How do you find a dive buddy?

[Gandalf-the-Diver]

I'm reading a lot of the replies on my thread; I am thinking, those of us who live in an area with plentifull diving, there is probably a larger social media presence. Where finding local dive buddies is easy. I was reaching out on every local FB page, pretty much 2-4 days a week, looking for dive buddies on those days. This was during covid, so I had lots of time off. The local dive community took notice of the "new guy" who dives a lot. Having all of the gear needed, not relying on rentals is key too. A couple of local legends, took me out because I was enthusiastic, and actually was diving 2 - 4 days a week. I ended up creating a couple of different FB groups, for local diving. Both with different objectives. One group, we try to meet one midweek morning, splashing usually 7-7:30 ish. Oh ya, cold water, dry suits. The other group dives Sun am, with a local shop's drop in dive, and we use the group for diving during the week too. Early morn group has 69 members and growing, the other group over 200, but really only a core group of active members. We get out of towners joining the group, before they come to town. I have only been diving since Sept, 2020, but have over 320 dives under my belt, vast majority of those were friends made on FB and through local shops, or I am also Solo cert. I would imagine the experiences finding buddies are completely different for people who have to drive for a couple of hours, to get to the dive site.

 

[Vertologist]

I'm a new diver who's mostly gone on "fun dives" with shops. Unfortunately, I live in a small town over an hour from the nearest LDS, and the best "fun dive" location (and shop) is 3 hours away. I imagine once I get my own gear I'll have more flexibility, but given that I'm not where diving happens and am away from dive shops, finding dive buddies still seems difficult. For now (or at least once spring arrives!) I'll keep going on fun dives and buddying up with random participants. Guess I need to convince some local friends to take up diving!

 

[Zef]

Why "find" dive buddies when you can make them :

-Z

 

[Vertologist]

Why "find" dive buddies when you can make them :

-Z

My intention exactly! Only my daughter now says she'd be too claustrophobic underwater. I think I need to get her some experience and hope she falls for it. @Zef, did you encounter any resistance from the buddies you made?!

 

[Zef]

My intention exactly! Only my daughter now says she'd be too claustrophobic underwater. I think I need to get her some experience and hope she falls for it. @Zef, did you encounter any resistance from the buddies you made?!

Good question...never had any resistance to diving but we did experience a debacle once when I felt my eldest was putting herself in a dangerous position. We had many discussion as time went past where she agreed she had messed up and I have learned better ways to handle similar situations as both a parent and a diver.

In addition to often being my dive buddies, they also kept me company riding the chairlift....I am happy they have both gone on to University and are moving forward with their lives (one graduated last May and the other in December), but for me it also means I increasingly find myself in the positiong where I am left searching for someone to ride the chairlift or splash with me.

Here is something to think about:
One of the nice things about diving with your kid(s) is that the incumberance to communication once below the surface means that you can give your child the opportunity to take charge, lead, and manage while retaining a great ability to influence what is actually going on. As they build confidence and experience you can let them take an ever increasing role in dive planning and execution. While it makes me nervous when my daughters plan a dive and slink below the surface without me, It makes me giddy inside when I listen to them discuss and plan, and when they surface safely there is rush of happiness and pride that is hard to come by in other activities.

Tip:
During dive debriefs don't focus on what went wrong. Discuss the things that went well and incorporate any thing that went wrong, on that dive, into the brief before the next dive, and bring it up in the context of how you as buddy team want to execute the dive. For instance, if I noticed my daughter is not monitering her spg as often as I think she should, instead of harping on her after the dive that she should look at her gauge more often, during the next dive's brief, I would brief the expectation that we are checking our gauges/computer every however many minutes to note remaining tank pressure, depth, and dive time remaing, and I would stress that she should not be waiting for me to signal to check her gauges/computer. Then observe the change in behavior as the dive is executed and give them props, as appropriate, during that dive's debrief.

I wish you the best of luck.

-Z

 

[rx7diver]

Why "find" dive buddies when you can make them :

Yeah, but you, yourself, have to feed the dive buddies you make. And pay for their training. And purchase their gear. And pay for their diving. And feed them (again).

