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Mexiko 1999/2000

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The buddy from hell

One piece of advice for divers without a permanent buddy, though: get to know your fellow divers at the dive shop prior to the dive. Talk to them, look at their equipment and watch them assemble it. Then ask someone who makes a good impression if they want to pair up with you. Don't wait until the guide matches up buddy pairs on the trip, otherwise you might end up with some complete idiot, like I did:

First dive this holiday: I was sitting in the boat and dive guide Moises paired me up with an American of about my age. I wanted to do the buddy check (German thoroughness at work) to which he answered: "What? You're joking, right?"; Moises checked all tanks, which is done by all guides and which I would quite dislike now - hands off my valves. But in this case it proved to be a good idea, since my buddy's valves were still closed. Short last briefing: 40min at a maximum depth of 20 meters, 3min stop at 5m. We jumped into the water, waited at the surface till everyone was in (as discussed). I turned round to my buddy - he'd gone, descending quickly. The rest of us descended together and met my buddy at the ground. As soon as we'd reached him he was off - dashing at breakneck speed through the reef. At first I tried to keep up, but after a while I thought better of it; besides, he had managed to scare away all the fish!

... and so did I!

During the next twenty minutes I only occasionally saw my buddy as he rushed about, not once checking if his buddy was alright. Then, slightly under 10 minutes before it was time to ascend, something grabbed my tank and started shaking it. I turned round and of course it was my buddy who indicated that he had just about 30 bar left and wanted to quickly get to the surface. I was tempted to signal him that he can kiss my neoprene-clad butt, but then remembered my duties as a buddy, went to the guide, impressing on him that we would ascend now and followed my buddy who had decided to start the ascent without me and was already half way up. I signalled him that I still had lots more air and we should do the safety stop, but was ignored. I decided to do his for him and extended mine to about 6 minutes. I guessed it would take a few minutes for the boat to locate us and with fairly high waves I preferred to spend as little time as possible on the surface. When I surfaced I got yelled at: why didn't I surface with him, after all a safety stop is not necessary if you ascend before the guide tells you to (interesting thought ;-) Besides, he'd tried to signal the boat to come and collect us, but due to the waves he hadn't even managed to see the boat. Good thing I had my stab buoy with me (after inflating it, the boat came within a minute); besides, there is a rope attached to it - ideal to strangle your buddy while waiting to be picked up (Seriously, your Honour, he got entangled all by himself ;-)

There were, of course, repercussions
Back on board my buddy complained about me to the dive guide! He especially stressed that I had not surfaced directly, but had instead done the safety stop. The guide then turned to me and asked me about my side of the story and I explained to him about my buddy's sudden ascent while I was still informing the guide. Thus my buddy got a good telling off from the guide for abandoning his buddy. Dead mad he went and complained about both me and the dive guide to the shop manager. The result of this was that he got banned from there. I couldn't help to have a feeling of good old German "Schadenfreude"!

About the Buddies

Generally I observed the following concerning buddies:

Buddy checks were practically never on the agenda. When I wanted to check my buddy (mostly to see where my buddies hid their octopus, e.g. between their backs and the jacket!) I was seldom laughed at, but often had to hear comments like: "... only wimps do that", "... haven't done one since I took my course", "... I already checked myself so what do you want?", "... Buddy check? What buddy check??" The only diver who didn't say anything, but proceeded with the check was a professional fire brigade diver from Pennsylvania.

All in all I was a bit shocked by the diving skills (or rather lack of them) displayed by my fellow divers - and I myself would have classified myself as a novice at the time. Buoyancy control was extremely low, the 3 minute safety stop at 5 metres proved to be too difficult for most of them. The absolute low point was a diver who got out his diving knife when we encountered a turtle and started to wave it about in the approximate direction of the turtle. When quizzed about his behaviour later on, he stated that he felt threatened by the turtle! OK - good thing we didn't encounter one of the dangerous killer seahorses :-)

I was very glad to be able to dive with my brother once he got his c-card and not have to rely on other buddies anymore.