Buddy Love

The equipment you use must be in good working order, the dive site conditions must be safe to enter, your goals for the dive must be set and your training must compliment your goals. These are all elements to consider when it comes to planning a safe and fun dive. If all of these considerations are met then you have a good start, but there is another aspect that is extremely important and I feel, sometimes, is over-looked: you must have a safe and compatible dive buddy. Not having a safe and compatible person to dive with can be anywhere from inconvenient, if you and your buddy do not have similar objectives for the dive which causes your dive to be an unenjoyable experience, to outright dangerous, if that person does not have safe diving practices.

I have been lucky in my dive lifetime because I currently have a wonderful dive buddy and have dove with great buddies in the past, but I have heard the horror stories about buddies who are not so lovely. One buddy-related issue I have heard many times is the “buddy” being too focused on his or her own agenda to be a valuable partner. This situation either ends in the diver spending the whole dive trying to keep up with said “buddy” or it ends in the loss of said “buddy” and, in the best situation, a successful lost buddy procedure and, in the worst situation, an unnecessary search for a diver who was not in need of rescue but who failed to noticed their buddy was gone. The most recent story I heard involved a diver partnering up with two other divers to form a trio. When the diver became low on air, which means all divers should go to the surface, she was sent to the surface to then struggle alone in a monster current back to the shore. I had these stories in mind when, last Sunday, I was helping to couple up divers into buddy pairs.

Last Sunday was this month’s Scuba Squad club dive and I was part of beach support. At club dives, if a diver arrives without a buddy we help them pair up. Scuba Squad is an excellent resource because all of the members are safe divers so there is no risk of pairing a diver up with someone who is reckless, but you can never be sure the two divers will be compatible. All of the necessary considerations were met and everyone seemed to enjoy the dive, but it was difficult to tell, just by observing, if buddy satisfaction had been achieved. After the dive, while reading Facebook comments, Cheryl said, “There is a lovefest going on on Facebook.” I asked her what she was talking about and she said everyone who had gone diving that day was posting comments saying how much he or she enjoyed diving with his or her buddy. This, above all else, confirmed for me that the club dive was a success, because even if your equipment is working great, conditions are perfect, and your dive goals are met, loving your buddy is the best way to ensure a great dive day.