TRAVEL Insta-Buddy: Advice for Assigning Buddy Teams – by Carly Anderson, Albuquerque, NM, World Solo Traveler
Throughout my travels as a solo fe- male diver, I’ve been paired with many wonderful dive buddies; however I’ve also had some dangerous experiences as well. This article will outline some of the close calls I’ve had being paired
surface. After checking in shortly after surfacing, I was told there had been no emergency; they just felt content with the dive and assumed I would come up when I was ready. I’ve had a buddy that descended without me and continued the dive by himself with no check-in when I couldn’t join him. He told me later that he had assumed I was fine and on the boat. I’ve also not been assigned a buddy, and when I asked the guide for an assignment, I was told that if I needed a buddy, I didn’t belong in the advanced diving group. I’ve had insta-buddies swim off nearly fifty yards without me, shoot to the surface without warning, and panic time and again in near-emergency scenarios.
with insta-buddies, tips for dive operators to keep in mind when pairing newly met divers, and how keeping these tips in mind will benefit your dive business. Over the last several years, I’ve dove with seventeen dif- ferent tour operators in thirteen different countries, span- ning the East and West coasts of the United States, the beautiful Red Sea, the frigid waters of False Bay in the Atlantic Ocean, the tropical climates of the Pacific Ocean, and the Caribbean Sea. Last year, around Christmas of 2023, I completed my technical extended range training in Utila, Honduras, during which we spent three-hour dives training with tri-mix gases and equipment removal and replacement procedures at depth. Additionally, this past summer, I was a speaker at the 2024 Scuba Show in Los Angeles. It all started in 2021, when I planned a three-month solo sabbatical to travel and dive. Armed with only my camera and a carry-on, I booked a one-way flight to Egypt and didn’t return to the United States for another two years. Over those two years, I started my business in underwater cine- matography, traveled through eleven countries en route to Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, and dove every- where I could. As a result of my work and travels, every dive was with an “insta-buddy” — typically someone I had just met, and was assigned on the boat just moments before descent. The sto- ries of what happened next are numerous. “Insta-buddy” (a definition): another diver assigned to be one’s buddy specifically for the day or a single dive. Insta- buddies are typically strangers, other solo divers, the dive master, or another duo of newly met divers. I’ve been left 100 feet down at a shipwreck notorious for being dangerous when my buddy suddenly bolted for the Insta-Buddies Pre-Dive Prep
The importance of education and acknowledgment of proper buddy safety As divers, our main intention for the buddy system is in case of an emergency. Your buddy is a second brain and second pair of eyes - they will most likely spot an issue or be able to offer aid before you can. (For example: a leaking air tank, a poten-
tial entanglement, or the ability to swim for help). Newer buddies might remember something their more advanced buddy has forgotten, as they’ve gone through the course- work more recently. As divers acquire more experience and advance in skill set, it becomes easier to forget the basics. In the face of a complicated tri-mix dive, one might forget to turn on their air before descent — having done it hundreds of times before and thinking there is no way they could have forgotten something so basic. A quick 3-point reminder to include in the dive brief As dive operators, there’s something you can do to help. Most recreational divers only dive on vacation, and even the most experienced of us can have large spans of time be- tween dives. This is why dive briefs are so important. Dive briefs not only provide information on the dive site, what to expect, and the dive plan but also offer equipment re- minders. By adding a quick 3-point buddy safety reminder to the dive brief, dive operators can help remind divers of their buddy responsibilities and decrease chances of a potentially avoidable dive accident or close call.
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