What would you do in this situation?

[CompuDude]

A suit has to have grounds, or it can be dismissed with Summary Judgement before the court date. So yes, there has to be grounds. Probably the only one that might appear here is negligence, but that would have to be filed against the operator since the participants sign no contract with each other.

All the legalistic points here are well taken, however, in most cases, you would still need to hire a lawyer to file said SJM, and assuming you win, a LOT of judges don't bother much with awarding costs, even when it's blatantly obvious that the case never should have been filed in the first place.

So while you would probably would win (esp. considering there are very few cases where the buddy has been sued and the buddy lost, and those tend to be pretty egregious cases, which isn't what we have here), it would still cost you a lot of money in legal fees to get to that win. And that's almost as bad as losing.

 

[LSDeep]

dive briefings on most boats in wpb are pretty comprehensive as far as i remember, just to take the guessing out of some ppl's posts here.
you where obviously buddied up with a dive jerk there. while i completely understand your decision at the point, once you have a buddy (be it insta or not) stick with him!!!! i know its hard, especially when you have a moron like that with you. anyway its your buddy in this case and even if he looks like he would be little or no help to you in any situation, beside being an annoyance - its still your buddy for the dive! complain afterwards to the operator and def dont dive with him again ! just think about your mindset if anything would have be happen to this idiot after you left (not talking negligence or whatever here, just your head)! i am amazed you even saw your group again in the typical wpb conditions!!! worst case scenario would have been, that youre on your own (and might have a prob) and your stupido buddy.
stick with the idiot even if it $ucks and learn for the next dive! it sounds to me like a ignorant diver who potentially needs all the help he can get. by the way, dont be shy to give somebody like that a vocal earful when he is back on the boat!!!! they just need it, it will never change if you dont say anything!!! i used to all the time when i still worked in diving - you as a client have even more so a right and reason to give him **** (it might not help your before experience, but maybe (hopefully) the one of his next buddy!

 

[mannydib]

Buddy roulette is bull*****
Bring your own or be prepared to dive solo.
Ive heard too many stories and have had dives ruined myself.
Its a good idea to talk to the captain before hand.

 

[IceIce]

I must say that you were in difficult situation, I don't think I can handle it better than you. In ideal world, while I'm sitting here in front of computer, I guess I would stick with him but I wouldn't let him enjoy himself, I would either ask him until he was able to answer why he should be busy while he agreed to dive with me if there were no apparent problems. And if my will to dive (I'm those kind who if I entered water would want to make the most of it) was very strong I would seriously drag him to dive or he could choose to surface with me, either I continue diving again or not, but I wouldn't want to sit there and wasted my time, except if there were a lot of things to see or to do.

Maybe the ability to nag underwater would make your buddy think twice to care less about you. But of course, you have to think more than twice to dive with him again.

 

[Doc Harry]

Not to change the subject... but did you ever find out why he was fiddling with his gear so much?

I've had buddy discussions like this before. In the end I've decided "Never leave your buddy." If you're not prepared to stick with your buddy, then do not buddy-up with them.

 

[TSandM]

Seems to me that each of us has to develop an ethic of our own regarding this sort of thing.

For me, once I agreed above water that I would buddy up with someone, I am WITH that person for the dive. I would have been fairly thoroughly annoyed if I'd been in the OPs situation and, when we surfaced, the other diver said something like, "Well, I only wanted to go down there to play with my gear," especially as it was stated that the other diver was the one who wanted a buddy in the first place. But for me, once I've accepted the commitment to be a buddy, I'm going to do the best job of it I can manage and deal with the disappointment afterward.

It's an individual decision of what you feel comfortable doing, and how you would feel if something went wrong as a result of your decision, and I think you already got a taste of that when the other diver's ascent was delayed.