The Marine VHF handhelds I’ve looked at were all waterproof. Mine was the Icom M72 Marine Transceiver.

It doesn’t float (some radios do float), but it’s lashed to the flotation vest so it can’t get away; all the gear was attached with short lanyards. The PLB was lashed through its pouch to the vest.

Icom makes great radios.

I got the idea to include a Marine VHF radio after reading about some guy off the coast of Florida who hit a wave wrong and found himself in the water with lots of stuff and no boat. His VHF handheld was of the floating variety. Using it he was able to contact a fishing boat using Ch.16 (every large boat monitors Ch.16) and they had him out of the water before the Coast Guard could respond.

I’m not convinced an aviation handheld such as the Icom A16 or A25 VHF Airband Handheld radios would contact anyone who could actually assist. An airliner at altitude (35K Ft aka 6.6 miles plus) may not hear the radio call — don’t know, never tried it. Private pilots at lower altitudes may or may not monitor 121.5 (VHF guard). The VHF radios I’ve used had good antennas and a ground plane, and they were still noisy. Besides, mayday calls would/should have preceded water entry. After a ditch, the Marine VHF and PLB combined made more sense.

Another thing my survival vest is missing is webbing with a D-ring that can serve as a lifting point. Fortunately, everything I’ve seen shows that USCG prefers baskets and such rather than the simple gated hook I used during training, so a lifting point is no longer needed.

Glad I don’t do that any longer.

Edit: If I were in a canoe or small boat my choice of radio might change — depends. On a largish lake (Great Lakes come to mind) a Marine VHF is probably the way to go. On a river or someplace where the Coast Guard is not primary, a VHF handheld may be more useful for contacting Civil Air Patrol or other aircraft who may respond to your PLB. Before buying a radio, think about giving SAR a clue and get a PLB.

I would definitely invest in a quality marine VHF handheld if I were spending a lot of time on the water. And I agree, I would take that over an aviation handheld every time. I expect that SAR aircraft would be listening on marine channel 16, especially if they work near bodies of water.

Many years ago I took a number of flights in small private aircraft, and I seem to remember that one of the radios was always set to 121.5 — I was and am very interested in radios and aviation, and I paid attention to that. Supposedly commercial aircraft maintain a listening watch on that frequency. If the aircraft is in view I’d also expect to be able to communicate with it on a handheld. VHF generally has excellent range when there isn’t vegetation, buildings or terrain in the way, even at low power. Obviously, don’t transmit on aviation frequencies outside of a bona fide emergency or a properly licensed and legal use.

My ham radio handhelds are all programmed for marine VHF. It’s legal to listen to, and in a bona fide emergency it could be legal to transmit. Aviation VHF uses AM where marine VHF uses FM. I don’t remember ever seeing a handheld ham radio that could transmit using AM.

I don’t recall it being a requirement for General Aviation to monitor the 121.5 MHz International Air Distress (IAD) freq. Our primary UHF radio had a “TR&G” (transmit/receive & guard) selection which would allow us to transmit & receive on whatever UHF frequency we dialed in, and would concurrently receive on 243.0 MHz. I don’t recall that selection on the VHF radio in the Cessna I flew. A second radio could be tuned to 121.5, but many small General Aviation aircraft only have one radio. Point being, 121.5/IAD is unreliable to contact GA aircraft.

OTOH, GA aircraft using 121.5 should be able to contact “most air traffic control towers, FSS services, national air traffic control centers, military air defense and other flight and emergency services, as well as by many commercial aircraft.” See Aircraft emergency frequency on wikiP

If there’s a GA pilot in the house please correct me if I’m mistaken.

Good points.
Thank you.

I am surprised that a knife, kept handy, hasn't been mentioned. My sea kayaking rig is comprised of a knife, in an inverted scabbard, and a signal mirror in a pocket. The knife is very handy in a kelp forest environment with distinct possibility of entanglement in other objects.

Since you asked, the knife in my vest was a Spyderco Atlantic Salt, a fully serrated folder designed for use in saltwater.

Man tries to jet ski on Lake Superior.

A jet ski usually doesn't have
extra gas
a compass
a marine radio
a jacket
charts

It would be interesting (from an intellectual standpoint) to know what gear he had besides his cellphone and what he was using for navigation. From the map at the link, he was way off course. A course of 090 (true) from Grand Portage takes you to Isle Royale. Based on that map he took a course of 150 true (give or take).