- Hi guys, I'm Mark,
a scuba diving instructor from Safe Diving.
- And I'm Mark Evans,
editor-in-chief of Scuba Diver Magazine.
- So in this series of videos,
we're gonna be taking a closer look
at an entire range of the newest
(graphic whooshes) scuba diving equipment,
and all of these videos (bell ringing)
are sponsored by Mike's Dive Store,
the UK's largest scuba diving retailer,
and they hold most of these items
in stock at all times.
- They're also doing their bit for sustainability
by moving to eco-friendly packaging,
and they also donate 1% of all their online profits
to the marine conservation charity Sea Changes.
- So let's jump straight in.
(upbeat music)
- Liveaboard safe diving essentials,
what you really need with you
if you're going out on liveaboard,
as well as a cutting tool:
small dive knife, Trilobite,
anything along those lines,
and a backup torch,
which is a good idea to carry with you at all times.
Definitely delayed SMB.
Cannot say enough good things about these.
They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
This one can be sold in the pouch,
and it basically inflates off of your octopus
and/or you can even do it off your primary
if you really want.
Just clamp it inside there,
close the tube up.
You can fire it up on a spool,
or you can fire it up on a reel,
or even if you're on the surface,
you can blow it up,
and this one's got a little valve as well
so that once you're on the surface,
if it's gone a little bit soft,
because you didn't put enough air in at depth,
you can blow it up.
Definitely one of the best things you can have
for getting attention.
- So a lot of liveaboards,
they actually require you
or at least one person of every buddy pair
to actually have a delayed surface marker buoy
on every dive.
It's just basically an emergency, a sort of sausage,
that it really makes you stand out in the water.
So, this one is a closed cell dSMB.
This is the kind of style that I prefer
just because the only way for it to deflate
is by tugging on this little valve.
So this one, you can either inflate orally
by blowing into this tube,
or you can attach it to your BCD inflator hose.
You just push it onto that,
but you do need a spool or a reel to go with it.
So, at the end of every single dive,
I'll attach that when I'm doing my safety stop.
I would just send one of these up,
and it tells everyone on the surface that I'm here.
It tells boats to stay away,
so they don't hit me,
but it also tells my boat that I'm here,
and I'm about to hit the surface.
Please come pick me up.
So these are sort of individual ones.
You can buy some kits.
So this one comes from SCUBAPRO.
So, it comes in a neat little pouch,
and all you do is clip that off onto a D-ring.
When you're ready to send your SMB up,
you take the dSMB out,
but you also have a length of line.
What a lot of divers do is
they measure out five meters of line,
and then they just take that with them,
and that way, when you're just doing
a five-meter safety stop,
you have everything that you need
all in one neat little pouch.
- The benefit of having it on a spool, as Mark said,
is if you are on the dive,
and you end up going off the reef wall,
and you lose sight of the reef,
current drags you off,
anything happens unexpected
that's not in the dive plan,
if you've got reel with you
with 40 or 50 meters of line on,
you can send up your delayed surface marker buoy
at that point of the dive,
it will hit the surface,
and at least the boat crew know where you are
as you disappear into the sunset.
If you've only got five meters of line, of course,
you can only send them up when you're at the safety stop,
and so a lot of people prefer
to be able to send them up from depth.
Not so popular on this side of the Atlantic,
but more over in North America
is what they call a safety sausage,
which is effectively one of these,
but you just blow it up on the surface,
and then you can use it as a signaling tool.
Again, it's better than nothing,
but the only thing is
you can only put it up once you're on the surface
and that you don't know how far away
you could have drifted from your boat.
- Another essential that we heavily recommend
is something like this.
So this is the Nautilus LifeLine.
It's basically a GPS emergency beacon.
So you take this with you on your dive,
and touch word is you'll never, ever use it,
but if you do surface,
and you're a little bit too far away from your boat,
and they can't see you,
you can deploy this,
and it's basically a personal locator beacon.
There's a bigger, sort of more expensive version
called an EPIRB,
but what this does is it basically,
it makes you show up on their radar,
so they suddenly see this new kind of vessel,
and, yeah, it means that they can physically see you
exactly where you are in the water,
and they can come pick you up.
- Great little safety tool,
and as you said, it's nice and small.
You can just attach it onto your jacket at some point.
It's always there if you need it.
Very easy to use.
You literally hit the surface,
pop that off,
and then you can just hit the button,
and hopefully it brings your boat
swinging over to pick you up.
- But all boats in the water will sort of show you
if they have that sort of radar system on them,
so even if it isn't your boat,
at least it's getting you out of the water,
and then you can sort it all out later.
- And it runs on just a CR123 battery,
the little, short, dumpy ones.
Can pretty much pick them up anywhere,
and the good thing is it lasts about five years.
So as long as you put a battery in that,
you know you're good to go.
It's just a nice added little safety tool
to have in your arsenal.
- So, a personal locator beacon
is definitely something that I'd recommend
at least looking into and investing in as well.
It's one of those things you,
I'd rather have it and not need it
than need it and not have it.
It will get you out of Dodge
because when you're on the surface,
the only thing that's really kind of
sticking out of the waves is your head,
and it can be really hard to actually spot
a diver in the water,
whereas if you have one of these,
your boat can literally see you on the map,
and they can come and pick you up.
For a full range of scuba diving safety equipment.
Visit mikesdivestore.com,
or you can always pay them a visit
and have a chat with one of their knowledgeable instructors
on what you really need for a liveaboard.
- Remember if you like what we're doing,
hit that subscribe button, (mouse clicking)
ring that bell, (mouse clicking)
and you'll never miss out on a future episode.
(bell ringing)
So for more stuff on liveaboards,
if you click here,
and if you want to see our scuba basic series
for the fundamentals of diving,
go here.
- See you next time.
- Bye
(Mark and Mark laughing)
(upbeat music)