These flares are about $5 at paint ball gun places. Warrior wannabes use them to obscure themselves from the "enemy." You can see what they do on YouTube. These put out an amount of smoke that seems to be right between the $20 hand-held "boating" flares and the $50 floating flares.

The piece of foam is taped on, leaving enough room so that it can still be hand held. The foam keeps it upright if thrown overboard, which is what I would do.

The black plastic cap is removed and a ripcord is pulled sideways. Burn time is about 90 seconds. USGS aerial flares, which I carry for compliance, have a 5.5 second burn time.

I then heat seal them in re-purposed food packages, in this case, fish and tamales. The tamales are vacuum bagged, which is not necessary. *

Every corner gets a little snip. This allows the waterproof package to be immediately torn open from any position.

Down to the beach to test a smoke grenade.

Toss it in and it floats.

Easy to tear open when wet.

Pull the ring sideways.

Out comes smoke.

Toss out in the water. IT IS IN THE SHADE!! Once the smoke rose high enough for the sun to hit it, it was bright orange. But smoke flares obviously do have their limitations. *