what was appropriate?

[isurus]

To set out the scenario, A group of divers being led by a local guide drop onto a plateau at 35m. We are diving an island 8 hours from land by liveaboard. There is strong current and surface swell The dive plan involves us hanging briefly on a plateau at one end of the island watching the blue before turning and making a multilevel drift with the current back to our liveaboard which is moored at the other end of the island. On the plateau a diver appears alone. He is overweighted with a massive amount of air in a ludicrously large wing for singles keeping him approximately neutral. Other than slightly inaappropriate equipment and a lack of buddy he appears calm and shows no intention of surfacing to look for his missing buddy/dive group but rather keen to join our merry band along the wall (all dive groups would be forced by conditions to dive this plan). What would the appropriate course of action be?

 

[SDAnderson]

If he returns the okay sign, point him towards the dive guide and let him make the call. If he doesn't return the okay sign, everybodies day was just ruined.

 

[Diver0001]

To set out the scenario, A group of divers being led by a local guide drop onto a plateau at 35m. We are diving an island 8 hours from land by liveaboard. There is strong current and surface swell The dive plan involves us hanging briefly on a plateau at one end of the island watching the blue before turning and making a multilevel drift with the current back to our liveaboard which is moored at the other end of the island. On the plateau a diver appears alone. He is overweighted with a massive amount of air in a ludicrously large wing for singles keeping him approximately neutral. Other than slightly inaappropriate equipment and a lack of buddy he appears calm and shows no intention of surfacing to look for his missing buddy/dive group but rather keen to join our merry band along the wall (all dive groups would be forced by conditions to dive this plan). What would the appropriate course of action be?

Ask him where is buddy is.

He may indicate that he doesn't know . In this case, you (or better yet, he) should alert the DM that the guy's buddy is lost.

He may point at his buddy. It's possible that he knows where his buddy it but that he has poor buddy contact. In that case I would suggest to him to stay with his buddy and leave it at that. In many cases of people with crappy buddy contact they'll sign "ok" to this and not follow up. In that case I wouldn't intervene further as "just another diver" in the group but I would keep an eye on both of them and bring it up after the dive.

He may indicate that his buddy is on the surface (ergo he is solo). If this is the case I would ask him to buddy up with me and my buddy. I would also follow up by asking if the boat has his buddy (sign: "you" "buddy" "boat" and upturned palms to make it a question). If he says yes then I would assume the buddy is ok, if he says no I would alert the DM that a diver has surfaced. A smart DM in this situation would either tow a SMB or DSMB so the buddy on the surface doesn't get lost.

He may indicate that he doesn't have a buddy. That could mean a number of other things but I would check again if his buddy is lost or on the boat or that he made the dive solo on purpose. (it's nice to have a wetnotes for this kind of thing, especially if it's someone you don't know). If he's deliberately solo then just keep an eye on him.

As for the weighting issue, there's nothing you can do about that during the dive. Park it and bring it up on the boat after the dive.

R..

 

[isurus]

Ask him where is buddy is.

He may indicate that he doesn't know . In this case, you (or better yet, he) should alert the DM that the guy's buddy is lost.

He may point at his buddy. It's possible that he knows where his buddy it but that he has poor buddy contact. In that case I would suggest to him to stay with his buddy and leave it at that. In many cases of people with crappy buddy contact they'll sign "ok" to this and not follow up. In that case I wouldn't intervene further as "just another diver" in the group but I would keep an eye on both of them and bring it up after the dive.

He may indicate that his buddy is on the surface (ergo he is solo). If this is the case I would ask him to buddy up with me and my buddy. I would also follow up by asking if the boat has his buddy (sign: "you" "buddy" "boat" and upturned palms to make it a question). If he says yes then I would assume the buddy is ok, if he says no I would alert the DM that a diver has surfaced. A smart DM in this situation would either tow a SMB or DSMB so the buddy on the surface doesn't get lost.

He may indicate that he doesn't have a buddy. That could mean a number of other things but I would check again if his buddy is lost or on the boat or that he made the dive solo on purpose. (it's nice to have a wetnotes for this kind of thing, especially if it's someone you don't know). If he's deliberately solo then just keep an eye on him.

As for the weighting issue, there's nothing you can do about that during the dive. Park it and bring it up on the boat after the dive.

R..

sorry I wasn't clear - this guy wasn't on our boat; he just appeared.

 

[Diver0001]

sorry I wasn't clear - this guy wasn't on our boat; he just appeared.

There was more than one boat and he was from another boat?

R..

 

[isurus]

There was more than one boat and he was from another boat?

