Find your way back to your boat

How's everyone's Summer diving going? Hope all is going well without any incidents! Desert Star is offering a great apparatus that helps finding your way back to the boat, your instructor, or even a special "treasure" you found in the deep blue quite easily; a nice tool to have especially for photographers and spear fishing. Try this battery operated transmitter/receiver system and you'll be able to get back to your destination without worry!

The Sport: more durable and used for longer distances (accurate to a distance of 4000 feet).
The Scout: a nice little device for short distance diving (accurate to a distance of 1000 feet).

 

Link?

Steve

 

http://www.desertstar.com/scuba-diving.html

 

$430 for the Scout is a bit spendy for my taste. Your and my definition of inexpensive are pretty far apart.

 

Equipment solution to a skill problem.

 

I do not own one of this devices still, though it's in my wish list and perhaps I will buy one of this in my next visit to the USA.
Your statement can fit also to a compass, though no one discuss the need and cost of a compass, compared to "natural navigation". An equipment solution to a skill problem.
However, not considering those DMs that have hundreds of dives in the same site and know each stone and critter cave, and are completely aware of where they are in each moment, keeping track of your heading, current and depth to safely and accurately return to the boat at the end of the dive requires a lot of attention. This type of devices comes to help the non frequent-to-the-site diver to have a means to return to the boat without spending part of his attention to the navigation.
That's why I celebrate this type of gear, not because I lack the navigation skill, but because I want to spend my time underwater watching and enjoying the bottom instead of keeping track of where the boat is.
Equipment solution to a skill problem. This phrase applies to a lot of devices. Many of them are not discussed at all nowadays. Starting with suits, BCDs, PDCs. Time dictates that what was discussed in the beginning, becomes a standard at the end.

 

Totally agree. However, it's very hard to believe that they couldn't come in at a much more reasonable price point. Take computers (real one's not dive computers) or GPS units, or sonar (fish finder) units - all at least as complex, most much more complex and way, way more price friendly. I'm sure these things could be produced and sold with a profit for $75-$100. At that price nearly every diver would want one and could afford one. They'd make their money on volume rather than gouging. Instead they very well might be coppied by the Chinese and get severly undercut - American greed gets trumped this way a lot, and it costs American jobs.

 

Yeah, I agree the caribbean and the red sea is fine for natural navigation. GL doing it in certain areas around here though.. Black silt with pretty much constant depth, no features and a clouded sky makes for real fun trying to navigate without a compass

 

No doubt. Diving in the Caribbean, at 22 mts depth and being able to see the boat silhouette in the surface, no compass, no Natural Navigation, no nothing is required.

---------- Post added July 2nd, 2014 at 10:53 AM ----------

I do not remember the Suggested Retail Price of the first commercially available GPS, back when it appeared in the market, but surely not like today for $ 75

 

after a quick read, it doesn't appear that this device provides direction information, just distance (range).

So, it seems to me that you would know that you are 200' from the anchor line, but unless you get lucky and start swimming straight for it, you have to swim a bit and notice that your distance is getting greater, and then change direction. Perhaps I missed something though.