Do you have a particular buddy?

[TSandM]

One of the things I've noticed is that a lot of divers seem to come in pairs . . . If you see one of them, the other will be there shortly. And for me, although I dive with a number of different people from time to time, I have two regular buddies, and neither of them is anyone I would have met through any other facet of my life. So I'm asking: Do you have one particular dive buddy, and if so, how did you meet and come to dive regularly together?

One of mine is Bob (NW Grateful Diver), who I met on an SB Orca Bait big buddy dive, and who took me under his wing to mentor and has become a good friend. The other is Kirk (DoubleDip), who I met briefly on an Orca Bait fun dive, but with whom I was put in touch by one of my Fundies classmates who got tired of me pestering him to come out and practice skills with me. He wrote to me and told me I should get hold of Kirk, who had taken the class two months after we did, and was ALSO pestering him to practice. We got together and it was all over . . . We've dived together about once a week (or more) ever since.

 

[Jcsgt]

My dive buddy is my best friend. We were snorkeling together in Aruba and couldn't believe the marine life. We discussed that if we were seeing that much snorkeling, there had to be a lot more down at the bottom. So, we got certified together.

 

[Divin'Papaw]

Not yet. I do dive with as many Midwest Scuba Boards as I can. Don't have any close friends who are divers though. I think I've dived with 7 different Scuba Boarders from the Midwest so far, and I only have 16 lifetime dives so far. Hey, that's pretty good!

 

[ckharlan66]

I generally dive with JBD from the board (he has been MIA for awhile as I had been). We met on here as we were the only two Kentucky Divers on here at the time. That was quite awhile ago.

We have take simular paths although not the exactly the same, he went the instructor path, in our diving life and we are generally at the same place at the same time.

Lots of other SBers that I dive with too though.

Chad

 

[Scubakevdm]

I do. It takes a while to find the buddy.

 

[Fastmarc]

I have been really lucky in that I became friends with the person that certified me and all of my dives have been with him though on a few occasions I may have buddied up with his wife or daughter if his hands are full with a less experience diver or studient.
It works out great as we like diving at the same pace, etc. and it's a terrific way to learn.

 

[Diver_Wulf]

For the first 12 years I was diving I dove with my father as he was the only other person that dove that I knew. Now I still dive with him but also with my girlfriend and best friend who I have recently turned to diving.. finally...

 

[Floridawannabe]

I dive with a buddy who we met through our wives He is the same skill as myself and we even recently completed or AOW together. We dive together and our families go together on vacation. We both breath the same rate as each other and get along great. Thanks to our wives we met, they started to talk and my wife knew I was not diving because I did not know anyone who also dived.

 

[mstevens]

When I was in high school, my parents gave me a scuba course as the only thing I wanted for Christmas. The pool sessions were at a community pool where I was a lifeguard. One of the other students was this *really* annoying girl I knew from physics class. Unfortunately, she wasn't a great swimmer, so guess who got assigned as her buddy?

She's been my only buddy, really, for a while now. We did lots of courses in college as P.E. (Advanced Open Water, Divemaster, Assistant Instructor), then slowed down while she was putting me through medical school. It's been over 25 years now. Our 11 year-old is now starting to dive with us. Her swimming got much better over time, by the way.

On one hand, we know each other's diving skills and gear as if they were our own. We know what we need help with and when to stay out of the way. We've always got a buddy available when one of us feels like diving, no matter where or when. We've got all our lies about the size of that eagle ray down to a science. It's fun and comfortable.

On the other hand, whatever bad diving habits we may have we learned together, so will be blind to them. We don't really have any "buddy skills" such as going over signals or procedures before a dive. We never have a buddy who hasn't heard all our old diving stories (including our poor kid).

 

[Scubakevdm]

I do. It takes a while to find the buddy.

Sometimes you have to build one.