Yikes. I bought the NICE DAN giant 6 footers with a lightstick and all that crap. Nice, but just too big. Wont fit in a pocket and its like dragging an oil drum along with you. So then I bought something like this:
SMB at leisure pro
That is all the missus carries. Just a tube to wave at the surface if needed, which she never has to date. And she fits it in a pocket.
I bought a finger spool for mine:
Finger spool at Leisure pro
I of course failed to ever practice with it and when I first shot it, it was like a three stooges movie, string was everywhere. I thought I might be dragged to the surface in a string cocoon before I got it squared away. I tried not to put too much air in it, but alas, I put in too little and ended up with a semi-limp sausage.![]()
it is easy to put too little gas into the smb, and for this reason, smbs deployed from depth should be closed (like the one you linked to). Open bottom smbs have a tendency to lay down on the surface and spill the gas, whereas closed smbs, even with too little gas, can still stand up if you keep tension on the line.
In a place like Cozumel with 100' of visibility, you can tell if your smb is standing up just by looking at it, and a half full 3' smb sticking 2' out of the water is better than a 6' smb laying flat.