Equipment Usage and Diving Tasks Within The Buddy Team
Aside from the general responsibilities outlined above, the buddy system is designed to provide a level of redundancy within the pair of divers, as a safety backup in case of any equipment failure. Within the overall buddy pair almost all equipment can be seen to act as part of a combined "redundant system": two tanks, two depth gauges/dive-computers, two lights, two knives or line-cutters, – even two brains. During the dive the measurement instruments (gauges, dive computers, compass etc.) are available to be used to cross check one another, other life support equipment (e.g. air supply) is there as a backup in case of a failure in one of the divers systems. Sometimes a single special-purpose piece of equipment is shared by the buddy team; this might possibly be a single deployable surface marker buoy on which to ascend as well as mark the team’s position or a single underwater metal detector. The one key thing however, that a buddy team always shares together is a dive plan - and the responsibilities of executing it. A key motto drummed into all scuba divers is “plan the dive and dive the plan”. Before a dive a buddy team agree a plan, which aside from the basic parameters of the dive itself – e.g. depth, course, time, who leads and who follows, - also includes the objectives of the dive: is it general sightseeing, is it the way the divers intend to view a wreck, is it photography, is it hunting a type of game. In technical diving these objectives often become much more complex and very specific – penetration of a particular part of a cave to a particular point. Many diving objectives require allocation of specific roles and responsibilities. For example in lobster hunting on the west coast of America, buddy teams often split into the assigned roles of hunter and game-catcher, and stower and catchbag-carrier, and the overall dive success is highly dependent on the teamwork of the buddies carrying out their assigned roles.
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—Alvah Bessie, Ranald MacDougall, and Lester Cole. Raoul Walsh. Sergeant Tracey, Objective Burma, to a buddy (1945)
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