Pantoja and I talked about safety procedures when diving from his boat. These are things we know for a long time for ourselves but we decided that it's time everyone abide by them no exceptions. I'm posting this as general information so our friends and future friends can refer to it.
Float lines and floats.
Everyone must tow a float that will support a dive flag properly. Use a reel if you want but you must have a float and flag. If you're not aware of the advantages of a float.. it's difficult to spot divers when there are four people spread out in the water. Especially when there's chop. It's also not fair to the divers who make the effort to tow a float. If we need to get to a diver that we can see fast we don't want to worry about unseen divers that can be in the way of the boat. A float can save your gun in many situations. If all that is not enough to convince you it's also the law so when you're diving without one you're breaking it.
Tagging along with a diver that has a flag when you don't is also out. It's lame when you look back and you've been pulling fish that someone clipped onto your float without saying anything. Pull your own fish, the drag can be significant.
I'm trying to respect individual choice of equipment so past having the float and flag the following are recommendations based on our experience. The float should be streamlined and not a typical scuba diver's buoy that has the lead weight two feet below the surface, this causes entanglement with other people's lines. The Rob Allen float with a ballast and flag is a nice streamlined one. An inflatable float like a Riffe is also a good choice but has more drag in chop. I've made one out of two bullet nose lobster buoys held back to back over a length of PVC pipe total cost $7 apart from the dive flag. We're talking about making up some floats for people who show up without one.
A good practice worth mentioning is coiling the float line after each dive. This reduces drag on the next dive and eliminates a very long trailing end which can entangle with other lines more easily. This also helps pinpoint faster the location of the diver relative to the float.
Engine off when picking up divers.
Before a diver climbs on the boat the engine must be turned off. If you want to get on the boat and the engine is still on ask for it to be turned off by simply yelling "engine off". If you don't mind getting on the boat with the engine on go ahead it's your deal but if you're driving turn it off in the first place or at the least when asked.
I'll relate a short story. I was getting on the boat, the engine was on. There was some chop. A wave hit the boat as I was right beside the prop, someone lost their balance and put their hand out to steady themselves. They put their hand directly on the accelerator and the engine revved up. Fortunately I didn't get hit by the prop.
That's it for now. Remember this is for the well being of all of us diving, dive safe.