Kevrumbo
Banned
- Messages
- 5,659
- Reaction score
- 1,363
- # of dives
- 1000 - 2499
Great to see that this compact handheld VHF unit works as advertised.So I it wasn't a life or death situation, but my buddy and I surfaced some 500 yards from the boat on a west palm drift dive. The boat was east of us and the sun was at our backs making my 3ft smb tough to see. Surprise 4ft swells didn't help the situation.
We chilled out for some 10mins and the boat made no indication of being aware that we had surfaced, so I busted out the Nautilus and called them up. Sure enough, they had no idea we were topside. We directed them on where to look and after a few mins of searching they found us and picked us up.
10/10 experience!
I originally purchased a large handheld Uniden Mystic VHF/GPS unit eight years ago (after two divers surfaced lost in heavy fog after drifting deco in strong current NorCal ocean waters, and were luckily found & recovered after nearly an hour of searching), and used to stow it inside a Sierra X-scooter for open ocean pinnacle dives here in the SoCal Channel Islands, along with carrying a McMurdo Fastfind PLB in a dive canister. Not as convenient to quickly deploy & operate as today's Nautilus Lifeline though, as it would have involved opening up the scooter to retrieve the Uniden Mystic, screw on the antenna, and try not to get it immersed while operating it (only rated as "splash proof") --all on top of a fully inflated Halcyon Life Raft.
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