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> Most professional divers will be using a Surface Marker Buoy which indicates where they are underwater and where the boat should be looking to pick them up.
by mynameisvlad 4y ago
> Most professional divers will be using a Surface Marker Buoy which indicates where they are underwater and where the boat should be looking to pick them up.
These are generally deployed only during the safety stop, not for the entirety of the dive for obvious reasons-- handling up to 120ft of line underwater for the length of a dive would be near impossible. They would be pretty useless if you resurface and can't see the boat.
That said, you are right, something would have had to go pretty wrong to not see the boat. During a dive trip earlier this year my buddy and I resurfaced 1mi+ from where we were supposed to. But even then, we saw the boat, they saw us and our SMBs and it wasn't a huge deal other than getting the "pickup of shame".
- nradov 4y agoThat really depends on local dive conditions. For drift diving in the Gulf Stream off of Florida it's common to tow a float during the entire dive. For tech diving in the Northeast Pacific Ocean we can't tow a float while on the bottom due to rock structures and kelp. But we will shoot an SMB as soon as we leave the structure (rather than waiting until we reach a shallow stop) so that the boat crew can follow us as we drift during deco. Of course it's always a good idea to carry other signalling devices beyond an SMB in case you get separated from the boat.
- mynameisvlad 4y agoI think the only time I've ever seen SMBs used outside of the safety stop are drift dives. And even then, it's been the exception rather than the norm. It's pretty easy to get tangled up if you're doing anything but a single direction drift dive where you're both away from structures and moving in a continuous straight line that doesn't cross itself.