No affiliation as usual, just saw this for boaters and divers as a companion with a PLB.

http://www.nautiluslifeline.com/

Great idea - And cheap insurance.

That's awesome!

Frankly, I'm skeptical...On any decently run dive boat, this will be unnecessary. Of course not all dive boats are not properly run..

Leaving your life in the hands of anyone else is a big no no. Constantly a good amount of survival stories Are from people trusting the wrong Experts or guides and such and being left behind or walked out into the middle of nowhere straight into a survival situation and then told to do everything wrong by the person they trusted with their lives. There is even that movie made about the divers left behind by the crew.

Am I understanding it correctly? This is a GPS that somehow (???) broadcasts your location to marine radios within an 8 mile range.

I'm assuming it displays the coordinates on marine radios ... somehow? Is that a standard thing for marine radios?

Is 8 miles enough when out on open waters?

It would seem that a PLB would be a much better safer choice to protect if things go terribly wrong.

Do they make PLBs specifically for diving? I could see putting a regular PLB into an Otterbox or similar, but I'd wonder if the flotation factor would be too great. I'd hate to dive with a little box constantly pulling up on me.

Digital Selective Calling radios are the new standard for VHF marine radios. It is complicated, but, yes, essentially they serve as an area 911 and will display or announce the GPS location transmitted and will have an alarm that sounds when an emergency alert is issued over the channel. GMDSS/DHC radios are required on commercial vessels.



The limit is a function of line of sight. At water level to a typical recreational boat it's going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 miles, roughly. It will be somewhat further in a call to a commercial vessel with an antenna a significant height above the water.

This unit is deigned to deal with the situation that arises all too often where a diver is separated from their boat. Getting found can be a challenge, even with various non-radio signaling devices. Numerous instances where divers have been left, for a variety of reasons. It does happen. A PLB will get you rescued, but that isn't a local solution. Ideally, you would carry both.

Dive canisters are available for some PLBs. McMurdo makes one and ACR is planning to offer one with their latest PLB. Technically, an Otter Box is rated for 100 ft, as I recall, That may suffice for typical recreational diving, but I am not sure I'd bet my life on that. Typical dive canisters are rated for much deeper. The McMurdo is rated to 450 ft. giving plenty of safety margin.

In an attempt to answer my own question, I did a quick google for scuba accident statistics. "Left behind by dive boat" didn't even show up as a category. I am not sure that any of the sources I found were all that impartial, but I do suspect that LBBDB is pretty rare; when it does happen, it makes headlines.

So, got any statistics on LBBDB? In over 500 dives, it only happened (momentarily) to me just once and that was for good cause. All the scuba accidents with which I was involved related to embolisms, out of air, cardiac and such, not improper behavior by the vessel.

I suspect that the Nautilus Lifeline is an answer in search of a problem, at least in the world of scuba. There is a limit to the number of gadgets and trinkets you can haul underwater with you, so the statistical probabilities are relevant. I think a good bailout bottle (supplemental air) would be more likely to be useful to most divers.

Since I began diving over 27 years ago with advanced, cave, etc. certifications, I have been lost at sea once and I have found a guy floating out at sea that was lost once as well. Dive boats out of West Palm Beach, fl. Were bad for awhile losing divers but I think it has improved somewhat over time. I will not go diving on a boat anymore without a PLB since I almost bit it when I was lost at sea from a dive boat. I was fortunate to be seen with a dive alert and a big dive sausage and a lot of prayers while floating out in the big ocean. You cannot depend on nobody but yourself if things go astray. And this goes especially true when you’re in a cave and you are on a short time clock. I like the VHF idea to yell at the boat as well as well as the PLB. The PLB when in the ocean may be awhile till you get rescued while you are keeping the sharks company, but the VHF will help as well if there are nearby boats that may aid you in getting out of the water faster. Both would be nice, and there are a lot of underwater containers to put them in which doesn’t consume much space. OMS, watershed, McMurdo, DUI to name a few.

IMO a great idea now if they made one with just the alert and frs/gmrs for us land lubbers.