Posted by Kaz on April 12, 2004 at 14:52:30:
In Reply to: Bag or sausage for ascent versus SOS posted by Sven on April 11, 2004 at 22:16:22:
Hey Sven, it's me Kaz.
Funny you would be asking about, "a sausage might be interpreted as a distress signal". Recently that exact thing happened. I was doing a beach dive with a buddy of mine down in Laguna area. We were pretty far out there in boat traffic, so on the surface swim back my buddy deployed his orange dive sausage to become more visible to the boaters. Meanwhile on the beach, a dive class (ironically a rescue class) was training. I don't know who it was, if it was a student or an instructor, but they called 911. When we were getting closer to shore, we were met by a guy on a boogie board asking us if we were ok. My buddy informed him why the sausage was deployed. The guy paddled back to shore and informed others that it was not an emergency.
So, although I've always thought of a sausage as a marker, what we learned that day is that some people do see a dive sausage as an emergency sign.
Any instructors out there with any definite rules on dive sausages usage?
Kaz