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Be the best buddy ever…

CHECK OUT RAID‘s INDEPENDENT DIVER PROGRAM

RAID INDEPENDENT DIVER
Photograph: Lee Smallwood Cassar

Since RAID first opened its doors, the agency and its instructor core have promoted diving at every level as a team endeavour. Scuba diving is something done with a buddy.

However, the buddy system is based on a each of the team being equals and equal to the task. And all that centers on two or three divers with more of less equal experience, training, and ability. A group of peers each being capable and willing to lend a hand when needed without putting their buddy or themselves at risk

And yet we all know that there are plenty of occasions when we may be obliged to dive with a fellow diver who is not a peer. He or she may have less experience, may be counting on us to guide them. When we dive with a youngster, can we really expect them to offer a high-level of support, and get us and themselves safely back to the surface?

As an instructor, can we count on our students to help us in a real emergency? Should we?

How about diving with a camera? Are we a good buddy when we are concentrating on framing the perfect shot of a nudibranch crawling around on the lip of a barrel sponge? And can we honestly rely on our buddy when they are hovering over the forepeak of the wreck we are photographing, which puts them 10 metres or more away from our side?

There are many instances like this when an experienced diver is essentially diving without the guaranteed support of a buddy, and those divers are who we had in mind when we developed our Independent Diver Program.

The major skills taught in this course focus on the mindset and familiarity with special equipment that allows an experienced diver (one with 100 logged dives or more) to dive safely and comfortably without having to rely on a buddy for support in the case of an underwater ‘surprise.’ This course is about planning dives where the core competency is the ability to self rescue.

And of course, one outcome of that is that a RAID Self-Reliant Diver makes the absolute perfect dive buddy!

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS COURSE, CONTACT YOUR LOCAL RAID DIVE CENTRE>>>
ARE YOU A RAID PRO WHO WANTS TO TEACH THIS NEW SPECIALTY? CHECK THIS OUT>>>