unfortunatly i think insta buddies are a way of life, and sometimes you just have to suck it up.

ive had the shock on peoples faces when all of a sudden i turn up, and ive logged 100 times (sometimes 1000 times) more dives then them,, and im their buddy, and you can see that they dont really want to dive with me as they think im going to go deep, long, and put them at risk, and all they really want is to tag along behind the DM, and likewise ive had more than my share of insta buddies who ive been buddied with who are "gods gift to diving" have "all the right gadgets" know all there is to know about diving, know more about decompression than a hyperbaric doctor and stand over your gear informing you in a rather abrupt manner, that your kit is configured incorrectly and that you MUST dive with this setup, gladly pointing at their own..

So, look, sometimes you just have to suck it up. Sometimes those first impressions you get of people are wildly inaccurate,, sometimes the person you think would be a good buddy turns out to be a tool, whereas othertimes the exact reverse.

But at the end of the day, if you dont really want to dive with someone, its your money, its your time, and just say something...

I HATE premadonna's,, i also hate selfish people... the people i love to dive with, are those with a genuine love of diving, regardless of what their rating is...

so, if one day im buddied with any of you guys, and you guys start waxing on about how my SPG(s) should come around the left hand side for whatever stupid reason you come up with, i'll happilly wave to the DM / Instructor / guide etc, and ask you to be nicely removed to the mental hospital....

So yep,, thats me

 

[likestodive]

I've had a few 'instanotbuddy' experiences. The guy who went hand over hand on the descent line to the relatively shallow wreck at 60 ft and only had 500lbs of air when he got to the bottom of the line. I don't think a vacuum could have sucked the tank faster. The guy who almost ran out of air ten minutes into a reef dive that had lots of sharks (close to a shark feeding place). The girl who kicked my mask off and swam 100ft away and never realized it. The guy that didn't listen to the briefing and then took too long to get down and wouldn't swim hard enough so we had to do the whole dive in the sand as we missed the wreck. I could go on and on.

The truth is that most people are really solo diving and just don't know or accept it. Unless people are VERY actively 'buddy diving' it just isn't happening.

Most of the time I either dive with my wife and/or dive with operators that know me and pretty much let me do my own thing (ie. sort of 'hang somewhere around the divemaster'). If forced to buddy dive with an instabuddy I look for the most experienced couple on the boat and ask if I can go with them. You can usually spot experienced divers almost instantly if you really look. Alternately I tell the divemaster I am an experienced diver (I guess I look the part too - gray hair and well used but well cared for equipment), go slow and would just prefer to hang around him vs having an instabuddy. I promise to stay reasonably close, not get in the way, and then do it.

I pay good money to go diving and value my dive time highly as I don't get to go as much as I'd like any more. Quite honestly, I have wasted enough of my money on seriously short dives with instabuddies that were dangerous to both them and myself. I'll go with an instabuddy if it is the only way to get in the water otherwise Nancy Reagan was right - just say no.

 

[drdaddy]

My story is almost unbelievable. So I'm paired with an young very fit Instructor!!! Wonderful dive off a boat, cold water (7mm farmer johns), poor visibility at the top, but clearing near the bottom. He's an excellent diver and underwater navigator - a dream of a buddy. We saw octopus, big (gigantic) lings, and the biggest wolf eels that I've ever seen. I'm watching my air and I see him checking his air regularly. He's diving with a Al 80 and me with my steel HP 100. We're at about 100 ft (33 meters) and we are looking for the anchor line to follow it up (not necessary as very little current and we were told in the briefing to just come up in the area). So we get close to each other and my air is 900 psi and I pull his gauges to me (like I do with my regular buddy who never seems to learn to tell me his psi) and he's almost empty!!! We're at 80 feet and he's unconcerned. We buddy share air up and I insist on a safety stop - holding a death grip on his BCD. We come to the top and I ask him why didn't he signal low air? He smiled, said that he was fine, and he didn't want to spoil my fun. Turns out that he and his instructor friends (young cocky kids) have played this game many times with each other. I told him that I didn't like the game and we are responsible for each other. I'm glad it was him and not me that ran out of air - because I could not have depended on him! (I do carry pony 19cuft on all dives)

