The best way to do more diving and to easily find a dive buddy is to book yourself on a scuba diving liveaboard. You can check the latest and best deals on liveaboards using the following window:
If you don’t have a dive buddy to dive with, let’s look at each method in more detail.
How do I get a dive buddy explained in more detail?
What’s the best way to find a dive buddy to join you on your scuba diving adventures? The six suggested and easy ways to find a diving partner are explained in more detail.
Being a part of a scuba diving club is great fun and a great way to meet new friends. Dive clubs are very sociable and is how I began my dive career. I joined a local BSAC dive club, but then I live in the UK where this is easy to do.
However, if you live outside of the UK and somewhere like America, you may need to join a PADI dive club instead. You can also join a PADI dive club in the UK and around the world too.
Scuba diving clubs associated with all diving organisations are a great way to not just meet a dive buddy, but also to meet a whole bunch of potential dive buddies.
There’s a strong possibility that you’ll find a local dive club right near you. This club will be full of other passionate divers. The great part of dive clubs is their scuba diving community. Also, very often they usually organise regular dives trips too. These dive trips are either in the country where the dive club resides or trips to dive overseas too.
The benefits of joining a dive club near you include:
Sense of a scuba diving community.
A place to share your diving experiences.
Finding more than one dive buddy to dive with.
Participating in regular dives both within your country of residence and overseas.
Other social activities are organised.
Meeting a new group of like minded people.
The opportunity to add to your learning and experience.
It’s likely there will be a dive club near where you live.
2. Find a Facebook group and join a community
There are many groups on Facebook for all types of sport and hobbies. The same goes for scuba diving too. These Facebook groups allow you to interact with other divers and share experiences with like minded divers.
One such Facebook group which is organised by PAID is the Learn to Dive Facebook group. At the time of writing this article there were nearly 2 million likes of this particular scuba diver Facebook group.
The advantages of using a scuba diving Facebook group include the following benefits:
Free and easy to join wherever you live in the world.
Possible to find more than one dive buddy.
You’ll be communicating with like-minded people.
A place to share your stories and experiences along with your underwater photos and videos.
3. Ask your friends and family
This may sound too obvious, but you never know there may be either friends of family who also scuba dive and would be happy to dive with you.
You never know that your distant uncle or cousin may be a scuba diver. Or you may find that a friend of a friend is a scuba diver and is also devoid of a dive buddy too.
It may also be that you’ll find a family member or a friend who’s interest to learn how to scuba dive, who can then become your dive buddy.
If you don’t ask you may never know and it may well be that your dive buddy is right in front of you, and you never knew.
More often than not a liveaboard dive boat will include divers only. That means that everyone on board the liveaboard boat will be a scuba diver. Liveaboard dives offer more dives for the money you spend on your diving holiday.
But more importantly, liveaboard diving means you’re with like-minded people who want to dive.
5. Go on a dive trip with a PADI Dive Centre near you
If you don’t like the idea of joining a dive club, as in option one above, the next best thing is to book yourself onto a dive trip with a dive centre near you.
It’s very likely that you’ll have a local PADI Dive centre near to where you live.
Your local PADI Dive Centre will offer dive trips that you can join. You’ll be buddied up with other divers and enjoy local dive sites.
You’ll meet other like-minded people and enjoy diving with new dive buddies.
Advantages of finding a dive buddy using a PADI Dive Centre
The following are the advantages of using a PADI Dive Centre to find a scuba diving buddy near you:
The chance to find more than one dive buddy.
The opportunity to participate in dives near to where you live.
It’s likely there’ll be a PADI Dive Centre near to where you live.
The chance to meet new like-minded people.
You usually only pay for the dives you participate in.
6. Post a message on our scuba diving forum
As a part of Scuba Diving Earth, we have a scuba diving forum too. We thought it would be a great idea to open up a new forum for solo or single divers to reach out to other solo divers for a travel and dive buddy.
When you post your buddy request, make sure to include the following information:
Where you live. I don’t mean to post your home address for obvious reasons, but at least say your town or city.
Where you hope to dive. Explain where you’re hoping to go diving. Is it locally near to where you live or going on a dive trip overseas?
Your gender. Let others know whether you’re male or female and your preference for whether you prefer a same-sex buddy or if you’re happy for either. Bear in mind if you intend to go on a liveaboard trip that you may end up sharing a cabin.
Your age. It’s a good idea to match with a dive buddy of similar age so you have similar interests akin to your age group.
Your diver certification level and experience. You want to match as far as possible your experience and certification level so you’ll be able to dive similar dives together.
Diving preferences. Explain the type of diving you like to do, be it warm water diving, wreck diving, technical diving etc.
Do you have to dive with a buddy?
The question that many ask is “do you have to dive with a buddy?”Whilst technically it’s possible to dive alone. Plus there’s no law saying that you can’t dive without a buddy. Plus let’s put it this way, there are no scuba diving police to stop you from diving alone!
Whether you learn to dive with BSAC or PADI or with any other scuba organisation for that matter, they all teach the buddy system of diving.
“BSAC recommends that you dive with a buddy. Buddy diving means that divers operate as a unit, with each diver taking some responsibility for the safety of the other(s).”
BSAC – Buddy Diving Rules
Buddy diving is safe diving and you each can rely on the other should something go wrong underwater on the dive.
It might be your or your buddy’s air supply runs out, your scuba equipment may fail or one of you may encounter a problem that requires assistance to get back to the surface.
Whatever the situation, having a buddy is key to diving safely and enjoying your diving.
Buddy diving isn’t only about safety though. Diving with another person makes diving that much more enjoyable. You have two pairs of eyes to spot things and you can share in the enjoyment of finding things on the dive.
I hope you enjoyed this article about how do I get a dive buddy
I’d love to hear from you. Tell us about your adventures of diving and snorkeling, in the comments below. Please also share your photos. Either from your underwater cameras or videos from your waterproof Gopro’s!
If this article hasn’t answered all of your questions. If you have more questions either about snorkeling or scuba diving (or specifically about how do I get a dive buddy), please comment below with your questions.
There will also be many more articles about scuba diving (and snorkeling) for you to read and learn about these fabulous sports.
Have fun and be safe!
How Do I Get a Dive Buddy? (6 Easy Ways To Find a Dive Buddy)
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Article written by Russell Bowyer who has been a scuba diver since diving on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia in 1989. After his first dive he trained as a BSAC diver in the UK. He attained his Diver Leader certification with BSAC. He then went on to become a scuba diving instructor, teaching others how to dive and was voted as Diving Officer and Treasurer for the Saffron Walden BSAC club too. Russell has dived all over the world, including the UK, on liveaboards in the Red Sea, the Caribbean, South Africa and the USA. Russell is experienced in all dive types, including drift diving, deep dives that involved decompression stops and recreational dives too.
