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I have drift dived a number of times in Florida off of commercial dive boats. The DM always had a dive flag on a line. All of the divers were required to have a safety sausage. When ever a diver had finished their dive, they were instructed to listen and look prior to surfacing after their safety stop. If they did have a line for their safety sausage, they would deploy it prior to surfacing. If they did not have a safety line, we were asked to deploy the safety sausage at the surface. The dive boat would then retrieve the surfaced diver when appropriate. Typically, we were traveling a very good distance in the water during the dive and would be more than 300 ft from either the DM or the boat.
Question: Is a safety sausage the appropriate signaling device when drift diving? With or without a dive flag?
It appears that a safety sausage falls outside of the required size and shape of a "diver down" flag.
"(2) All divers must prominently display a divers-down flag in the area in which the diving occurs, other than when diving in an area customarily used for swimming only."
The commercial dive boats I've used in SE Florida issue an individual dive flag/bouy to each buddy set. That's also how they can keep track of the divers from their boat.
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I have been looking at a lot of these threads, including in the equipment area. It still appears to me that almost everyone is using safety sausages or lift bags....I would love to see a poll question on the number of divers who actually use a diver-down flag and float or a safety sausage - dive bag.
I have seen a few quality dive flag floats containing an inner-tube. Any recommendations on easy of deflating and packing into dive bag?
Every dive boat I've been off in Florida uses dive flags for all their drift dives. Generally they pair you up with a couple other divers and set you off with a flag. It's how they keep track of you and like mentioned earlier in Florida it's the law.
Unfortunately in Florida a lot of the boaters don't seem to pay attention to the dive flags. I've had some close calls because either the boater didn't see the flag or just did't care about my flag.
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. ~Thomas Jefferson
I use a sausage at all times clipped to my BC. boat diving or shore diving it is a 2 .5 meter in length I deploy it while I am on my safety stop it has worked for me so far
Trident and innovative offer inflatable flags I use regularly. They are large enough to be seen by boaters and don't fall over with slack like the dive pole design or sausage.
Besides they are easy to inflate/deflate when traveling.
In open water where there is boat traffic, drift dive or not you need a Dive flag. It is required by Law in the sate of Florida.
I have both but my Safety sausage is not great to the fact that it is not close ended on both ends. One side is left open and used to fill it with a reg and held closed by 2 metal plates. Like this Not a good one to hold and wave in the air to signal a boat. I would buy a sealable one if you dont have one already.
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