Excellent thread-starter!
This might sound crazy, but so far I've always MADE my dive buddies. I get my friends of sound reasoning into diving.
I have met a few people in advanced dive classes, as well. Generally, though, I'm at a loss for dive buddies. I can't seem to find many.
I haven't ever had any particular problems with new buddies. We spend a long time talking and sharing before we ever hit the waves. Here are some of the more salient topcis:
1) Their training. The what-if game is usually a good way to gain familiarity with each others' thought process.
2) Their notable experience, especially their accidents. Accidents don't make a bad diver, so long as they're always turned into learning experiences.
3) Their gear and techniques -- which are sometimes disparate from their training.
And for our first dive of every day, I always enforce the standard signal review and S-drill.
My "main dive buddy" would have to be my girlfriend, Kimberly. She's not very experienced, and only interested in sight-seeing, so we make a lot of pretty normal ocean rec dives together. She doesn't mind if I throw drills into the mix, though, and is definitely willing to be my safety diver when I'm practicing my "weirdo" techniques.
Other than her, I don't have any "close" dive buddies -- but I'm ever-watchful.
The most difficult part of
keeping a dive buddy deals with conditions. If they have different tastes in temp/vis/depth than I do, we'll likely do a lot of diving apart. Just like friendships, buddy relationships fade when not exercised enough.
Communication skills, swimming positions, dramatically different gas consumption rates, and dealing with "perceived emergencies" are the most difficult parts of the buddy relationship. All but the gas consumption can be ratherly easily solved with enough surface dialogue.
- Warren
