Divers doing drift dives and trips to remote destinations
could find it worthwhile to bring along an Electronic Position
Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB), which, when activated,
will send out a distress signal via satellite to identify the position
of the user and alert the search-and rescue team. EPIRBs
are water-resistant on the surface, but typically they’re not
pressure proof, so a diver must protect it in a pressure-proof
canister during the dive. Sometimes canisters have their own
issues, like flooding, and as Undercurrent subscriber Marc
Pinto (Denver, CO), found out, it can cause plenty of action
above water while you’re finning blissfully unawares. Here’s
his story.
I took a trip to Cozumel last year and dived with
Deep Exposure Dive Center. On one day of that trip, my
buddy and I were the only divers, and upon surfacing
from a dive, the folks on the boat said someone from
the U.S. Air Force wanted to speak to me. Not having
much regular contact with the USAF, it only took me a
few minutes to think to check my EPIRB canister before
calling the guy back. It was then I discovered that the
canister had flooded (due, I believe, to my mistake of
not opening the canister to equalize the pressure before
diving with it). It apparently got out a partial transmission
before succumbing to water damage, but that was
enough to alert the USAF Search and Rescue folks, and
also to identify the message as having come from my
EPIRB, since I re-register it periodically. But it was not
enough to also transmit my location. So a USAF Captain
contacted my emergency contact, who, unable to reach
me, called Deep Exposure.
I sheepishly called the Air Force Captain, who was
quite nice, but had apparently been insistent in wanting
to speak directly to me, despite being told by the Deep
Exposure people that all was well. I apologized profusely,
and pleaded with him to not put me on any sort of
“guys crying wolf” list, because if I ever really needed to
deploy my EPIRB, I was quite interested in having them
show up.
The story ended well: There was no emergency, the
USAF was not upset with me, and I gained additional
comfort in diving with the EPIRB, knowing it actually
worked as it was supposed to.
But two asides. First, while an EPIRB is helpful
in any number of problem situations, there are likely
many remote dive locations where, even if the USAF
knew we were in trouble, there wouldn’t be anyone on
the other end for them to contact to actually give assistance.
And second, in my roughly eight years of diving,
I have never seen anther diver diving with an EPIRB.
Apparently, that level of safety doesn’t sell.