Posted by Wayne on February 14, 2001 at 18:12:35:
In Reply to: Re: K.K. said: "A bad buddy's better than no buddy" - NOT!! posted by AADIVER on February 14, 2001 at 13:54:32:
Here is what I was thinking. We are on a boat and the boat required buddies. Assume a wreckless (pun intended) newbie who is a statistic waiting to happen is sitting alone and confused. He gets paired up with Frank Farmer. Is Frank safer? No or at least probably not -- except for a fundimental change in the dive profile. I'll bet that Frank will take the newbie on a "safer" dive and keep him from killing himself. The environment will be safer so even if Frank has a major equipment problem, he will be in a better, safer place to self rescue from. So the act of pairing up with a lame buddy does make a safer dive. Also if the newbie is better watched and supervised, he will be less likely to need rescue and will be rescued if he needs it. So overall diver safety is enhanced. Also the newbie will hopefully learn much from diving with an experienced diver. So long term safety is enhanced.
But the problem is that Frank has a crappy dive and does not do what he likes to do on a dive. He was forced to play baby sitter and missed out on "his" dive.
So in this way the buddy does increase safety, but still may not be desirable. As I have expressed elswhere, we often assume additional risks to do what we want. Just going diving in the first place falls into this category.
I think we all need to dive with newbies on occasion and believe it can be very rewarding. The problem is that unless we are paired with a diver with the EXACT same purpose in the dive, it reduces our ability to enjoy the dive that was purchased for our enjoyment.
Wayne