So I'm on a dive boat in the cold murky Pacific NW waters (Hood Canal/Washington) and the skipper tells me that it's OK to solo as he did another diver (who was very well known to the skipper) since we were experienced with solo and equipped for it. He with his rebreather and me with my pony. But we talked and he really knew the area so we decided to buddy. We jump off together, check our equipment, give each other the OK and descend sign. He drops like a rock and I descend slower, clearing my ears. He's gone and no bubbles (rebreather). Knothead, I think (actually it was another word I described him as) as I descended under the murky top to the less murky bottom. I looked for him for the prescribed period and ascend and signal the boat. They are wondering "what's wrong?" I told him that we lost each other in the beginning and I didn't want anyone worrying about me and what about him? Skipper told me - it's OK and I did the dive solo - actually was a wonderful relaxing long dive (continuing to worry about my "buddy") which made the Skipper a bit worried about how long I was down as the rebreather guy came up long before me. Not wanting to make a scene I asked the rebreather guy about the buddy plan. He just said, "Oh the water was really murky and I lost you, but I knew you would be alright." I didn't waste my breath on telling him that I was actually worried about him since I had taken the responsibility to buddy. As we were returning to port he seemed to re-think things and became very apologetic and we even exchanged phone numbers to buddy sometime in the future. Next time I'm going to go over buddy dive procedures very specifically - no matter how experienced the buddy!

May I give you a buddy dive dream? This really happened! So my buddy did not want to do another dive in the warm Israel Red Sea, but I did. So this instructor/young pretty girl who was not someone we were paying heard me and came up to me. She had already showered and dried her hair and was changed into street clothes, but said, "I'll dive with you - I'm tired of tourists (intro dives, etc) and I'd just like a relaxing dive." She was changed so fast and she said, it's warm so I won't put on my bottoms (wetsuit, not bikini). We had a wonderful leisurely shore dive and we pointed out all sorts of things to each other when all of a sudden we saw a very active octopus messing around on a coral reef and we watched until it was time to come up - really neat. When we came up she would not take any money and thanked me for the nice dive. Later I told my wife and 25 year old daughter about the beautiful bikini views that this old man tried not to look at and asked - what would Jesus do? They answered in unison, "Not look!" I said, "Thank you Jesus".

 

[Doc Harry]

Airfare to Florida for diving: $450
Lodging for 4 nights: $520
Car rental: $75
.
.
.
$130 for two 20-minute dives at 60 feet with my HOOVER insta-buddy.....

 

[Fish in a Barrel]

My one bad instabuddy was during my advanced open water class.

Even on the surface I could tell he was going to be trouble. He seemed utterly perplexed by even the simplest concepts and had to have them explained several times. Everything was taking much more time than it should have, putting us way behind schedule.

Once in the water, it was even worse. He could not recall even the basic hand signals for the standard drills--even after watching everyone else do them! On our second dive (night nav) he got flustered when it came time to switch nav duties. After writing what he needed to do on my slate, we finally got going again, only for him to complete screw it up within a couple kicks. Our instructor recalled us to start over when my buddy lost control of his buoyancy and wound up on the surface. I sat on the bottom, in frigid waters, for over 20 minutes, sucking on air while he tried to descend again with the instructor's help. And he was overweighted! At that point the dive was called.

After that dive the instructor told him that he was not ready for the class. If he had been just a little behind the curve that would have been workable, but he was bordering on unteachable. I was very, very glad he wouldn't be diving with us for the rest of the class.

 

[MikeSK]

I've only had one instance.

took my first trip to Bonaire in '96. At the time i was pretty new, but had rescue, a couple of specialties, and was working on two other specialties on this trip. Went with my LDS but traveled solo. Got paired with a slightly overweight lady.

First dive out. She has weight or clearing issues or w/e and from about 40 feet or so bolts to the surface. Like a fool, i grabbed her leg ( i was still new). I let go and followed her up more slowly. I forget exactly what the issue was, but we descened again more slowly and finished the dive.

We did a couple other dives that week that were fine. But one morning I'm waiting by the dock for our scheduled dive and she's nowhere to be seen. After about 30 mins, I go back to the rooms to see where she is. Turns out she'd slipped and fallen down a flight of stairs. Didn't get seriosly hurt, but that ended our partnership. Rest of my dives were pretty much done by boat as part of the group.

Found out that she'd gotten a bad ear infection and flew home on a different flight than the rest of us.

This one instance has soured me on the whole insta buddy thing. I paid a LOT of money (for me) on my own gear and that trip. It nearly got botched because of a buddy issue. I simply refuse to get paired with anyone that doesnt at LEAST have AOW. Except my daughter who is only OW, but when we were diving (havent been able to in several years) she paid attention, listened to what i had to say, and did very well. If we ever do move back to Florida, we'll get back in to it.

We all pay a LOT of money for our hobbie. We shouldnt be penalized by getting paired with newbs. that's the DMs job. Not without getting a discount at least. Wrong attitude? maybe. But I don't get to take very many trips.

 

[knowone]

How do you suck down a FULL tank pulling down to 60' when you can snorkel down there.

Folks could become aware and keep their masks out of other folks cavitational spaces.

And regarding diving as a hobby, maintains a certain percentage
of hobby divers

that as described by many already, suggests a comparative and
compatibility standard that is as much fun as driving in traffic

To work muttering to your self..

because you just ran up someones behind because they were driving too close.

 

[knowone]

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