Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
Thanks all. That helps clarify things for me. Since it is the law that pretty much settles the discussion. I drift dive mostly in the Pompano Beach area although I have dove in Xcalak and Grand Cayman but they weren't drift dives. Looked up the Florida law and it is stay within 100' radius of the flag in confined waters (channel, river, etc.) and 300' radius in open water. Boats have to stay out of the same zones around the flag. (There are more whereas's in the law but you can google it if you want clarity) Makes sense that the boat knows where we are. If someone needs to get on the boat NOW! you wouldn't want to be trying to get their attention from a location hundreds of yards away in a direction they weren't looking and in seas and wind. Also, being 40+ fsw with a boat going over is no big deal until you have to make an emergency ascent. Then having a clear zone could make all the difference. Using my own reel and developing a safe way of handling it seems like the way to address the issues I dislike about the present system.
the hawaiian hard float is a great piece of kit btw, not a fan of the reels, but cave divers tend to be picky about those sorts of things it does work decently well for this specific application though.
The float looks interesting, but I don't like that reel either. Although the ratchet doesn't allow back spin, the line likes to come off the reel which then gets tangled up.
It would be nice to have a reel that enclosed the line in a housing and would take up extra slack automatically. Almost like those dog leashes where you push the button to let out line and winds the slack up when you release the button.
No reel is perfect, but it would be hard to imagine a small, robust reel that would automatically retract 150 ft of line. The reel we sell for this application is surprisingly strong, we know people who use them to anchor kayaks- you do have to be cautious that the reel line in not being abraded by any rocks, etc, when anchoring.
We suggest the hard plastic float for people who want a nearly indestructible float and are not traveling with significant size restrictions. For divers who are traveling by air, then an inflatable has some significant advantages.
We offer other floats.. The high pressure float is extremely tough similar to a Zodiac inflatable boat. This is designed for use on large pelagic fish, so it will stand up to use as a dive flag/float.
The liters designation refers to the air capacity which is just slightly less than the buoyancy...15 liter float has around 30 lbs of lift, so that should be large enough for a scuba float and it will be much easier to pull than a flag.