Canadian diver and buddy rescued near Apo Island, Philippines

[Dogbowl]

In belieze you will see a constant stream of day boats showing up since there is always someone wanting to do the blue hole. The day boats then putter down to half moon caye for a couple of afternoon dives. There is also a small lodge on long caye so you will see their boat every day if they have any guests. On your way back to belize city you will see the tourneffe resort boats.

Thanks, good to know!

 

[Kevrumbo]

Thanks for the tips & cautions.

Blue Manta has a ratio of 4 divers to 1 DM/guide. I will follow the DM like a puppy dog on a leash

Max Hand, Operations Manager of White Manta Diving, was nice enough to provide me a link to retrieve MMSI of KM. Blue Manta & track boat traffic in the area, https://www.marinetraffic.com

In fact there is iPhone app for it. Below image shows current boat traffic in the area where I would be going with KM. Blue Manta (Maumere- Banda Sea - Ambon). As you can see, there are quite a few traceable boats out there, not as if we are going to be in the middle of no where.

View attachment 445494

That's a good app and it's nice to know there are commercial vessels that can also be tasked and vectored by SAR authorities to a PLB activation fix, although it could be hundreds of nautical miles out of their way.

For a practical perspective of the Nautilus VHF MGR to ship range, increase the app's map scale from 1:100 nm to 1:50 nm, and then 1:10 nm around a particular remote divesite. You will then realize that it's just you and the Diveboat within line of sight to the horizon at 2.5 nautical miles:

To the left of the sailing vessel: The just visible "object" along the line where the sky meets the sea -the Horizon Line- is at 2.5 to 2.7 nautical miles away (approx 5km or 3 statute miles).

 

[Dan]

That's a good app and it's nice to know there are commercial vessels that can also be tasked and vectored to a PLB activation fix, although it could be hundreds of nautical miles out of their way.

For a practical perspective of the Nautilus VHF MGR to ship range, increase the app's map scale from 1:100 nm to 1:50 nm, and then 1:10 nm around a particular remote divesite. You will then realize that it's just you and the Diveboat within line of sight to the horizon at 2.5 nautical miles:
View attachment 445525
To the left of the sailing vessel's bow: The just visible "object" along the line where the sky meets the sea -the Horizon Line- is at 2.5 to 2.7 nautical miles away (approx 5km or 3 statute miles).

If I still can see the boat in that distance (5km), I’ll definitely launch the MRG only & hold off from launching the big gun (PLB) until no boat seen in horizon or night time including turning on the strobe.

I just bought this strobe to strap it around the top of my 6’ DSMB at night. What do you all think?

 

[Dan]

Thanks for tips!

Palau Aggressor II rent MRG for free

I’ll be in Maldives Aggressor II in December. I’m going to ask them about it.

I’ll be with Argo in Cocos in September, I’m going to ask them the same.

Blue Manta doesn’t rent MRG, but I got her MMSI number to load it into my MRG.

Some updates.

Undersea Hunter (for Cocos with Argo) will provide safety kit for each guest, which includes Nautilus Lifeline GPS (my guess is it is NLL, the older version). Therefore, I don’t need to bring my MRG.

Nautilus Explorer (for Socorro with Nautilus Under Sea that I forgot to mention earlier) will loan Lifeline (my guess is it is NLL, the older version) for free. Therefore, I don’t need to bring my MRG.

Aggressor Fleet for Maldives Aggressor II, will loan MRG for free, like the Palau Aggressor II. Thefore, I don’t need to bring my MRG.

There seems to be a trend of loaning MRG/NLL, 3 out of 9 liveaboards (LOB). Those 3 LOB are outside Indonesia. The remaining 6 LOB are in Indonesia & none of them loan MRG/NLL. Three out of my next 4 LOB trips will provide MRG/NLL. To me that means that those LOB put guest safety as top priority.

Regardless of whether they would provide the MRG/NLL or not to each guests, all of those LOB have the technology to search and rescue me. Although Blue Manta doesn’t provide MRG/NLL, she provides Wi-Fi access to the guests. My PLB1 would be utilized effectively when the MRG/NLL fails to reach the LOB. They would be able to receive a message from the MCC (NOAA for my case) or a phone call from my emergency contact, and then hone in on the GPS location of the latest PLB1 distress signal transmission. So, having both PLB1 & MRG/NLL is the best option to have if I am lost at sea, need to be searched and rescued, instead of to be found and recovered.

 

[Dogbowl]

Some updates.

Undersea Hunter (for Cocos with Argo) will provide safety kit for each guest, which includes Nautilus Lifeline GPS (my guess is it is NLL, the older version). Therefore, I don’t need to bring my MRG.

