Look I'm not proud to admit it, but I've done a lot of stupid things in my time. To become old and wise you must first be young and stupid. But there's a lesson that I learned early in my diving career and thankfully it's stuck and that is the one scuba accessory you should never ever get in the water without. If I can pass that lesson on to you it might just save your life one day. Ladies and gentleman, what is going on? My name is James. This is your Divers Ready! mouthpiece Monday for this week It's so good to see all of your smiling faces. I hope you had an epic weekend. We certainly did hear, lots of diving, lots of scuba shenanigans. On this channel, if you're new here my passion is using my expertise as a professional diving instructor to help make you a better diver. So if you love scuba diving as much as I do and you want to pick up hints and tips all I need you to do is hit that subscribe button down there, click on the little bell icon, you'll never miss any of our content. So I want to tell you a story ladies and gentlemen, and I'm not in the business of naming names but I will tell you this story features somebody who I consider a friend and a mentor and just a super experienced dive professional. One afternoon this diver was kiting up to go out and do a deep dive with their buddy. And of course like most tech divers they were dressed head-to-toe in all black. Now whilst the surface was perfectly calm once they hit depth they were faced with a ripping undercurrent that blew them clean off the wreck and out to sea. A current way too strong to swim against. By the time they've made a safe ascent from their depth, completed all of their decompression obligations and surfaced they were miles from their boat. Search parties assembled, boats gathered, airplanes were scrambled I don't know if you scramble regular airplanes or if thats just for fighter planes. But have you noticed how the only two things that are ever scrambled are eggs and fighter jets? Afternoon turned to evening, turn tonight. They're dressed head to toe in black on a black ocean at night. They're practically invisible and this diver says themselves, they would never ever have been found if they weren't carrying one of these. Later in this video I'm going to be giving you six reasons why I never go diving without a surface marker buoy of some description and why you shouldn't either. But first I want to explain some essential differences between an SMB, surface marker boy and a DSMB, delayed surface marker buoy. And just here next to me I've got examples of both. Essentially, they're both doing the same job. They're marking your position in the water and alerting boats, marine traffic to your presence. Now be that in "a I'm going diving Hey, watch out and down here" kind of a way. Or in an emergency situation where you're trying to be found. On the outside they essentially look the same. They're an inflatable tube made of Cordura nylon and they come in bright neon colors by the yellow, orange, pink, red, attention attracting colors. Both SMBs and DSMBs are typically available in five, six and ten feet lengths. But there are some subtle differences and it's important for you to understand them to decide if it's an SMB or a DSMB which is right for you. Look at the features on these four marker buoys I just want to highlight some of the subtle differences. These three are delayed surface marker buoys. Delayed meaning that they have the ability to be inflated under the water sent to the surface attached to a reel to mark your position. As in my story earlier, the divers that descended, had normal conditions on the surface they were planning to go up and down the same line got to the bottom got blown off the wreck and were able to send the marker buoy from underwater through the surface to mark their position. At a later date I'll do a separate skills video on how to deploy a delayed surface marker buoy. but for this video sakes what I'm really focusing on is the what and the why. So this fella here is a regular surface marker buoy. This one happens to be five feet long. As you can see here at the bottom there's an oral inflation valve. You can lock the valve off by untwisting the collar and that'll stop the marker buoy from deflating. If you need to inflate it you just tighten the collar push in and blow. Other feature you're gonna see here is the letters diver below and at the top here this little plastic strip is designed to be reflective. This marker buoy is not designed specifically to be launched from under the water. Rather you would get to the surface and inflate it and use it to attract attention. And then to deflate all you do is push down on the collar roll it up from the top and all the air will be pushed out the same valve. So that's your surface marker buoy. The delayed surface marker buoys are specifically designed to be launched underwater. Two of them can even be launched either way. So these two have the oral inflation valve. But all three have openings by which you can fill with an alternate air source at the bottom, send the buoy to the surface and mark your position. These are overpressurization valves exactly the same as you'd find on your buoyancy compensating device. The idea being if you were to put too much gas into one of these the valve will pop rather than over expanding the DSMB. Now to get to the why. As I promised you I'm gonna give you six reasons why you absolutely should have an SMB or DSMB on you for every single dive. Okay, so point number one it can save your life and I think I demonstrated that with my story earlier and that really should be enough for you. But in case you need five more reasons here, they are. Reason number two, they're inexpensive so cheap in fact that you can have one in every color. I think this one was about 40 bucks. This one was maybe $20..$25. This one was probably the most pricey. I think I'm gonna say $50 I paid for that one. I don't think I've ever seen an SMB or DSMB that cost more than $80. I think if you paid $80 for an SMB you're... you're peacocking. Point number three and this is for everyone that dive travels is it's not always easy to rent a DSMB. It seems unbelievable to me that a dive center would rent you a $600 regulator or $400 BCD but they won't rent you a $20 SMB. Maybe they think that they're gonna get lost or stolen and they're probably right. But ultimately don't rely on a dive center to provide one for you, you have to actually have your own. Reason number four is that they can double as redundant buoyancy. This is something we talk about a lot when I teach technical diving. But even at recreational level it doesn't hurt to pack one of these guys in case one of the valves on your BCD fails. Something else that you can hang on to use as a flotation aid. What's the argument against it? I'll take extra buoyancy. I'm not proud add to cart. Yes please! Point number five is you can't expect boat traffic to look for your bubbles. Are the bubbles that you're exhaling that are hitting the surface? Nobody's gonna know you're down there. You need to have a marker buoy above you if you're in an area prone to boat traffic. Now I've seen marine craft run over channel marker buoys that are ten feet tall bright green with a flashing light on top and a bell in them. So you may say well James, you know, what good is an SMB gonna do. It's gonna give you a fighting chance but never trust a boat owner. Reason number six is, you can wave it around and attract attention. If you surface even a short distance from the boat you can pop your SMB out and wave it to get the captain's attention. If you're having a muscle cramp or fatigue or you just need some other kind of assistance. It's a really bright attention-getter. Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget to click the subscribe button and the little bell icon on that way you'll never miss any of our content. And trust me you do not want to. I've got some fantastic videos planned . Just yesterday I got to dive with Jennifer Idol, who's the first woman to die of all 50 states. And we're gonna be giving away a copy of her book, "An American Immersion", to one lucky subscriber. More details on that and the video that I'm gonna post later this week. So I know you don't want to miss that. And if you didn't like this video, don't forget to click the thumbs down sign twice. That's about all we've got time for. But just in some other news we hit 100 subscribers! I want thank each and everyone of you for your support. The reason that 100 is such an important number is because when you get a hundred subscribers YouTube sees you as a legitimate channel. And I always like to be legitimate. No, seriously guys, once you get to a hundred subscribers with YouTube they give you your custom URL. I'll put the link in the description below and it becomes shareable and it's much easy to get more subscribers So I want to thank you the first 100 for getting us to that milestone and there's nothing stopping us now as we head to a thousand. If you know divers who would enjoy our videos and get a fin kick out of our content, feel free to share that link with them. Alright ladies and gentleman, my name's James. This was your Divers Ready! mouthpiece Monday for this week. Peace! They're so cute when they're young!
