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From Miami Herald: Plenty of cool, new gadgets you can reel in

Among the new items coming out for divers are a spear/first-aid kit combo used to dispatch lionfish or treat the sting if one gets you.
By SUSAN COCKING
scocking@MiamiHerald.com

A compact caddy for beach diving; a spear designed to kill exotic lionfish; a handheld unit for locating a missing diver; and a rebreather designed for the recreational scuba diver were among the innovations displayed at the 35th annual Diving Equipment and Marketing Association (DEMA) trade show held recently in Orlando.

Here’s a sampling of some of the new gadgets you can expect to see soon at a dive shop near you:

• AcuSpear and Hot Snapz: For about $140, you can dispose of and treat the stings from exotic lionfish that have made a recent unwelcome appearance in South Florida waters. Tom Snoddy of API Industries has come up with a close-range spear that you aim like a bow-and-arrow to dispatch the peppermint-striped invaders from the Indo Pacific. If your quarry should sting you with its venomous spines, Snoddy offers a special hot pack/first-aid kit to ease the pain and swelling.

• Oceanic Worldwide sport rebreather: Long the exclusive province of scientific and military divers, the rebreather is gaining increasing popularity among the recreational community for its lack of noise and bubbles. This specialized scuba gear works by recycling a diver’s breathing gas using a scrubber to get rid of carbon dioxide, allowing longer bottom times. According to Chauncey Chapman of Oceanic, the new closed-circuit kit has a pre-packed scrubber cartridge so you don’t have to add the soda lime yourself. It runs on Nitrox, an enriched air mixture intended for dives of 100-130 feet deep. The unit weighs about 35 pounds and is priced under $5,500.

• Cetatek Aquabionic Fins: Every year at the DEMA show, some company introduces a new type of dive fin, and this one is the latest. The Aquabionic ($225) is said to adapt to the type of a diver’s kick (frog or butterfly, for example), enabling faster and more comfortable propulsion. The middle of the toe section resembles a bat’s wing and is made of a flexible, fluted membrane. It’s one of those accessories you have to try out for yourself to see if it suits.

• Nautilus Lifeline: The benefits of this VHF-GPS device recently were demonstrated when two scuba divers were left behind in the ocean on a trip out of Miami Beach and drifted around for hours before being rescued. The Lifeline is a fully-functional hand-held VHF marine radio that displays GPS coordinates and is waterproof to 425 feet deep. The diver simply presses a button that transmits his or her location to any VHF radio in range. There’s also a hail-and-distress button that automatically goes to VHF channel 16 and a chat button to communicate with your boat or any other VHF on the same channel. A bargain at $300.

• Beach Buddy: Beach divers will love this compact, four-pound scuba equipment caddy that they can drag downstairs, over gravel drives, onto the beach, into the water — and then take it with them on the dive. It’s basically a fabric boot with a pull handle, bungees and straps on wheels. The scuba tank fits into the boot while your buoyancy compensator, fins and other gear are strapped down on top of the tank. You drag the entire kit into the water, inflate your BC so that the kit floats, stow the stainless-steel wheels into the base, slide the bungees out of the way, and take out the rest of your gear. Nothing is left on the beach. Price: $249.

The Beach Buddy was invented in 2008 by dive instructor Stacie Hill.

“I was taking a friend diving in Hawaii and she said, ‘I like the diving, but everything is so heavy,’ ” Hill said. “I grabbed a cocktail napkin and made a sketch, and two months later, I was at DEMA with a prototype.”