When do you graduate from a diver-in-training to a good buddy (or what others call a team diver)?

SCUBA is a fun and relaxing sport, but the reality is that we don’t belongin the underwater environment. For this reason, we have to ensure that all our systems are working properly and that our dive buddy will not cause us stress, but rather be there to assist us competently in the event of an emergency.

How comfortable would you be if your buddy was constantly leaving you behind, changing positions and speed, and you never knew where they were? What if they got disoriented and headed the wrong way, but made no attempt to find you? How about if they were always running out of air or their equipment was so poorly maintained that it was not reliable? These are not comforting thoughts to me and I hope they are not to you, either!

When our sport first came to be, the original underwater explorers were single/solo divers. These brave and adventurous men made incredible dives, and some of them lost their life as a result. Many new explorers have found that when diving with a well trained team that shares a single common goal, exploration dives are safer and the explorers get to go farther. They also get to go home! Many in the sport diving community have watched the success of theses explorers and have tried to translate the philosophy to non-exploration/recreational sport divers.

So what exactly is a good buddy?

A diver that actively participates on the dive planning.
A diver that will agree to assign a dive leader, but will still be self-sufficient during the dive.
A diver with well maintained equipment that is suitable for their type of diving and their area conditions.
A diver that will follow the plan, and maintain a position in the water in relation to the dive leader (so that he does not have to always be looking for the buddy diver).
A diver that would not hesitate to call the dive if they had a problem.
A diver with good gas management and buoyancy control.

All of these are qualities for a really good buddy. You may never appreciate the skills of a good buddy if you always dive with one person, but if you don’t have a regular buddy, you will most definitely appreciate good skills when and if you should ever need them!

Information and communication is the key: agreeing before the dive on dive plan and the what ifs, and checking gear and reviewing hand signals before starting the dive. There is nothing more difficult than trying to deal with a problem when you are not able to communicate with your buddy underwater.

On some dives, it is very possible to have a buddy assigned to you by a DM on a dive boat. It may be difficult to assess this divers ability. Here are some questions should you ask this diver up front, BEFORE you enter the water with them:

What are they hoping to get out of the dive (cover and see as much territory as possible, slow dive to take pictures, etc.)
What is their training level, and how recent is their experience?
What is their air consumption rate, and are they willing to end the dive as a team, based on a pre-agreed gas limit?
What parameters do they see for the dive “ How deep, how long, and what activities? If they propose things youre uncomfortable with (like penetrating wrecks) are they willing to forego that to keep the team together?

Remember, you can’t ask to dive with a good buddy if you are not one yourself. If your buddies always have to look for you because you get easily distracted, easily lose the group, tend to lose your buoyancy, or you run low or out of air, you should do everyone a favor (ESPECIALLY YOURSELF!) and get some more training!

Here are a couple simple training recommendations:

Practice your basic skills on every dive, even when you are diving on your favorite spot where you have 100 logged dives. Skills include good buoyancy control and hovering quietly, as well as mask flooding and gas sharing.
Take some entry level tech diving classes even if you’re not interested in tech diving. The skills you learn will help you on every dive and may just save you or your buddy somewhere down the road.