The LifeLine radio is worth every penny
My buddy and I were diving in Key Largo for a few days. On day two our regular boat op was not doing a night dive and we wanted one, so we scheduled with a different smaller op. The smaller op seemed well run, and was happy to take us and two other divers out on an Atlantic reef a little over a mile offshore for a night dive!
It was our second night dive this trip, and we still managed to make a few jokes about the movie “Open Water” on the ride out to the dive site. After all the usual formalities, the buddy pairs got in the water. We had a great dive, saw squid, lots of tropical fish, rays, and eels. There was a fairly strong current across the reef, and it took some focus on navigation to stay near the boat.
At the end of the dive, we surfaced about 100’ away from the boat; which I thought was pretty good. Unfortunately we surfaced just in time to hear him fire up the engines and drive off! My first thought was that another boat had come to the area while we were diving and we surfaced by the wrong boat; but after a moment of looking around I couldn’t see any lights other than on shore a long way off. With the current, it would have been an extremely difficult swim – if we’d have made it at all.
My buddy started to get upset, and that conversation about the movie flashed back into my mind. Fortunately, I had an insurance policy on a D-Ring. I fired up my LifeLine radio and hailed the boat. We weren’t in the water long before he came and got us and we were safely back on board. It turns out the dive team had not been paying as much attention and had got quite far from the boat. The captain saw their SMB and lights when they surfaced, and went to rescue the distressed divers.
The peace of mind brought by knowing I had a way to help save myself instantly made the radio worth every penny. Since my GoPro camera was attached to my dive lights, I even have a photo of the radio actually being used to make the call.
