Plan your dive. Dive your plan. This is one of the basics taught in dive courses held all over the planet and drilled into students’ heads so it becomes second nature. And sure enough, if you meticulously plan your dive to the last detail and just follow it through, you are almost guaranteed to have a good time while staying safe. However, no matter how careful you are there is one thing that has all the potential to jeopardize your dive for no fault of yours: A runaway dive buddy.
You probably already know that if your buddy has issues, you have issues. The whole premise on which the buddy system is based is that dive buddies are there expressly for the purpose of watching out for one other. Unfortunately, and more frequently than one might suppose, the whole purpose of the buddy system is defeated because divers – especially very young or inexperienced individuals – become overly focused on their own dives, losing sight of the potential problems their dive buddies might be facing. When diving with a buddy, particularly a new one, keep these tips in mind to prevent problems stemming from separation.
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Share the Code With Your Partner: Before diving with any buddy, be sure that you share a common code of conventional hand signals for communicating while underwater. This holds true especially if you are diving with different buddies from various parts of the world, since accepted hand signals can change with geography. Just as we need to learn basic words when traveling, we need to learn basic signals for diving in various parts of the world.
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Get to Know your Buddy’s Level of Experience: Before you dive together, sit down and have a chat with your buddy. Be friendly, but recognize that looks can be deceptive. Many divers will tell you that not getting to know their buddies proved to be costly to them, so ensure that you ascertain whether the two of you have similar levels of expertise. This will help you set realistic expectations for the dive. You do not want to rely too much on someone who is unsure of what to do in an emergency.
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Be Attentive to Your Buddy’s Needs: Dive buddies are there for a reason. Just as you rely on your buddy to look out for your well-being, it’s up to you to pay attention to what is happening with him or her. Keep an eye out for each other and agree to watch one another’s backs. Both of you can take photos for instance, just be sure you are not becoming so engrossed in your activities that you forget all about the fact that you’ve got someone to keep an eye on.
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Stick Together Throughout the Dive: Even if you follow your dive plan to the letter and have a common understanding of signs and signals, all of your planning can go completely to waste if you fail to swim together. As a worst case scenario, you may encounter an out of air emergency while your buddy is positioned too far away for you to swim to him or her for buddy breathing. There are many distractions at various dive sites, so know that they exist and know whether your buddy is the type to succumb to them easily. Keep him or her in front of you if there is potential for separation, and be sure to maintain constant contact. If a buddy has left you in the past and you’re diving together again, be sure to address the problem and agree on a solution that works for both of you.
When Precautions Fail, Emergencies Arise
In spite of planning and precautions, you cannot account for every possible scenario that may occur under water. There will almost certainly be a time in your scuba diving career when you will have to deal with a runaway buddy. Common problems that you may then be left to deal with include some of the worst, including an uncontrolled or out of plan ascent made by the lost or runaway buddy. An uncontrolled ascent may be due to shortage of air, a poorly executed emergency swimming ascent or due to your buddy being caught in an upward current.
This having been said, there are a few specific methods you can use for dealing with a runaway buddy:
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Be Assertive: You may not always have to deal with a buddy who is genuinely stuck in a bind. Some buddies just aren’t cut out for pairing up with others, and their actions show it. Don’t be afraid to assert yourself if a buddy like this is failing to dive as planned; scratch a note on your slate and if things get worse, call the dive. Don’t put yourself at risk unnecessarily.
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Use Buoyancy: If you figure that a buddy is ascending too fast and cannot control her/his buoyancy, you can always hold her/him down and deflate your own buoyancy compensator to make yourself negatively buoyant. This should render the two of you neutral, after which you both can relax and release a bit of adrenaline while taking a nice long decompression stop. Try to stay emotionally neutral and remain clearheaded as you help your buddy breathe if needed; then, make it to the surface together.
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Know When to Call a Dive: A buddy who seems clueless or uncooperative to the extreme is a great danger to himself or herself as well as to everyone he or she is diving with. In addition, problems can happen without a buddy being aware they exist. If you notice that something is going wrong and it can’t be remedied or the “bad buddy” won’t stop his or her behavior, call the dive. Remember, safety comes before anything else.
Finally, remember that although you have to look out for your buddy, your own safety is also your responsibility. There may be some instances when you just can’t help one another, through no fault of either party’s – and in those instances, self-rescue is imperative. Be cautions, get to know your buddy, and work to build mutual trust, and both of you are much more likely to enjoy safe diving while having a great time together.