BadaBing
Registered
Had a scary situation yesterday which has helped inspire me to buy a PLB, before my next trip. I have a 30' Mako and a regular crew of recreational spearfishermen that go out of Cape Fear inlet in NC. We are generally 40-50 miles offshore, in 70-100 feet of water. After a dive yesterday I popped up behind the boat. As always, we were "live boating" ie. using a floating marker flag versus anchoring up. Opinions vary, but like the ability to go get a diver who comes up away from the boat instead of waiting for every diver to come aboard. I was about 30 feet behind the boat, and used my Dive Alert whistle to get their attention. They saw me, but then another diver popped up closer to the boat so they got him first. I figured no problem, they saw me, so I waited my turn and up went the sausage. Immediately after he got aboard the hydraulic steering went out. Long story short, we were fortunate to have a buddy boat less than a mile away. They came and got me. Made me think what happens when you don't have a buddy boat. As it happened, another boat off NC lost a diver yesterday. He activated a PLB and was picked up two miles from his boat.
I did some checking and DAN sells a Nautilus Lifeline which looks pretty good. If I read the specs right, the unit is submersible to 425 feet (without requiring a special enclosure), and it works on the surface as both a beacon and a vhf radio. Anyone here have experience with these?
https://www.diversalertnetwork.org/store/home.aspx?id=196
I did some checking and DAN sells a Nautilus Lifeline which looks pretty good. If I read the specs right, the unit is submersible to 425 feet (without requiring a special enclosure), and it works on the surface as both a beacon and a vhf radio. Anyone here have experience with these?
https://www.diversalertnetwork.org/store/home.aspx?id=196