During a dive, how should you maintain contact with your dive buddy?

Maintaining contact with your dive buddy is crucial for ensuring safety and effective communication underwater. The best approach is through eye or touch contact, as it allows divers to maintain a clear connection and awareness of each other's actions and well-being. When divers make eye contact, it fosters mutual understanding and alignment on dive plans, which is essential in conditions where visibility may change. Touch contact, such as holding onto each other or using buddy lines, provides a physical reminder of proximity and ensures that divers can check in with one another easily, especially in challenging situations.

While options like using hand signals or staying within visual distance can also contribute to maintaining contact, they are not as reliable as direct eye or touch contact. Communication devices are useful for surface communication but are typically impractical underwater due to water resistance and potential malfunction, thus not serving as a primary method of buddy contact during a dive. Therefore, eye or touch contact is the most effective way to ensure safety and camaraderie underwater.