Mick Whittingham wrote[QUOTE] It's a bit like safety gear when you are biking. You hope you never need it, but if you do............... [1] OK so it makes life simple to hang off of one during a safety/deco stop and in theory the boat should be there when you surface. But a *big* red and yellow one, plus a whistle and a shinny CD in your pocket makes for a safer dive when you are surfacing in swell 18 miles off of the Norfolk coast, after diving on a wreck and wondering where the f**king boat is.[/QUOTE] AOL after my experience. I *think* the boat had been picking up the other dive party some way off as our dive master seemed to be going in circles, which wasn't the pre-dive brief. When we came up the boat was a good few hundred yards off and was either not watching out for us, or looking in the wrong place. CD.. *excellent* idea.