4 Steps to Being the Diver Everyone Wants as a Buddy

Benjamin Hadfield   Dec 03, 2025

4 Steps to Being the Diver Everyone Wants as a Buddy

For The Current – Stuart Scuba

You don’t have to be able to descend a line to a 300-foot wreck to be a serious diver.

At Stuart Scuba, being a better diver isn’t about stunts, bragging rights, or who can post the coolest picture. It’s about awareness, preparation, and how you show up for the people around you.

Technical Instructor Trainer Benjamin Hadfield likes to say:

“The best way to deal with an accident is to not have it in the first place.
The second-best way is to be prepared for it.”

Together with Nikki Hadfield, he’s helped build a training culture that’s technical, compassionate, and quietly shaped by his Marine Corps roots: no one gets left behind, and everyone is capable of more than they think—with the right support.

In this edition of The Current, we’re breaking down 4 steps to being a better diver—the kind of diver everyone feels safer (and happier) diving with.

Step 1: Master Yourself Before You Master the Ocean

Every diver starts in the same place: slightly awkward, a bit floaty, and working hard not to look like it.

Being a better diver starts when you move beyond “I hope this works” and into “I understand what my body and brain are doing in the water.”

That means:

• Comfort in the water – not just tolerance
   

• Calm, steady breathing – instead of burning through your gas like you’re sprinting
   

• Solid basic skills – buoyancy, trim, mask clearing, sharing air, controlled ascents and descents
   

• Honest self-checks – “Am I tired? Anxious? Distracted? Is today the day to push it, or the day to dial it back?”
   

Nikki loves watching the moment it all “clicks” for a diver. She describes it like this:

“There’s always one dive where you see the fin-kicking slow down, the eyes relax, and suddenly they’re not surviving the dive—they’re enjoying it.”

Mastering yourself is the foundation. Before the deep wrecks and fancy gear, it’s about being honest with your limits and building real comfort and control. Remember, diving isn’t about being a dare devil. It is about staying withing the limits of your training, comfort and ability.

Step 2: Make Prevention Your Superpower

Once you’re comfortable with yourself in the water, it’s time to see the bigger picture: prevention.

Benjamin’s philosophy is simple:

“You won’t always know when you prevented an accident. That’s the point.
The best rescues are the ones that never have to happen.”

Prevention shows up in small, everyday choices:

• Doing real pre-dive checks, not just patting your gear and saying, “Yeah, yeah, I’m good.”
   

• Catching a loose tank strap before the giant stride.
   

• Asking your buddy, “How are you really feeling about this dive?”—and listening to the answer.
   

It also means learning to recognize stress:

• In others: the too-quiet diver, the rushed setup, the nervous joking that doesn’t quite land.
   

• In yourself: the knot in your stomach, the racing thoughts, the voice saying, “Something feels off.”
   

Nikki reminds divers:

“You’re not being difficult by speaking up; you’re being a good buddy.
The ocean will be there tomorrow. Rushing a dive is never worth it.”

Prevention doesn’t look dramatic. It looks like calm conversations, double-checks, and the occasional decision to sit one out. But it’s one of the most powerful skills a diver can have.

Step 3: Train for the “What Ifs” – Rescue, CPR, First Aid & O₂

You can’t prevent everything. That’s where Rescue training and emergency skills come in.

Our Rescue course at Stuart Scuba does not teach you how to fast-rope out of a helicopter at 90 mph. What it does teach you is far more useful for real diving:

• How to recognize and respond to stress in yourself and others
   

• How to assist tired and panicked divers at the surface without becoming their next problem
   

• How to bring an unresponsive diver to the surface and get them out of the water efficiently
   

• How to manage the scene, communicate clearly, and turn chaos into something organized
   

You practice real scenarios: from panicked divers to missing divers to unresponsive divers at the surface. It’s serious material—but we deliver it with a lot of support, coaching, and yes, some good-natured laughter along the way.

Rescue isn’t just about what happens in the water, though. That’s why current CPR, First Aid, and Oxygen Provider training are required for this course. If you’re going to be the person others rely on when something goes wrong, you need both:

• Underwater skills, and
   

• Surface emergency skills
   

Benjamin’s Marine Corps background shows up strongly here:

“In a real situation, you don’t rise to the occasion—you fall to the level of your training.
So we train like it matters, because it does.”

The result? You become calmer, more capable, and a lot more confident that if the “what if” ever happens, you won’t freeze—you’ll act.

Step 4: Keep Learning, Keep Laughing, Keep Lifting Others Up

Here’s where everything comes together: skills, mindset, and attitude.

The divers who truly flourish over time share a few habits:

• They keep learning – new environments, new courses, and a willingness to hear, “Here’s how you can do that even better.”
   

• They dive with intention – planning one or two skills to sharpen each dive instead of just drifting along.
   

• They choose community wisely – surrounding themselves with people who value safety, humility, and growth.
   

And most importantly?

They are always the positive ones.

Being the Positive One: A Hand Up, Not a Barrier

Benjamin often shares an observation from his time in the Marine Corps.

He watched all kinds of groups go through tough water work and physical training. At first glance, you’d expect the strongest swimmers or the most athletic “football types” to rise to the top.

But that’s not what he saw.

“It was never just the fastest or the strongest who really thrived,” Benjamin says.
“The ones who made it through, the ones who flourished, were the people who kept helping the person next to them.
The ones saying, ‘Come on, we’ve got this,’ instead of, ‘You’re slowing me down.’”

That lesson is baked into how he and Nikki teach today.

On the boat, at the shore, or in the pool, they encourage divers to:

• Be the one who says, “You’re doing great—let’s walk through it again,” not “You still don’t get it?”
   

• Offer a hand with gear, instead of rolling their eyes at someone wrestling with a strap.
   

• Share knowledge without showing off.
   

• Assume good intent—most “mistakes” come from nerves, not laziness.
   

Nikki sums it up beautifully:

“We don’t get better by putting people down.
We get better by building each other up—one dive, one conversation, one small win at a time.”

At Stuart Scuba, we believe divers should be a hand up, not a barrier.

That means:

• No shaming for asking “basic” questions.
   

• No ego contests over depth, gear, or who’s the “toughest.”
   

• A culture where helping each other is normal.
   

Because whether you’re in Marine Corps training or on a sunny dive boat, the same truth holds:

The people who truly succeed are the ones who choose to help their neighbor—and bring others with them as they grow.

Your Next Step

You don’t need to be fearless.
You don’t need to be perfect.

You just need to be willing to:

1. Master yourself in the water.
    

2. Make prevention your superpower.
    

3. Train for the “what ifs” with Rescue, CPR, First Aid, and O₂ skills.
    

4. Keep learning—and choose to be the positive one who lifts others up.
    

That’s the kind of diver we’re working to grow at Stuart Scuba:
Skilled. Prepared. Calm. And always a hand up, not a barrier.

When you’re ready to become the diver everyone wants as a buddy, Benjamin, Nikki, and the whole Stuart Scuba team are here to help you take that next step.