Quick poll—When do you inflate your SMB?

[Catito]

Curious, do you inflate your surface marker buoy before you start your safety stop or during your safety stop?

Experienced divers, before or during?

Thanks

 

[Vitesse2l]

Before I start to ascend. The time taken is allowed for in the dive plan.

This gives the rib crew good notice of where and when.

 

[emoreira]

You should inflate your SMB at a depth of 10 - 12 meters so it will be well inflated at the surface, you will experience a better buoyancy control at that depth and you can ascend recovering the SMB line up to the safety stop and do it hanged from the SMB.

 

[Akimbo]

Depends on conditions and plans with the boat crew. Usually at the safety stop. On the bottom on decompression dives unless there is a downline.

 

[Brett Hatch]

I've never dived where SMBs are actually required like they are in Florida, and don't regularly drift dive. Actually, all my SMB deployments have been practice for situations like that. I've done them all in or close to safety stop range, no deeper than 30 feet.

If I were actually on a drift dive or a place with a lot of random boat traffic, I could see the wisdom in deploying it a bit deeper, say, 50 feet, to give a little more warning. But on an NDL dive, I don't see much value in deploying deep, since it will just eat into your NDL time. Deco dives are another story that I cannot speak to at all.

 

[Glenndini]

Can't say I have ever deployed one at any depth except in training for courses. I've used one a couple of times after surfacing at a distance from the boat. I guess it depends where you dive.

 

[davehicks]

Ideally at 30 ft. Shallower than that makes bouyancy changes at little difficult to manage.

 

[Panther1880]

It depends on the situation. Diving in lakes and deeper than say 20m I tend to shoot it at the first stop at half the depth. If there's no need for it then don't waste your gas getting your SMB deployed at max depth. In shallower dives I deploy it before we ascent. With practice you can deploy a small SMB (1-1.5) from 3-4m depth to stand fully inflated at the surface. We use 1 SMB per team. In strong currents in the Maldives we were asked to deploy from max depth once we started the ascent and each diver deployed their own SMB. This made it easier for them to track and pick up everybody from the dive boat since we didn't dive as a single group.

 

[RogueClimber]

When do you inflate your SMB?

On those long lonely nights spent at sea...



I do it before the safety stop. After I send the SMB to the surface I can dump any air remaining in my BC, and use the SMB to to bring me to 15'

 

[Graeme Fraser]

All depends:

UK Channel dives: deploy DSMB from depth when leaving the wreck / site so that Skipper can track during ascent (especially during deco).

Red Sea liveaboard: usually at 5m safety stop, unless leaving site of the wreck / reef when I'd send it up earlier.

Drift dives: Often inflate prior to drop.

The main caveat to these is to follow the instructions from the Skipper / Crew so they are not confused by your actions.