R..

yes, there were three boats moored at the island. I was going to not post how this ended just yet to try to see what people thought appropriate rather than what they thought of what we did but...this random chap responded to ok signals from me and the dm. DM then buddies up with him and asks me (who was diving in a trio) to keep an eye on him (as the dm is also leading the group and looking out for cool stuff this seems inherently reasonable so I now treat this character as my buddy) We continue our dive and as we shallow up the chap has buoyancy control issues (due to his overweightedness and the amount of air in his huge wing as a result together with his lack of awareness of the rear dump) which I try to help him with. 40+ mins later we see another diver hanging on a dsmb at 5m who sees this chap and collects him. Upon surfacing we discover that the other group from our boat had had exactly the same experience presumably with our chaps buddy.

I am happy that we did what was right in terms of looking after the diver we found's safety but given that he should have had a buddy wondered what people thought was appropriate in terms of our being unaware of the location of said buddy. Hope that makes some kind of sense.

 

[Diver0001]

yes, there were three boats moored at the island. I was going to not post how this ended just yet to try to see what people thought appropriate rather than what they thought of what we did but...this random chap responded to ok signals from me and the dm. DM then buddies up with him and asks me (who was diving in a trio) to keep an eye on him (as the dm is also leading the group and looking out for cool stuff this seems inherently reasonable so I now treat this character as my buddy) We continue our dive and as we shallow up the chap has buoyancy control issues (due to his overweightedness and the amount of air in his huge wing as a result together with his lack of awareness of the rear dump) which I try to help him with. 40+ mins later we see another diver hanging on a dsmb at 5m who sees this chap and collects him. Upon surfacing we discover that the other group from our boat had had exactly the same experience presumably with our chaps buddy.

I am happy that we did what was right in terms of looking after the diver we found's safety but given that he should have had a buddy wondered what people thought was appropriate in terms of our being unaware of the location of said buddy. Hope that makes some kind of sense.

So basically the DM saw it and parked him with you.

What did your DM say in the briefing about lost buddy protocols? Did he discuss this scenario?

R..

 

[Silkie]

To set out the scenario, A group of divers being led by a local guide drop onto a plateau at 35m. We are diving an island 8 hours from land by liveaboard. There is strong current and surface swell The dive plan involves us hanging briefly on a plateau at one end of the island watching the blue before turning and making a multilevel drift with the current back to our liveaboard which is moored at the other end of the island. On the plateau a diver appears alone. He is overweighted with a massive amount of air in a ludicrously large wing for singles keeping him approximately neutral. Other than slightly inaappropriate equipment and a lack of buddy he appears calm and shows no intention of surfacing to look for his missing buddy/dive group but rather keen to join our merry band along the wall (all dive groups would be forced by conditions to dive this plan). What would the appropriate course of action be?

It's always difficult to know what to do about other divers underwater when not sure what there problem is, or even if they have one. Personally I have never been one for interfering with other divers in the water, unless they ask me or they are clearly in trouble.

In this case the guy had clearly stepped outside or normal diving conventions in that he didn't have a buddy with him.

Your discription of his equipment throws up something of a paradox. It would suggest initially that he was not an experienced diver otherwise he would have been weighted properly. But it seems he was confident enough to swim around underwater, alone, in a considerable current, at a considerable depth, without panicing.

It could be that he knew where his buddy was but couldn't get back to him or her because of the current.

I think initially, I would have needed to know where his buddy was. Then I would have watched him closely and offered help if he needed it. There is little more than that which could have been done in the water. A lot of explaining to do out of the water though. He was not only putting himself at risk but many others who might have had to go looking for a lost diver in fast current.

Best Wishes

Silkie

 

[Goose75]

I think your DM did what was appropriate except I'd add that he should keep you close and keep an eye on the guy. If the guy started to be a problem, then the DM should have taken him so as not to inconvience a paying customer any more. If I were the DM, at the surface I would have returned him to his boat and had a talk with the crew of that vessel. If he didn't have a boat to return to, then I'd have a quiet talk with the two divers.

 

[isurus]

I think your DM did what was appropriate except I'd add that he should keep you close and keep an eye on the guy. If the guy started to be a problem, then the DM should have taken him so as not to inconvience a paying customer any more. If I were the DM, at the surface I would have returned him to his boat and had a talk with the crew of that vessel. If he didn't have a boat to return to, then I'd have a quiet talk with the two divers.

to be clear the dm stayed close but also asked me to keep watch so he was supervising (but being a dm doing his guiding thing too) and I was also keeping an eye so I would have considered us a trio. I didn't feel inconvenienced in any way just slightly concerned at the random divers lack of awareness given the advanced nature of the dives in question.