SAFETY
Building a Safe and Enjoyable Buddy Relationship for Traveling Divers by Dan Orr , President, Dan Orr Consulting
F OR MANY OF YOUR CUSTOMERS, travel is one of the great rewards of being a diver. The prospect of diving beautiful reefs, historic shipwrecks, and exotic locations beckon divers from around the world. But your traveling customers face a unique challenge that local divers often do not: they frequently dive with a buddy they have never met before. In local diving communities, buddy relationships develop over time. Divers learn each other’s habits, strengths, and limitations through repeated dives together. Traveling divers, by contrast, often meet their dive partner on a boat ride to the site or during a pre-dive briefing at the dive center. Yet the buddy system, one of the foundational safety principles of recreational scuba diving, depends on cooperation, com- munication, and mutual awareness. Creating a safe and en- joyable buddy relationship under these circumstances is not only possible, but it is essential. With the right mindset and
a few deliberate steps, traveling divers can quickly build trust and teamwork with a new partner. Diving with a companion you have never met before must be something you are comfortable with. If you, for whatever reason, feel uncomfortable diving with someone, you can and must either find another prospective diving companion or, as I’ve done on more than one occasion, simply choose not to dive and enjoy the boat ride. In my opinion, no diving experience is worth putting yourself at unnecessary risk. In my 60+ years of recreational scuba diving, I have done quite a bit of dive travel. There are many occasions when I do not have the luxury of traveling with my favorite diving companion. In those cases, I have to be prepared to quickly develop a relationship with someone where I feel both com- fortable and safe sharing the diving experience with them. Situations like this involve what might be called the “instant buddy” phenomenon. Dive operators often take it upon themselves to pair individuals together when they arrive without a partner. Sometimes these pairings are random. Other times they are based on perceived experience level. This situation may work well in many situations, but it also introduces a level of uncertainty that some divers, including myself, may find uncomfortable. I don’t know how many divers I’ve met who, when asked about their diving experience, respond, “I’ve been diving for 10 (or more) years!” Quite frankly, that means absolutely nothing to me. Carrying a certification card in your wallet or purse for 10 years (or more) tells me nothing about your current experiences or ability as a safe diver or your approach to risk. Two divers with the same certification level may have very different atti- tudes towards things such as depth limits, breathing gas management, navigational abilities, proximity to each other while underwater, understanding of hand signals or acceptable levels of risk tolerance. Without clear communication, these differences can create confusion, or worse, unsafe situations. Recognizing that this variability exists is the first step toward building an effective partnership.
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