Fabulous though drift diving is, it does raise the rare, but very real possibility that divers becomes separated from their boat and go on an unwanted adventure. On one or two occasions over the years, divers (not ours) have been in the water all night, leading to untold stress and anxiety not only for them, but for all the people trying to locate them.
Adding to smart dive planning, capable boatmen and use of SMB’s, Asia Divers has now deployed a system that adds an even greater layer of security to those of you diving Puerto Galera and surrounds. The system, form GPacers Technology in Taiwan, places a radio receiver up high on the El Galleon cliff top that can pick up positions of any divers carrying one of their transmitters up to a range of about 20 km – in other words past Verde or anywhere else we would ever go or drift to.
The system puts the information online so anybody who cares to put the Gpacers app on their phone can log in and see the position of a diver who has activated his transmitter. Now there is no more searching because you really can’t get lost in the first place. Separated from the boat maybe – but “lost”, no.
For interest sake the system looks something like this, except that it’s up a post on the El Galleon cliff top instead of in a mobile Pelican Case. The one you see here is a self contained offline version that Tech Asia has been using in their own boatfor over a year. What the diver needs to carry in their BCD pocket is one of the small transmitters you see on the right. Our guides will be carrying one of these on any dive where there’s even the slightest chance of floating off unfound, but there is nothing to stop individual divers from owning their own. Simply put, anyone regardless who they are diving with, can be located as long as they are in range of our base station.
How it actually displays? Below is a screenshot of Randy Lopez position while testing it a couple of days ago. No need to get technical here but if you want to know more about it have somebody put you in touch with Dave at Tech Asia or email him dave@techasia.ph
Safe Diving….
