Probably they at least saved us from being out there a long time, if not saved our lives.
My name is Gary Rohr and I want to talk today about my experience, our experience with the Nautilus Lifeline product. In May of 2021 we did a trip on a private boat to Socorro Island. And we’ve been there several times before, and one time before we got separated from the pickup boat on a dive trip. Not for very long, but enough that it was a somewhat scary experience floating around the ocean with your SMB. And blowing whistles. But we got picked up.
So anyway, I was at a conference, or a dive show, in San Diego and I saw this product, the Nautilus Lifeline back in 2019 or 2020. I thought, wow, what a great idea. It broadcast your lat, long and emergency signal. So we bought a few of them. On a trip, there were six divers and two guides. We had eight of them and now we probably got more than that and we have spares. We zip tie one of these on to everyone’s BCD so everybody has one.
So on in May of 2021, we were diving Roca O’Neil, which is a rock off of the West side of Socorro and we had dived it the day before and the current was going to the north and we basically did a dive from South to north, it got picked up on the north side of the rock. It was great dive on dolphins, Mantas, beautiful. And we decided to go back and do it the next day, first thing in the morning because it was such a great dive. Well, we said we’re going to do the same dive, except the current was ripping in the other direction and it was fairly rough out about 10 foot swells and we ended up going South and then SW around the island and our pickup boat couldn’t see any bubbles and went to the north side of the island, this little island to wait for us so.
Boats over here and we’re going out to sea on the other side of the island to the West, southwest. Probably Next up, Philippines or Guam or something. I mean, a long ways away. We’re in Mexico. It’s coral, so our two dive guides, one of which whom had we briefed these before that trip with this same group that dive guide, the main guide he had never seen these before and he’s like, oh, really? How do they work? And we do the dive brief where everybody has to push the button. Turn it on and everybody knows how the red button and how to deploy the antenna etc. And he said, oh, we’ll never use those, but that’s cool that we have them, you know, sort of like. People with too much technology or something was kind of his impression or what he said. He was the first one to deploy it when we came to the surface, he knew we were in trouble.
We were away from the pickup boat. There was not going to get picked up or seen anytime soon. We’re about 10 foot swells with three and five foot SMB’s deployed. He deployed his right away and we deployed one other one. So we had eight. We deployed probably 2 thinking that we’d save batteries on the rest of them. And within a little while, we floated out there for a while in 10 foot swells up and down, but eventually our main boat got the emergency signal, got the lat long as an emergency, knew we were up past due to get picked up and pulled anchor and came out and came right to us. I can tell you that it’s a very unique feeling to be sort of lost at sea and know you’re lost and see that boat just turn and make a beeline and come straight for you because you deployed one of these devices. They pulled up next to us and said “how you guys doing?”. About about 30 feet up, the captain over the side said to us I didn’t see you guys until we are right on top of you with those SMB’s deployed because of the swell. Probably they at least saved us from being out there a long time, if not saved our lives.
So that’s our experience. And we use them on every dive.
