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Joel, lets do the math correctly here. One brain plus one half-brain =
no brain at all.
In other words just the mere fact of 2 guys with scuba tanks hanging out
together under water does not make it a buddy team. Nor does it increase
your survivability one iota.
A real buddy team must consist of two or more divers who have trained
together, worked out the problems together and dove together and have
practiced team skills, coordination, communication and drills.
Please don't fall into the stupid, mindless rut that the "buddy" system
is today. It is worthless or even less than worthless, downright
dangerous. IOW take two random assholes, put them together and declare
them a buddy team as if you are suddenly endowing them with some
mystical shield against all that's deadly. What Bullshit. You put two
half-assed divers together and all you get is twice the clusterfuck
factor.
What does work is the GUE DIR premiss of training divers so that any
diver properly trained in DIR can get together with any other properly
trained DIR diver and function like they have been diving together as a
team their whole life. This is the only alternative. No other program
offers this sort of training. A DIR diver should either have a DIR buddy
or not dive at all.
Currently there are not enough DIR trained divers to assure this
happening on every trip so you have to work at creating a functioning,
usable buddy team. You have to work very hard at it.
If you don't make this substantial time and money consuming effort you
might as well toss the dice, put the single bullet in the revolver, tie
the vine to your leg and take the leap. You may die, you may not.
Solo is better if you decide to do the crap-shoot. There will be no
witnesses when you croak and the coroner can safely declare a "heart
attack" to satisfy the insurance underwriters.
Jim
On Thursday, August 8, 2002, at 09:06 AM, Joel Markwell wrote:
> On 8/9/02 6:57 AM, "Hugh Moore" <hughmoore@bi*.co*> wrote:
>
>> Whats the problem, when I lived in Papua New Guinea, I did hundreds of
>> solo
>> dives off liveaboards/PNG Dive boats with my Camera. Crystal clear
>> water,
>> mostly less than 20 metres, photographing & filming the marine life.
>>
>> In the mid nineties, operators requested that solo divers (read
>> photographers) carry a Pony bottle in case while concentrating
>> filming/photographing, ran out of air.
>>
>> Most photographers would spend hours under/near the boat getting that
>> perfect shot. You didnt have to go far!
>>
>> I havent come accross many "BUDDYS" willing to sit under the boat in
>> ten
>> metres of water for an hour and half while you shoot off a role of
>> film on a
>> unique creature.
>>
>> Maybe its OK with you, but havent seen it too often.
>>
>> So Im a stroke, stiff shit, I dont need a baby sitter to reef dive
>> with my
>> Camera. I wore a pony for years, never used it once, didnt see a need
>> for
>> doubles either for the depths we were doing. Never ran out of air
>> once,
>> after 90 mins, you are either out of film or battery was flat on the
>> video.
>> Its not hard to look at the gauge. I dont need a buddy to tap me on the
>> shoulder every five minutes to check my air!
>>
>> When doing a wreck/diving deep, you would dive as a group/with a buddy.
>>
>> Hugh, South OZ
>
> I've run into this mentality for years. I do UW photography too and have
> spent hours just watching and the funny thing is, I've never had a
> problem
> finding a buddy who wants to spend long periods of time underwater. Not
> everyone needs to be cruising the reef as fast as possible, ignoring the
> small stuff, not really paying attention as they cruise by, faster,
> deeper,
> more macho. Maybe it's a Southern thang . . . .
>
> And as for your "safety" record, I'm pretty sure that every one of those
> solo divers who died while alone, before that final dive, would have
> touted
> their record of a string of "safe" solo dives.
>
> It's simple math. Two brains and two sets of eyes are almost always are
> better than one. When you read the accident reports that are available
> (and
> too few are) it's not hard to figure out that in nearly every
> intentional
> solo, eventual solo and unintended solo dive, the addition of a buddy
> would
> have increased the chances of survival immensely.
>
>> I havent come accross many "BUDDYS" willing to sit under the boat in
>> ten
>> metres of water for an hour and half while you shoot off a role of
>> film on a
>> unique creature.
>
> I'd get a new set of friends/buddys. I'm trying to picture guys/gals
> who'd
> say, "spend hours underwater with you examining a beautiful reef in
> close
> detail? You gotta be balmy!"
>
> JoeL
>
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