Yes a liferaft is great, but how many times has a light aircraft ditched and a life raft has been successfully deployed? As soon as you come to rest on the water, the aircraft will start to sink, nose first. Your first reaction will be get out, not dig around in the back trying to release the properly secured liferaft. Afterall if it is not well secured, it will probably kill you when you hit the water.
If you have a proper survival (NOT immersion suit which is different and not for use in aircraft) with a proper neckseal (not the ones that zip up the front to the neck) you will survive an extended period in the water. You will also have a much better chance of getting into a liferaft if you are lucky enough to have got it out before the aircraft sinks.
I know how hard it is to see a body in the water and this is why flares are so important. If you manage to get a good mayday out with a reasonably accurate position, you will have a helicopter on scene within an hour. A flare will mean that the helo will arrive on scene and find you very quickly. Without the flare you will probably be found, but the search might take some time. A hand held day/night flare (which is about the same size as the tube in a loo roll) has smoke one end and light the other would be best.
ELBs are also good, but remember that it might be 90 mins before a position fix reaches ARCC Kinloss (Mayday therefore very important). Homing to an ELB still requires the mark one eyeball to see the casualty but the ELB makes the search area much much smaller. A flare when the helo arrives on scene will mean that you will be picked up without having to spend time searching.
Gugnunc,
Check you PMs.
What is you intended route?