Buddy Diving Without a working Air Gauge...

[scuba-doo-ba-doo]

A number of years ago I was diving with my local club... I was buddied up with someone, we did our buddy checks and in we went. The dive was going great, then all of a sudden my buddy came swimming up to me signaling that he was out of air... somewhat surprised I gave my buddy my octopus and we ascended. Afterwards I was pretty shook up (and also very pissed off) and didn't dive for a long time afterwards...

What did I learn:

(1) Whilst doing a buddy check - just take a quick glimpse of your buddy's air gauge just to make sure that they have actually got the amount of air that they say they have.

(2) Don't let one bad incident stop you from diving again... learn from it and move on!

What I hope my Buddy learnt:

(1) Always dive with a working air gauge (!)

(2) If you are a male overweight, middle aged smoker... you can't really judge your air consumption based on that of a young female

[rodt1968]

How long into the dive? Was the gauge not working or did he just empty his tank quickly? Checking air should always part of a buddy check - to the point where you watch the needle whilst breathing from the reg (and octupus) to confirm the tank valve is open........ and asking each other how air consumption is going during the course of a dive is pretty normal.

Not sure why you were pissed off - bringing your buddy to surface if they need it is part of the deal.........

[scuba-doo-ba-doo]

I was a bit annoyed because I later found out that the person knew their gauge was broken. They therefore blatently lied during the buddy check about how much air they had and lied throughout the dive when asked whether their air was ok... Of course I wouldn't have been annoyed if the gauge had just packed up during the dive ...