給休閒潛水員的浮力袋指南 How to use a Surface Marker Buoy for dummies

施放浮力袋是潛水必要技能 Deploy SMB is essential skill for diving.

為什麼我們需要浮力袋？

就像是為什麼我們去登山要帶著指北針一樣，不帶就有可能會迷路！那浮力袋呢？你不帶，有可能船就找不到你！甚至船有可能撞到你！也許你會說，有很多船長不是都會跟著氣泡走，所以怎麼會找不到我或是撞到我呢？想想看，10個人呼出的氣泡在水面也許會很好辨認，但如果只有1~2個人在水中，那氣泡在水面一點也不好認，同時浪又有點大，你可以看到四處都是氣泡，你只能用猜的哪一個是潛水員。此外，你上升到水面之前，如果沒有浮力袋在上面，船可能完全注意不到你，而從你頭上開過，出意外的可能性可不小！

Why we need Surface Marker Buoy(SMB)?

Do you want to climb a unfamiliar mountain without compass? No, you don’t, cause you may get lost. Without SMB( we are not talking about San Miguel Beer), you maybe ignore by the boat crew, they might not find you or just drive directly upon your head. You might think the boat captain all looking for the bubble of divers, but 10 divers bubble might be easy to see, but if only 1 or 2 divers bubble might just disappear in the open ocean, especially when the wave is choppy, there’s bubble everywhere and impossible to tell which is from divers, and which is just try to fool you. So it’s easy that boat will just pass your head when you surface.

浮力袋的種類？

充氣方式有以下三種：

1. 二級頭充氣：使用二級頭充氣，可大量充氣，但這個方法不適用在寒冷水域。

2. 口吹式：充氣方式最容易，方便操作，可是充的氣量最小。

3. 乾衣/BC充氣管充氣：水中須拆裝乾衣/BC充氣管，可快速且大量充氣，適用於較冰冷的水域及CCR潛水員愛用。

封口方式：

1. 開放式封口：容易充氣，但一但浮力袋在水面倒下，可能氣全漏掉。而導致浮力袋體積變小甚至沉到水裏！

2. 單向閥封口：大多是用二級頭充氣，有單向閥，氣不會漏出。要依靠洩氣閥來洩氣。這樣的浮力袋在水面比較會保持浮力，但同時充氣時有些型號會同時充入大量的水導致浮力袋無法全尺寸浮在水面！

3. 封閉式：多是用在BC充氣管或口吹充氣的浮力袋上，只有一個洩氣閥來洩氣。同上一種，這樣的浮力袋在水面比較會保持浮力，甚至可以當作疲勞潛水員的臨時浮具！

顏色：亮橘、粉紅、亮黃及少見的黑色

亮橘及亮黃這兩種顏色都是實証過可以在遠處容易被看到的顏色，這也就是為什麼你在潛水店裏看到的都是這兩種顏色的浮力袋。但在一些特定國家如英國、及技術潛水盛行的地方，當你打上黃色的浮力袋，代表了你在水中有了麻煩，要有一些必要的協助。那是因為在一些實驗中証明，黃色會比橘色更容易引起視覺上的注意(但在大晴天波光的反射常會讓黃色的浮力袋消不容易被發現)，所以有些潛水員，尤其是技術潛水員會用黃色來代表緊急。可是，這在休閒潛水的圈子裏是沒有這種規定你一定要用哪種顏色的浮力袋，但在技術潛水越來越普及的今日，如果你真的不想和別人一樣，而堅持用黃色的，或是你想用黃色的浮力袋來代表你現在需要其他的幫助，都請先和你配合的潛水店討論一下！而最新的粉紅色則是新的一個趨勢，如果橘色，它一樣容易被發現，同時有很多潛水員喜歡它帶一點與眾不同的叛逆感。而黑色則是一個根據某國空軍指出，當大晴天時在海面上，一個黑色的物體會比其他顏色的物體更容易被發現的這個報告所產生，但目前市面上，黑色是最少出現的顏色。

Varieties of SMB

Inflating Methods:

1. Inflating by 2nd stage: Inflating by 2nd stage can quickly inflate your SMB with quite lots of air, but this method is not working in cold water.

2. Oral Inflation: Easiest way to use, but smallest amount of air you can inflate.

3. Inflating by Drysuit/ BC inflate hose: Remove your Drysuit or BC inflate hose from inflator to connect the LP connector on SMB, it’s very very quick to inflate with lots of air, good for cold water area, also CCR Diver like it.

Seal Methods:

1. Open Bottom: It’s easy to inflate, but when on surface, if the SMB falls down, the air might leak out from the bottom, then the SMB will shrink, or even sink in water.

2. One-Way Valve seal: Most are inflating by 2nd stage, and the air will go in by can’t come out, you need a Over Pressure Valve to release the air. It’s much more reliable on surface, but recently we found certain design might get the water in while you try to inflate by second stage, this will make the whole length of the SMB not able to stick out on surface.

3. Close-Circuit: Most of SMB inflating by oral and BC hose are close-circuit, you can only deflate it by the Over Pressure Valve. And just like above, it’s much more reliable on surface even it falls, the air can still stay in SMB and able to support a tired diver on surface.