Priceless pics, @Zef.

rx7diver

 

[Zef]

Yeah, but you, yourself, have to feed the dive buddies you make. And pay for their training. And purchase their gear. And pay for their diving. And feed them (again).

Priceless pics, @Zef.

rx7diver

And I would do it again a thousand time over without hesitation.

Sharing/Participating in activities with my kids has afforded me the ability to be involved and influence their lives while building trust, communication, and other intangible aspects that I can't think of at 12:40am. I got to watch my kids grow and flourish and be actively involved in their lives without being a helicopter parent.

-Z

 

[Tired_Diver]

I found a Facebook group a few years back. They had local meetings and an instructor that would teach classes and organize big trips. After attending several meetings it felt like a lot of people who liked talking about scuba but few people interested in actually going and doing it. Supprisingly, it was 1 hour from a fairly popular shore and boat diving area.

Moved back there for school a few years later and one of my friends overheard me talking about diving and we have been dive buddies ever since.

 

[Rilelen]

I've lived in three different places since I started diving; I think the difficulty of finding local dive buddies depends a lot on 1) how many divers/how much local diving there is, 2) how "open"/closed existing networks of divers are to new buddies, and 3) whether there's an established internet presence in your area for local divers to meet up. It sounds like for the OP the answers are yes, yes, and yes!

It's common here for folks to post to the regional FB groups when in town looking for a buddy; I've gone out with a bunch of random out-of-state visitors who just wanted a buddy to check out the springs while passing through. Our dive shop also has a FB page where people will post looking for buddies. Those meet-ups are usually arranged a few days in advance, though, not same-day. That said, you can show up at a lot of dive sites here and find someone willing to let you tag along - I've adopted a few sad people looking wistfully at Ginnie, who were there without buddies and had just stopped by to see the place.

That said, my regular dive buddy was someone who originally contacted me on one of regional FB groups, who I had known loosely from work; they were awesome, and we now try to make it out every week, or at least every other week. We met new dive buddy friends through classes we took at the dive shop together, and now have a nice small core group of folks - so odds are I can find *someone* free to go diving most days, if I want to go out.

 

[Vertologist]

Good question...never had any resistance to diving but we did experience a debacle once when I felt my eldest was putting herself in a dangerous position. We had many discussion as time went past where she agreed she had messed up and I have learned better ways to handle similar situations as both a parent and a diver.

In addition to often being my dive buddies, they also kept me company riding the chairlift....I am happy they have both gone on to University and are moving forward with their lives (one graduated last May and the other in December), but for me it also means I increasingly find myself in the positiong where I am left searching for someone to ride the chairlift or splash with me.

Here is something to think about:
One of the nice things about diving with your kid(s) is that the incumberance to communication once below the surface means that you can give your child the opportunity to take charge, lead, and manage while retaining a great ability to influence what is actually going on. As they build confidence and experience you can let them take an ever increasing role in dive planning and execution. While it makes me nervous when my daughters plan a dive and slink below the surface without me, It makes me giddy inside when I listen to them discuss and plan, and when they surface safely there is rush of happiness and pride that is hard to come by in other activities.

Tip:
During dive debriefs don't focus on what went wrong. Discuss the things that went well and incorporate any thing that went wrong, on that dive, into the brief before the next dive, and bring it up in the context of how you as buddy team want to execute the dive. For instance, if I noticed my daughter is not monitering her spg as often as I think she should, instead of harping on her after the dive that she should look at her gauge more often, during the next dive's brief, I would brief the expectation that we are checking our gauges/computer every however many minutes to note remaining tank pressure, depth, and dive time remaing, and I would stress that she should not be waiting for me to signal to check her gauges/computer. Then observe the change in behavior as the dive is executed and give them props, as appropriate, during that dive's debrief.

I wish you the best of luck.

-Z

Great advice, thanks @Zef! I'll try again with my daughter. Great pics, they illustrate just what a parent wants of their kids! Nice job.