Your First Freediving Buddy System Experience

A small confession before we start. An older version of this page told a dreamy story of a first buddy dive, with details I cannot check today. I rewrote it, because a safety topic deserves facts more than a pretty scene. So this is not my diary. It is an honest picture of what a first freediving buddy system experience looks like, and what safety organisations and the science say behind it.

The short answer: in the buddy system, one diver goes down while the other stays at the surface, watches, and meets them on the way up. You never freedive alone, not even in shallow water, because a blackout can arrive with no warning, and nobody can rescue themselves from one.

The quiet moment that surprises everyone

Imagine your first session on a line, in calm, warm water. You float face down, breathing slowly. Your buddy floats beside you, just as calm, but with a very different job. They are not resting. They are watching your fins, your hands, your face. When you go down, they stay up. When you come back, they are already there, close enough to touch you.

For many beginners this feels odd. We are adults, we are used to looking after ourselves. And suddenly there is a person whose only task, for a minute or two, is you. Not your technique, not whether you look graceful. Only whether you are still safe. Then you swap, and you find out how much focus it takes to watch another human that closely.

That is the real first lesson. A buddy is not a training wheel you take off once you get good. Experienced freedivers keep the buddy system in competition and in training, because skill does not make the risk disappear.

Why the freediving buddy system exists: the blackout near the surface

Divers Alert Network (DAN) describes shallow-water blackout as one of the most feared consequences of freediving, together with lung barotrauma, and says both can be reduced with training and good safety habits. DAN also connects serious accidents to dives that skipped the basic one-up-one-down rule and the buddy system.

The reason sits in the physics. As you dive, water pressure squeezes your lungs, and the oxygen inside is at a higher pressure, so your blood can still take it up. On the way back, the pressure drops quickly, the gas expands again, and the oxygen pressure in the lungs falls with it. A 2021 study in Frontiers in Physiology describes how, on the ascent, blood oxygen can fall very fast and raise the risk of blackout near the surface. You will often hear this called hypoxia of ascent.

Here is the uncomfortable part. A diver can feel fine at depth and lose consciousness in the last metres, or even at the surface once the dive is over. Many freediving safety sources say most breath-hold incidents happen at the surface or in very shallow water at the end of a dive, not deep down. If nobody is there, nobody can help. A buddy is the somebody.

One up, one down: what your buddy actually does

The basic rule fits in four words: one up, one down. One diver dives, the other stays at the surface. The surface buddy follows the whole dive and pays special attention to the end of the ascent, roughly the last 5 metres. The next diver only goes once the first is back, has taken a few breaths and has shown they are fine.

A trained buddy stays within arm's reach of the diver who is coming up. This matters because there is often a warning stage before a full blackout, called loss of motor control, or "samba". The diver is still conscious but shakes, or cannot control the body well. A samba can turn into a blackout. Either way, the buddy's first job is the airway: keep the face out of the water and encourage the diver to breathe.

On a good course you practise this many times with an instructor, until it feels normal. You also learn recovery breathing, the special way of breathing right after you surface. I will not write the exact steps here. The technique is taught hands-on, and you should learn it from your instructor and your training agency, not from an article.

A few small things in the water help everyone. A low-volume mask and snorkel gives the surface buddy a clear view down the line, and a rash guard keeps the sun off your back during all those minutes floating face down.

What the numbers say, and what they do not

Nobody counts breath-hold diving accidents well around the world, so I want to be careful here. DAN's 2005 annual report was the first review of breath-hold incident data. It included 145 cases from 1994 to 2004, and almost all of them, 98%, were fatal. These are the reported cases, which tend to be the worst ones, so the figure shows how serious the outcome can be, not how often accidents happen.

A fatality review published in Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine in 2018 found that diving or snorkelling alone, or with loose buddy supervision, together with hypoxia from breath-holding, appeared in several of the deaths it studied. "Loose" is the important word. Being in the water at the same time as a friend is not a buddy system. If you both dive at once, or your friend is watching a turtle when you surface, nobody is watching you.

What I could not find is a reliable worldwide rate of blackouts per dive, so I will not give you one. If someone quotes you a precise percentage, ask where it comes from.

How does it feel to be watched, and to watch?

