Diving with a friend of a friend.

[whitworthsa]

Here's the story.

My usual dive buddy and I plan to go out for a dive. My DB's friend who is also certified (to 100ft apparently), but hasn't dove for several years asks to come along. We figure that's fine seeing as we're very new ourselves and thinking that his skill will probably be around the same as ours with a brief brushing up on signals and a good dive briefing.

At the beginning of the dive we started off shallow (~20feet) so we could all be sure we were comfortable and then descended slowly to about 50 feet myself in the lead with my DB and his friend following close behind. Almost immediately after we hit 50 feet I turned around to see no one directly behind me so I looked around and then up about 10 feet to see the both of them headed to the surface. So of course I made my ascent as well and met them on the surface. My DB's friend had apparently had a hard time breathing at 50 feet and headed up. Anyway we decided to keep the rest of the dive shallow and the he of course ran out of air very quickly and after ignoring our safety stop he surfaced with 600psi and the other 2 of us were left with well over 1200 psi (all AL80's).
Needless to say the friend was obviously uncomfortable but would never admit to it. We did a second dive without further incident except having to turn it early due to his air consumption. We later learned that he was certified over 10 years ago and that this was his 2nd dive ever after certification.

I learned two lessons:
1) Find out as much as possible about a potential dive buddy before you agree to dive with them, and
2) If you don't feel comfortable diving with someone, DON'T DO IT.

After the first time we surfaced I should've refused to dive with him. I'm a new diver myself and not 100% comfortable with myself underwater. I don't want to have to rescue anyone else unless I absolutely have to, so why risk it?

~Steven

[Zenagirl]

I've been diving for awhile and am Rescue certified, but I'd still refuse to dive with this guy (knowing what you know now). He clearly needs to go through a complete training course again since it's been so long and he never got experiences beyond his first training course to begin with.

You were lucky it turned out as well as it did, and learned a lot in the process. Thanks for sharing and helping us all learn a good lesson.

[H2OGuy75]

your advice at the end is really appropriate. when we all learn to scuba dive we are taught this but somehow as we get going we forget, its good to get a reminder every now and then.

happy diving, i hope the next one is better!

[jimmysdevoted]

he ahs tried diving with buddies before. and each one seems ot be either nervous or over controlling.. for thsoe that are nervous, hes fine.. he doent mind going slow and doing things inlittle increments until they get their footings..
but the ones that seem to knwo it all and make it a race of " i can have more air when i come up than you" is what he is encountering.
I think when we are diving and becoming conmfortable we forget that we have to start somewhere when we begin again.. remember patience in some cases is your best buddy....
taking peopel out who have been out of it for along time, need that patience value ot enjoy the sport all over again.

julie

[Vercingetorix]

This guy should have been more upfront concerning his lack of experience. By failing to do so, he endangered himself and others. I think that, had he been more forthcoming, you could have planned a shallower dive initially.

I'm sorry you went through this. It was a valuable lesson for all concerned. At least he didn't bolt to the surface, even if he did skip the safety stop.