I know this topic has been covered, but I feel like a consolidated thread on the topic would be beneficial.

In light of recent tragedies like Nikki's and others, I wanted to throw out the concept of the buddy system and take a look at why some use it and some don't.
I personally have been known to get separated and not get upset over it. I've spent entire dives where the last time I saw my buddy was dropping over the side of the boat. Other dives I've spent no more than 3 feet away. For me, there appears to be no rhyme or reason. If I'm lobstering or spearfishing and I get separated, I am comfortable enough in my skills and my equipment that I will be OK.
I will admit that the thought has crossed my mind about catastrophic equipment failure. Sure, we all like to maintain our gear, but things happen. In the event of a second stage failure, you reach for your octo. If you're freeflowing, you go up. What about first stage failure? My AOW instructor taught us how to breathe from a tank directly if your entire regulator goes to hell. How many others have been taught how to do that? Would you even be able to perform that skill in a high stress situation? Sure, it was easy in the pool, but could I do it at 140 fsw in the grounds?
The first thing we learn in SCUBA classes is the ageless buddy system concept that one would think involved in the early days of scuba. However, from the dinosaurs I've talked to that have been diving since the 60's or earlier, they used to do CRAZY shit underwater that modern dive professionals faint when they hear about. Crazy profiles, breathing tanks empty on the bottom and conducting free swimming ascents, etc... pretty much everything we're taught NOT to do now.
I know lots of people that don't care if they stay with their buddy. I know others that will take their boat out and go diving completely by themselves.
Would any and all tragic situations be resolved if the victim had a buddy close by? Non-divers and new divers will always say yes! That's what your buddy is there for. It's easy to think that way. But I maintain that you can just as easily kill two people with one equipment problem. Any "out-of-air" situation will generate immediate panic. Smart and safe divers will try to avoid or at least lessen the effects of panic, but everyone will have some. I think it would be just as likely that the victim will freak out and drown both divers in their panic to get air, as the chance that the buddy will effectively and safely deliver air to the victim. Of course there are factors affecting that likelyhood. Friends or dive teams that have been together for years will be much more comfortable with each other underwater than strangers that just met on the boat. How many people here have been paired up on a boat with someone they've never dove with before? I have.

I hope with this thread, others will reveal their TRUE opinions on what they do. Do you dive completely by yourself? Why? Why not? Do you always stay with your buddy? Why? Why not?
Any other comments and opinions are strongly encouraged.

You can throw all the buddies you want at spearfishing, however if you are diving the buddy system the way it was meant, you won't be too effective at spearfishing. And if you are spearfishing, you won't be a good buddy. Ideally its a great system for diving, but spearfishing and lobster hunting is so intensive, it takes a considerable amount of attention from making it run correctly.

The most important person during a dive, other than yourself, is the man behind the wheel in the boat.

I'm sure you'll get a slew of different answers on your other forum, but I'm just being a realist. I think some people on both forums need to use the buddy system anyway.

This is a duplicate of my answer on the other board, but since you asked on both boards, I might as well reply on both.

The first thing we learn in SCUBA classes is the ageless buddy system concept that one would think involved in the early days of scuba. However, from the dinosaurs I've talked to that have been diving since the 60's or earlier, they used to do CRAZY shit underwater that modern dive professionals faint when they hear about. Crazy profiles, breathing tanks empty on the bottom and conducting free swimming ascents, etc... pretty much everything we're taught NOT to do now.

I'm gathering that this thread is about the buddy system while scuba diving rather than freediving, so I won't take it off track. We have discussed the buddy system while freediving many times already anyway.

But I do want to comment on breathing tanks dry. Is that crazy shit? From the time I got my first scuba gear in 1954 until I went back to exclusive freediving in 1996, I usually breathed my tank dry before I came up.

Or maybe not totally dry, but at least until it took effort to pull a breath. As I ascended through decreasing water pressure, it took less air pressure to equal ambient water pressure and give me a few more breaths. I always made it.

