How To Find A Dive Buddy.

This video goes out to James Kesterson and anybody else who's ever asked the question, how do I find a dive buddy? Ladies and gentlemen, what's going on and welcome to Divers Ready. My name's James. We're back once again with another mouthpiece Monday. If you're new to our channel, welcome. Make your next dive on our subscribe button and click the little bell icon because I use my expertise as a professional dive instructor to make videos with one simple goal in mind and that's to help make you a better scuba diver. Like today where I'm giving you my top five ways that you can find a dive buddy and it's really a wonder that I haven't made this video already on this channel. In my heart of hearts, I believe that one of the biggest reasons that people drop out of this sport is I've got no one to go diving with. People get certified and then they just never dive again because they just don't have that buddy, that person who's egging them on. Maybe they're not a plan maker but they need to find somebody who is in order to stay active. My biggest passion in life is to promote the participation in the sport that I love and I do it one of two ways. Number one, teach new divers. Find people who aren't scuba diving and teach them how to dive safely. And number two is to help keep people who are already certified divers in the sport and keep them engaged and keep them active. So let's dive into it. No, I'm going to get to that in a bit. Listen, I said you could be here but only if you didn't interrupt me. I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, my idiot brother is visiting from England. I don't need you to hold the microphone. I've got a boom arm. I can just clip the... Look, do I have to tell mum? I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry. This is your show. No, no, carry on. Carry on. I'm sorry. I don't get upset. I'll do it now. Like most divers, ladies and gentlemen, I have a bit of a weakness for dive watches so I was super happy to hook up with Aquinas and they're sponsoring today's video. Let me tell you a little bit about this watch that I've been rocking in the last few videos I've got. It's called the MCP 2019. MCP standing for the Marine Conservation of the Philippines which is a non-profit organization. They're kind of like the custodians of the marine environment in the scuba diving paradise that is the islands of the Philippines. This is actually a limited edition watch but 20% of the proceeds of all sales of this watch go directly to that trust. I love it. It's got the MCP logo on the face. It's got the luminous dials. It's got the unidirectional bezel. It's got the lockdown crown, Swiss movement, all the features you're looking for in a classic dive watch and it's limited edition. They're only making 100 pieces of these and before all you alphas get excited out there, too late. I've already got serial number 007. And the great news is if you'd like your chance to win yourself an MCP 2019, there's a giveaway and it's opening today and it runs until September 18th. The details for entering that competition are in the description of this video below. So I just want to say thank you again to Aquinas for supporting our channel, for sponsoring this video. Really appreciate it guys. Really happy to connect with you and keep up the great work. There, did that do it? On with the show. Tip number one is join a dive club. I'm in the fortunate position of being able to give talks to dive clubs around the USA and the spirit in those meetings is always a jolly one. Just a cool group of people hanging out and talking about scuba diving. And the good news is that there's a dive club in every city in the world, even the landlocked ones, where like-minded scuba enthusiasts just get together on normally a monthly basis and make dive plans and barter gear swaps and just generally talk scuba diving. So there is no better place for you to find a buddy. Plus you can chat to the officers of those clubs, talk about your experience, what kind of diving you like to do, and they'll pair you up with somebody who's appropriate. Without a doubt, a very easy way to find a dive buddy. And I'll put a link in the description below to a directory that I found online of dive clubs around the world. Now, it seems like kind of an old website. I can't guarantee that all the links are still active, but it should be a good starting point. Tip number two is social media groups, Facebook and the like. Oh boy, I've lost count of how many dive groups I'm in on Facebook. I mean, it must be over a hundred by now for sure. Not only that, but I use Facebook actively to find dive buddies. Yeah, that's right. I know tons of divers, but they're not all available when I want to go diving. So often I'll turn to Facebook or a WhatsApp group that I'm in that's hosted by a local scuba diver here by the name of Alejandro. You'll see more from him coming up on the channel. But basically we get together and we're like, okay, who wants to go and dive here on Tuesday morning? Or who wants to go here and dive Sunday afternoon? And that's a good way to put people on the boat, fill spaces, make sure that the boat runs and connect with new people. Use the social media site as a search engine and then filter by pages and groups and you'll find clubs that are geographically close to you. Then all you've got to do is click on the page, add yourself and voila, dive buddies. Tip number three is single diver group travel trips. Best of these probably is singledivers.com, link in the description below, which is not the corny dating site. Its name suggests it probably should be, but instead it's a community of 10,000 divers that go on 18 different international dive trips a year. And they specialize in accommodating single divers and pairing people up that have similar experience and similar interests. The idea of that being you avoid those solo occupancy hotel fees and you don't have to roll the dice with an InstaBuddy because you're going with them. So check these guys out. That way you get to go on a cool adventure. You get to meet other buddy-less divers. I don't want to say single divers. It's also not solo diving because you've got a buddy, but they're, yeah, buddy-less divers. Okay, we'll roll with that. And whilst I've never done this myself, I know friends who have gone on these kinds of trips and have made friends that have lasted a lifetime. Tip number four is have your non-diving buddy learn how to dive. Instead of scouring the earth to find yourself a dive buddy, why not make one? And I'm sure that you love your partner, even if they choose to be a land walker and don't want to learn to dive, but wouldn't it be cooler if they did? And don't get me wrong. I'm not for those pushy partners who want to bully their non-diving halves into learning how to dive because that's their passion. And I've seen that situation many times and it never really ends well. But out of your whole group of friends, I'm willing to bet that at least one of them somewhere has entertained the idea of getting certified to scuba dive. So why not find out who that friend is and for their next birthday, sign them up for e-learning. Tip number five is head down to your local dive shop. New in town, head down to your local dive shop. Take a box of donuts, box of coffee, hang out and wait. As if by magic, the conversation will turn to dive planning and dive plans will be discussed and made for the weekend and dive buddies will organically form and pair up around you and you're in the right place at the right time. Leave your contact details with the shop staff. Talk to them about what your experience level is and what kind of dives you're interested in. They know they're regulars in the same way that a good pub does, so they can pair you up with people that they already know that are regular customers. In the end, it's just good business sense for them because they're in the business of keeping people in diving. And as a bonus point here, if you got trained where you live, pick up the phone, call your former instructor and ask them to pay you up because we're like walking databases. We've got all these ex-students that were trained exactly the same way that you were trained. So we know that if we put you together, you're going to get on. Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget to subscribe to our channel if you haven't done so already. Go away. Thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video, if you learned something from it, give it the old thumbs up. Let us know in the comments below, how did you find your favorite dive buddies? Until next time, my name is James. This was your Divers Ready video for this week. Dive safe, dive often.