Nautilus Explorer (for Socorro with Nautilus Under Sea that I forgot to mention earlier) will loan Lifeline (my guess is it is NLL, the older version) for free. Therefore, I don’t need to bring my MRG.

Still waiting for a response from Aggressor Fleet for Maldives Aggressor II. Hopefully, they have similar setup as the Palau Aggressor II, i.e., loaning MRG for free.

There seems to be a trend of loaning NLL / MRG, 3 out of 9 liveaboards (LOB). Those 3 LOB are outside Indonesia. The remaining 6 LOB are in Indonesia & none of them loan MRG / NLL. Two out of my next 4 LOB trips will provide NLL. To me that means that those LOB put guest safety as top priority.

Regardless of whether they would provide the MRG/NLL or not to each guests, all of those LOB have the technology to search and rescue me. Although Blue Manta doesn’t provide MRG/NLL, she provides Wi-Fi access to the guests. My PLB1 would be utilized effectively when the MRG/NLL fails to reach the LOB. They would be able to receive a message from the MCC (NOAA for my case) or a phone call from my emergency contact, and then hone in on the GPS location of the latest PLB1 distress signal transmission. So, having both PLB1 & MRG/NLL is the best option to have if I am lost at sea, need to be searched and rescued, instead of to be found and recovered.

@Dan_T, it also doesn’t hurt that the owner of the Nautilus liveaboards is the guy that invented and is producing/selling the Nautilus MRG and predecessor. He invented the product in response to his desire to keep his passengers safe, since where he sails (Socorro, etc.) are hours away from civilization and are known for currents and advanced diving. So it kind of makes sense that his liveaboards and others in the area that bring their guests to big animal destinations would provide the device.

Also, its website says the Nautilus Explorer is SOLAS certified (like cruise ships). That seems impressive (but I don’t know anything about shipping so I might be wrong).

 

[Kevrumbo]

@Dan_T , @Dogbowl , other than the original post of this thread of the Canadian Diver drifting away on the surface downcurrent of the Diveboat unseen. . .

This is another example of a common scenario that will test the experience of your skiff driver to find and pick you up before deteriorating into a worst case lost-at-sea situation; Surfacing post-drift dive into a momentary tropical rain squall in near zero visibility:
(Puerto Galera Bangka Driver luckily found us 30 minutes later; In conditions identical to the above was the only other time I came close deploying the life raft and activating the PLB)

Given VHF rain fade and signal range degradation, it may be some time after the squall passes before a AIS/DSC VHF receiver picks up your Nautilus beacon again and homes in on you. In the meantime, all you can do is deploy a dive alert whistle, strobe & SMB.

 

[Dan]

@Dan_T , @Dogbowl , other than the original post of this thread of the Canadian Diver drifting away on the surface downcurrent unseen. . .

This is another example of a common scenario will test your the experience of your skiff driver to find and pick you up before deteriorating into a worst case lost-at-sea situation; Surfacing post-drift dive into a momentary tropical rain squall in near zero visibility:
(Puerto Galera Bangka Driver luckily found us 30 minutes later; this was the only other time I came close deploying the life raft and activating the PLB)

Given VHF rain fade and signal range degradation, it may be some time after the squall passes before a AIS/DSC VHF receiver picks up your Nautilus beacon again and homes in on you. In the meantime, all you can do is deploy a dive alert whistle, strobe & SMB.

Good point. Even 5watts of 406MHz signal may not be clearly received by the SAR satellites until such weather clear away. All safety gears are pretty much useless at that condition.

What’s your better option, other than floating, wait until the weather gets better & hoping you won’t get run over by that boat?

 

[Kevrumbo]

Good point. Even 5watts of 406MHz signal may not be clearly received by the SAR satellites until such weather clear away. All safety gears are pretty much useless at that condition.

What’s your better option, other than floating, wait until the weather gets better & hoping you won’t get run over by that boat?

A powerful handheld or battery canister LED Primary Light, at least 10 watts power and 2hr burn time. I'm a tech wreck diver, so it's always part of my gear even on recreational open water dives.

 

[Dan]

A powerful handheld or battery canister LED Primary Light, at least 10 watts power and 2hr burn time. I'm a tech wreck diver, so it's always part of my gear even on recreational open water dives.

I forgot about my 2x5,000 lumens weefine Solar Flate video camera lights that are on my camera rig. I surely can blind them with that 10,000 lumen beams

 

[dmaziuk]

I forgot about my 2x5,000 lumens weefine Solar Flate video camera lights that are on my camera rig. I surely can blind them with that 10,000 lumen beams

In a mist/fog that'll just as likely blind only yourself and not penetrate all that far.