Of course back then it was not common to purposely put yourself in a position in which decompression stops were required, but it seems that you guys routinely do that now. That seems like crazy shit to me.

I will agree that freediving offers a better rotation of true buddy diving, and IMHO, is more realistic of a working buddy system while spearfishing than while on scuba.

I've seen dive my buddies hit the water and were gone. I've seen my dive buddies stay pretty much in sight. All depends on who I'm diving with,the surrounding conditions, and what we're trying to do. For ex. Divinfool and I will team up. One of us hits a good size fish that my get away before you can reload. The buddy whacks it too. That's teamwork. Other buddies, we're on our own. Good luck on that fish.

I have been in some bad situations & realize how improtant it is to keep your buddy in site. Do I always ? No, I try to and the most important thing to me is the conversation you have before you go in the water . The what ifs, and what WE will do if it happens. I was in MG and ended up with a newbie with me, He paniced when his mouth piece on his prim. Reg broke. We were a 100ft down , I ended up giving him mine and grabbing his secondary until I got him calmed down, then gave him his back. I don't believe its the Capt thats makes the difference its the Buddy you have. Many times I have dove and had to make the decesion of going on my own and getting better fish or staying with my buddy and let him get the bigger fish. Fish,bragging rights or my buddy coming up safe ? I ALWAYS chose my buddys coming up safe !!! DIFFENTLY all the happenings lately . (I am talking about they start to swim away from me ignoring me and I follow them even if this is not our plan) I really never fear for my saftey it is always my buddys that I worry about. I have dove enough that I feel very calm and mentally prepare for what ever comes about. BOTTOM line you have to be confortable with who you dive with and make sure you cover your dive plan before you go into water as well as know their expereince . As a Capt I have scoalled a few of my dive pals for loosing each other in a fun but serious way. THE CONVERSATION YOU HAVE ON THE BOAT IS THE IMPORTANT PART TO ME WITH YOUR BUDDY. As a matter of fact I have a new dive buddy coming
up and I don't hesitate with them because I know how and when we will communicate. I am sure lots to add from all but my two cents .......

.when i dive with jamarcus.
.we take a moment to reflect.
.we look at each other.
.and gaze into each other masks.
.to understand the state of our souls.
.all the pain of life.
.shall subside.
.we are bound by each others trust.
.his life is in my hands.
.and mine is in his.
.after we feel content with our emotional state.
.we give each other a big hug.
.and continue shooting.
.diving deep is so emo.
.but we can angrily cry safely.

CLAP...CLAP...BRAVO EMO....CLAP....CLAP:crazy:

.when i dive with jamarcus.
.we take a moment to reflect.
.we look at each other.
.and gaze into each other masks.
.to understand the state of our souls.
.all the pain of life.
.shall subside.
.we are bound by each others trust.
.his life is in my hands.
.and mine is in his.
.after we feel content with our emotional state.
.we give each other a big hug.
.and continue shooting.
.diving deep is so emo.
.but we can angrily cry safely.



are you high again ....

are you high again ....

Did you mean "still.":)

I like what Inlet said...it's hard to do both... but I dive with lots of different people and do choose to buddy up with two or three of them, because we have dove enough together to complement our styles. Like Jose' said...we both help each other out with fish as well as safety... if he shoots a big AJ, he knows that I will hit it with a second shaft before it can get away.... we both also take our diving, gear and safety equipment seriously. I know that if there was an emergency, neither of us would loose our cool. It takes lots of dives for me to be that comfortable with a "buddy".

Well, before spearing, I used to be 'only dive with a buddy'. But, unless you get one of the lucky "sit on the bottom, shoot everything that comes to you" situations, you're going to be moving around- and your buddy isn't going to help with the task of getting fish unless he's covering ground too.

However, if someone I'm diving with is not extremely proficient diving, even if we're spearfishing, I'll buddy with them and play stinger-bitch.

