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Hi Peter, >Now I have another question: >When do I need a strobe? (Or is strobes for strokes?:-) >I've searched the archives for this one but no luck... I'm a rec diver/DM. I carry three items primarily for position marking; a strobe, safety sausage and whistle. All these items I can stow so they're out of the way till I need them and don't create extra drag (strobe I recently moved to a bolt snap attached to my left shoulder D-ring (like a backup light) on advice from the list, safety sausage in Halcyon BP pocket and whistle on wrist lanyard (only so I have it on shore for crowd control, we launch from a busy beach)). I use the strobe: * As an emergency position marking device if lost at sea at night or in low light, * To mark my postions for charter divers in my care in very low vis (vis can change rapidly locally as currents move clear or dirty water around, can change from 20+ to 4- between dives on the same day (or occasionally on the same dive), & * Occasionally for night dives. I believe (and tests by the US coastguard I was told about apparently back me up) that strobes are the most effective way of position marking in low light (compared to torches, cylume sticks, static lights). I first saw some folks using strobes on a night dive in the coral sea about 7 or 8 years ago and was quite impressed. Not long after I was lost at sea with a group of 7 other divers. We were picked up within 2.5 - 3 hours by the Air Sea Rescue but managed to drift over 10 nautical miles (several planes and boats missed us because we didn't have anything to mark our position). I choose to carry a strobe over say a cylume sticks or flares (though the latter would be great for initiating a search, could be worth carrying for this reason alone) because I've had both fail within their use by dates. The flare also is single use (though obviously to spectacular effect). With good batteries the strobe should reliably produce light for at least one whole night (thus far (fingers crossed) my strobe has been very reliable (400-500 odd dives)). >Tried it once on a night dive to - but I was only blinded by the flash. When we used to run regular night dives this was an issue (not for me, others complained). You could put it somewhere out of your range of vision. Cheers, Simon -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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