Posted by Wayne on July 08, 2000 at 14:11:04:
In Reply to: Buddy Diving - Is three a crowd ? posted by Dean Christensen on July 05, 2000 at 00:04:41:
I think that threesomes work well with beginning divers in some special circumstances. For example, last year when another of my kids was newly certified, we would take her in threesomes. We would sandwich her between two other divers. This left her free from navigation duties, and allowed us to control her experience. All she had to do was work buoyancy and keep track of her air (although we also kept track of her air consumption). Done this way, we helped her to gain experience, comfort, and and confidence while helping her to develop good habits. These then become tour dives with in-water supervision. As a new diver, I recommend this three-man approach ONLY if the other two are experienced and have the assignment to escort and guide you.
I personaly hate 3 man buddy teams. Maybe if I was doing some kind of non-recreational activity, where everyone had specific assignments, it would be different. But my fun-diving is mostly poking around and looking at cool stuff. In this type of dive, my experience is that a buddy team of divers with the same idea of fun is easier to keep track of and provides the most fun. After all, the fun is in the diving, not in the babysitting. It is less work to keep track of 1 buddy and therefore detracts less from the joy of diving.
And rest assured that of us old farts with lots of years in the sport, most of us are fun loving and will accept you at your skill level and assist without berating you. We may be hard on each other, but on a boat or at the beach, most of us are a lot of fun.
Wayne