Used my Nautilus in real life

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PfcAJ

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Location
St Petersburg, Fl
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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 wonder what size SMB would have been seen and how long until they'd have started searching. Glad you had a positive outcome!
 
I wonder what size SMB would have been seen and how long until they'd have started searching. Glad you had a positive outcome!
Good Q. I recently bought a 6 footer. Might start carrying that more often.
 
Nice outcome, have been thinking about a Nautilus myself.

Were the boat not expecting you to come up downstream? Not sure if it would have made a difference in this case, but I don't think the skinny 3ft SMB has a role outside quarries, in the ocean I'll only use the 4.5/6 foot type.
 
I have never had any issues getting noticed with Dive Alert.
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Nice outcome, have been thinking about a Nautilus myself.

Were the boat not expecting you to come up downstream? Not sure if it would have made a difference in this case, but I don't think the skinny 3ft SMB has a role outside quarries, in the ocean I'll only use the 4.5/6 foot type.
I don't think the boat had an expectation on where we would surface other than downstream of where we started. When we came up the boat was in the process of picking up other divers.

Up until Sunday a 3' smb has been more than adequate for all the south Florida ocean diving I've ever done. Certainly leaning toward taking the big one out on all dives now.

Fwiw, I got the big one specifically for some stuff real far offshore where the 3' is inappropriate.
 
6'/2 meters is the bare minimum that should be used in the open ocean. Dive Alerts won't do much in windy conditions. Depending on where I am, I would take my PLB along with my Nautilus on open ocean dives.
 
Having spent ~30 minutes on a dive boat searching with everyone on board looking out to try and spot a 3ft SMB in 2m swells, I'd never use one. They are terrifyingly tiny against the vastness of the ocean.

On tech dives I tend to send up my 4.5 footer from 27-24m before the 21m gas switch to make sure it is really full and standing proud on the surface. And carry a mirror, whistle, dive alert and folding flag, and am seriously thinking about a Nautilus and/or PLB. It's a big ocean out there...
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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