Use SPOT or Not?

[newfldiver]

My wife and I are diving with the Nekton Pilot in PR at Mona Island. Alot of the dives will be drift dives or dives were the boat will drop you off and move away for safety reasons. My wife and I each have over 200 dives, and are comfortable diving almost any location. I would like to add the extra comfort of using a personal locator if something were to go wrong. The SPOT sounds like a great device, but it's not dept rated. I would like to put it in a pelican case to keep it water tight at dept. I have contacted SPOT customer support, but really have not received a good answer. They were under the assumption that I was trying to use it at dept. After explaining that it would be used on the surface after a dive, they were guessing it would work ok like a camera or computer. Has anyone tried this yet or heard of anyone trying this?

 

[Hawkwood]

These are great devices. We use one when my son is offroading with his motorcyle or climbing.

There is no reason why it should not work. Your location is within the "99%" coverage area. The units are waterproof and will float - will vouch for that, so there is no reason why it would not work on the surface. Obviously you have to keep the unit dry when at depth, as you planned. I think they say it is "waterproof" to a metre, but only for a limited time.

Give it a test your local pool - send an "okay" message to your cell or email.

 

[robint]

when the Nekton does drift dives it is different than what you are thinking. The boat is divided into 2 groups with 2 DMs. Everyone in Group 1 jumps into the water together, DM leading with flag, DM following the group. The group does the dive together and does safety stop together. When everyone surfaces, the Nekton capt maneuvers the boat close to them and signals for 4 divers to swim to stairs. After those 4 people onboard, the next 4 divers swim to stairs until everyone is back onboard. Then Group 2 does the same thing while Group 1 does surface interval. It works very well, we did this on both of our Nekton trips. The Capt does a full briefing on how to do this so don't worry.

Pictures:
after the dive, we formed a conga line, holding onto each others tanks in order to stay together while boat maneuvered in

Capt, top left using the controls to back-up the boat. DMs at the stairs waiting to help each diver back onto the live boat

Here is my video showing underwater a drift dive with DM holding flag. Just the first dive (first 2 minutes of video) is drift dive, the other dives shown were moored dives but you can get an idea from this about the group being together the whole dive.
[vimeo]997829[/vimeo]

I hope this answers your question --- you do NOT need any special gear in order to do the drift dives from the Nekton boats.

robin

 

[OBXDIVEGUY]

I purchased a SPOT for the exact same purpose. I have been having a problem finding something suitable to store it in while at depth. I wouldn't recommend a Pelican, they are only rated to 50' or something like that. Storm cases are a little better depth-wise.

I'm working with a company now, who is developing a prototype dive case specific for the SPOT.

Other than the depth rating, I love my SPOT. I use it hiking, boating, kayaking and all kinds of other activities and have found the tracking to be very reliable.

 

[newfldiver]

This will be my third trip with the Nekton and the drift dives do not worry me, it's the live dives I'm a little more concerned with. I have never been dissatisfied with the Nekton, but we are human and mistakes do happen. I do not want to get complacent with my diving and have seen it in the past with the other high risk activities that I have participated in. Just playing it safe.

 

[DiveMaven]

If you don't have a Dive Alert, consider getting one of those as well. Our first liveaboard was in Belize where a couple surfaced about 1/4 mile behind the boat after getting caught in a current. They blew their whistles, but because they were downwind and just far enough away, we never heard them. Fortunately we had already spotted them (we were hanging out on the top deck) and the DM was keeping visual contact asking if they were 'okay'. They indicated they were and submerged to swim back to the boat. When they told us they had been blowing their whistles, it was a huge wake-up call to buy Dive Alerts, which are now a standard part of our kits.

 

[newfldiver]

I decided to go with an ACR personal locator instead of the SPOT. After some research I like the fact that the ACR has three different ways of communicating instead of one. A bit more costly, but if I ever need it, it will be worth it. I decided to go with an otterbox 9000 and my wife designed a nylon webbing to hook onto the tank strap and ride tucked up against the tank. So far so good. Thanks for all the inputs.