Now a buddy-confession: (well in the past) when lobstering in relatively shallow water, I found a honeyhole of 5 bugs towards the end of my dive. I didn't pay any attention to my air remaining and sucked the tank dry. Fortunately, my wife -who brings a tank just to make me forget about her gills- was there and calmly did the buddy-up with me. Heck, we even managed to get the last bug. I returned the favor last year when she was new to deeper diving and got a little narced and didn't manage her air well, so we shared on the way up. In neither case was it 'life-saving', because both of us could have come up. But, it was reassuring. For me, there's no better buddy than my wife.

My concession to spearfishing and diving without a buddy is that now I have a fully redundant second air supply (19cf pony). I think that's what everyone should do who doesn't dive with a buddy.

Now a buddy-confession: (well in the past) when lobstering in relatively shallow water, I found a honeyhole of 5 bugs towards the end of my dive. I didn't pay any attention to my air remaining and sucked the tank dry. Fortunately, my wife -who brings a tank just to make me forget about her gills- was there and calmly did the buddy-up with me. Heck, we even managed to get the last bug. I returned the favor last year when she was new to deeper diving and got a little narced and didn't manage her air well, so we shared on the way up. In neither case was it 'life-saving', because both of us could have come up. But, it was reassuring. For me, there's no better buddy than my wife.

My concession to spearfishing and diving without a buddy is that now I have a fully redundant second air supply (19cf pony). I think that's what everyone should do who doesn't dive with a buddy.


What scares me is that you think sucking a tank dry at depth is not such a bad thing. That's what it sounds like anyway.

No, it was a very bad thing; hence the 'confession'- most people don't want to admit they did something stupid. I don't think she saved my life, because we were at 35' or so- one breath to the top.

After that, she bought me the pony rig :) And since then, I've done a lot more reading and research about diving injuries (I know the guy who writes the re-writes of dive accidents) and have gotten far more careful.

If you've never done something stupid while diving, congratulations. I won't take you to task too much if you admit it, unless you don't learn from it (reminds me of someone diving to 230' on air and calling it 'technical spearfishing'...)

If you haven't read it, Diver Down will make you think a lot more about what can go wrong. http://www.seaduction.com/content/shop/book/default.html. The book is so serious, that I haven't let my kids read it yet because I don't want to scare them from diving- I want them to enjoy the 'this is so cool!' aspect of it without undue paranoia.

I freedive solo more then with a buddy, although i do like the buddy system. The problem most of the time is finding a buddy that has the enormous amount of free time that i have to dive. I have been on a few solo trips out to santa cruz island and have never had a problem but it would be reassuring to know if something did happen that I might have someone there who is capable of assisting. Even though part of the fun for me at least is tempting fate and relying strictly on myself to properly manage the situation.

I won't even get into the ocean when I'm at the beach alone. I am not kidding.
I will only freedive with a buddy and I will certainly always be a good buddy when I'm in the water to my fellow spearos. I don't agree with solo diving. Anything can go wrong and I don't think it's worth the risk for a fish.

My friends daughter died when she had a problem with her 2nd stage at 80 feet and her buddy freaked out and went to the boat and got the dive master to get her off of the bottom. They were both new and had never met until that day on the dive trip. I will always have a pony I don't trust my life with anyone. This was on the NorthWest coast.

sucking a tank dry at depth isn't as bad as it sounds, while it shouldn't be done, if the situation occurs theres no need to panic as you ascend you'll get a couple more breaths out of it.

sucking a tank dry at depth isn't as bad as it sounds, while it shouldn't be done, if the situation occurs theres no need to panic as you ascend you'll get a couple more breaths out of it.

Yes it is as bad as it sounds. A cavalier attitude like that lands your ass in the obituary section.

I've been diving and spearfishing with the same buddy for 10 years and usually the only time we would see each other is rolling off the boat but since these recent events we've stayed together more and it hasn't hurt are hunting at all. I use to buy into the deal that solo was better and we're both very comfortable with that but since we've stayed together more and still slayed I just don't buy into the solo is better anymore. Once one guy shots a fish it brings in others that are easy picins. But like I said in the begining we've dove together 10 years, to each there own though, do what works best for you.