Many people say the same thing after their first real buddy sessions: they feel calmer. I find that easy to believe, even without a study to point to. When you know someone is truly there, you stop keeping a small corner of your mind on "what if". Freediving rewards a relaxed body, so anything that quiets that background worry helps.

Being the watcher teaches you even more. You learn your buddy's face when they surface relaxed, and how it looks when something is off. You learn to count, to stay close without crowding, to be patient. Good buddies agree on a plan before every dive: target depth or time, signals, who goes first, what happens if one of you feels unwell. And then they stick to it, even when the sea is beautiful and everyone wants "just one more".

If you want the rules side in more detail, our guide to the freediving buddy system rules goes through them, and freediving safety basics covers the wider picture for beginners.

Safe divers are calmer guests for the ocean too

Safety and respect for wildlife sit closer together than they look. A relaxed, supervised diver moves slowly, does not kick wildly, and has no reason to grab the reef or chase an animal for a photo before the breath runs out. Two buddies working calmly together are a quiet presence in the water.

At Ocean Calling we work with vetted local operators, in small groups of six guests at most, on unhurried days where anyone can skip a session without explaining why. We never chase, touch or bait wildlife. The buddy system is one of the few things we never make optional: every diver in the water is paired, and nobody dives without someone at the surface who knows what to watch for. It slows the day down a little. We are happy with that.

Freediving is also travel, and travel has a real environmental cost, mostly from flights. A slow trip with fewer, longer stays and simple gear is one small way to stay honest about it. A good pair of freediving fins lasts many seasons if you rinse them and keep them out of the sun.

Before your first buddy session

Take a course with a recognised agency before you practise on your own with a friend. If you are choosing where to learn, our piece on learning freediving safely in Bali shows what a careful school looks like. Ask the school how they pair students, how many students each instructor watches, and what their emergency plan is. Tell your instructor about any health issue, and follow medical advice about fitness to dive.

Then give yourself permission to go slowly. Your first freediving buddy system experience is not a test. It is the start of a habit that keeps you, and the people you dive with, safe for as long as you love the water. If this made you curious to try it yourself, you can explore our retreats.

Questions people ask

What is the freediving buddy system?

It is the rule that you never freedive alone. One diver goes down while the other stays at the surface, watches, and meets the diver on the way up. Then they swap roles. People often call it one up, one down.

Why can't I freedive alone in shallow water?

Because blackouts often happen at the end of a dive, near or at the surface, and they can come without warning. As the pressure drops on the way up, the oxygen pressure in the lungs falls fast. Without a buddy, nobody can protect your airway.

What is a samba in freediving?

It is loss of motor control: the diver is still conscious but shakes or cannot control the body well after surfacing. It can turn into a full blackout, so the buddy stays within arm's reach and protects the airway.

Where should my buddy be during my dive?

At the surface, following your dive, and close to you as you come up, especially in the last metres of the ascent. The next diver only goes down after you have surfaced, breathed and shown that you are fine.

Is snorkelling next to a friend the same as having a buddy?

No. A 2018 fatality review linked several deaths to diving alone or with loose buddy supervision. A real buddy is trained, agrees a plan with you, and watches you the whole time you are under and right after you surface.

Does Ocean Calling pair every freediver?

Yes. On the trips we plan or match, every diver is paired and supervised by instructors from vetted local operators, freediving groups stay small, and anyone can skip a session.

Wildlife encounters are never guaranteed and never forced. Ocean Calling works only with vetted, ethical local operators, and every animal is free to approach, or not, entirely on its own terms.

Sources & further reading

1. Divers Alert Network (DAN). Safety 101. Alert Diver.
2. DAN Europe, Alert Diver. DAN begins reporting on incident collection of breath-hold diving (review of the 2005 DAN annual report data).
3. Lippmann, J. et al., 2018. Fatality review. Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine, vol. 48, no. 3.
4. Mulder, E., Sieber, A. and Schagatay, E., 2021. Frontiers in Physiology, 12:651128 (oxygen saturation during deep freediving and blackout risk on ascent).
5. California Diver. Freediving safety first (loss of motor control, blackout and the buddy's role).
6. Freediving Instructors International. Article on blackout, loss of motor control and buddy supervision.

Further reading on Ocean Calling: Freediving buddy system rules · Freediving safety basics · More from the journal · Wildlife & the law · See the retreats · Ocean Atlas