Colors: Bright Orange, Bright Yellow, Bright Pink, and Black

Both Orange and Yellow colors are proved can be seen from far distance, and that’s why all SMB you can find in the dive shops most are these two color. In some area like British, or Tech Diving popular area, when you send a yellow SMB, that means you got in trouble, and need certain help from surface. There’re some experiments show that yellow color can be much more easier to attract human eye than orange color( but during a sunny day with the reflect from the waves, the yellow SMB are not easy to spot by boat crews), so some divers, especially tech divers use yellow SMB for emergency signal. But in recreational diving, there’s no rule to limit you using orange or yellow SMB. But in today diving environment, the tech diving is getting popular, if you choose a yellow SMB want to be seen as different from others or really just want to let the boat know that you are in trouble, talk to the dive center or dive boat you dive with will be a smart move. Pink is a new popular color, it's been proved easy to catch eyes like Orange color, and also taste some different feeling as don't want to be the same as the old fashion. The black is hard to find now, but once part of time certain country's Air Force find that black item on the surface while sunny day, is easier than find other color's items. But black color now is hard to find in market too.

打浮力袋的時機與重點

以休閒潛水來說，5米安全停留應該是一個安穩停止的3分鐘，在你對你中性浮力有百分百把握前，同時要控制你的中性浮力，又要打浮力袋，將會是你的惡夢！我們常見到潛水員，浮力袋打好了，人也上到水面了！(當然，如何練到這樣的中性浮力，就是後話了！)個人建議10米打浮力袋是一個比較適合的深度，因為這個深度的浮力控制會比在5米容易，而通常國內販賣的最小線軸都是15公尺(暗潮的訓練都建議是使用30公尺的線軸)，在這個深度，即使有流在帶，浮力袋被拉走，繩子無法直直的延伸到水面(因為水流會帶著浮力袋斜的上到水面)也不會不夠長！

• 打完了浮力袋後，你應該努力的保持在浮力袋的正下方，而不是浮力袋遠遠的離開你的頭頂正上方，這樣子，船為了避開浮力袋，反而會開過你的頭頂上！

• 接下來，你把繩子收回線軸，上升到5米處，這時你可以把線軸固定(用線軸上的雙頭鉤)，你抓在線軸上，做好你的中性浮力，或是稍微負浮力的抓著線軸，這樣可以幫助你在5米安全停留的安定性，不用再一直盯著錶怕自己會飛上去，或是沉下去！

• 再做完安全停留後，你可以慢慢的把繩子收回線軸，同時跟著慢慢地上升到水面，這個程序可以花上2分鐘以上最好，這樣慢慢的上升是一個很安全的上升速度。

• 上到水面後，如果船沒有看到你，你可以把浮力袋高舉搖晃增加被看到的機會！

• 你的浮力袋可以在上面用麥克筆寫上或是用黑色膠帶貼上名字或易於辨視的符號，這樣來接你的船會比較容易認出你來。當然你的浮力袋也比較不容易被人拿錯。

When and how to deploy a SMB correctly

• For recreational diving, safety stop at 5m should be a steady 3 min stop. So before you master your buoyancy control, it will be a nightmare to control your neutral buoyancy and deploy SMB at the same time. What we usually saw are the divers go up with the deployed SMB to the surface. Of course how to master your neutral buoyancy is not what we want to discuss here. Personally suggest you can deploy your SMB around 10m depth water, it’s relatively easy to control your buoyancy at that depth rather than 5m, also the shortest spool you can bought is 15m long here

  (in Dark Tide's training, we recommend to use 30m spool to deploy SMB), and that’s enough even the current or wind might catch your SMB away from you on surface, and the line is long enough to extend to the surface and keep you at the same depth.

• After deploying SMB, you should keep yourself right under the SMB instead your SMB is far away from you. If you are far away from your SMB, the boat might just want to avoid the SMB then mistakenly drive directly above your head.

• You should retrieve the line to the spool. When you back to 5m, you should fix the spool by the double ender, make yourself neutral buoyancy or slightly negative buoyancy to hold on the spool. Then you can relax on the spool to finish your safety stop without constantly watching your depth gauge or dive computer.

• After safety stop, slowly retrieve the line back to spool and use this speed to ascent, it’s better you take more than 1 min to finish the ascent, this speed is good for your dive safety.

• On the surface, if the boat didn’t see you, raise the SMB up to your head and wave to the boat to make it much more visible!

• Mark your name or symbol on the SMB by marker or duct tap to help the boat identify you on surface, also prevent someone mistakenly take your SMB.

潛水員的安全有很多時候是要依靠浮力袋，而一個好的浮力袋，不只要有好的品質，還要有一個會操作它的潛水員。浮力袋不是你身上的裝飾品，它是救命工具，如何收納、如何施放都是你要一直練習的動作。所以準備一個適合你潛水活動的浮力袋，絕對是你潛水活動中不合或缺的一件事！

Don’t forget, divers’ safety sometimes depend on the SMB to catch the boat men’s eyes, and a good SMB not only need to be good quality, but also need a diver who know how to make it work. SMB is not only your decoration, it's a life-saving tool, and how to store it and how to deploy it are something you need to think and keep practicing. So prepare a SMB that meet your needs will be important for your diving activities.