Is basic navigation taught in OW?

[boulderjohn]

It is very basic. This is a compass this is how it works and how you hold it. In AOW you go more in depth. One of the reasons I am a believer in AOW shortly after OW. You learn more basic skills to better prepare you to be on your own.

If that describes your OW experience, for any WRSTC agency) and every other one I know of, your instruction was in violation of standards. I fear that may be common--I know mine was in violation, too.

 

[billt4sf]

As stated, yes students are taught "basic" navigation.

Umm....what's so funny?

Well, anytime there is talk of "teaching to standards" I want to either laugh, cry, or throw up. Standards, in any classroom, are adjusted to the audience, resources, and time the instructor has. And to a lesser extent the skill of the instructor.

It's pretty clear from other comments in the thread that there is a standard for teaching underwater navigation, and it's also pretty clear that the standard is often violated. (Oh by the way -- people don't learn much about it. ) The most accurate comment I saw was to the effect that people learn to go up, to go down, and to follow.

So take your pick: laugh, cry, or throw up.

- Bill

 

[TMHeimer]

When I took OW and having assisted with some, it included taking a heading and doing a reciprocal course. For more than that you need the UW Nav course or a good mentor. In 8 years I have yet to need to navigate a square or triangle, etc. but that stuff is good to know.

 

[cbm32]

I dont recall doing much of anything in my OW training in regards to navigation. I really have not attempted to do a whole lot of nav, even though I did get trained in it during my AOW. I have a kind of inate sense of direction on land. I really should start experimenting with nav/sense of direction while diving and see if that inate sense of direction still works when submerged.

 

[kaerius]

Yes the OW nav training is basic. On the other hand, how much task loading can you cram into the 3 day courses todays customers want and most tropical dive shops provide?

When not in a tropical holliday spot, making the course longer and more in depth is usually easier. For example the closest PADI diveshop to me has a 3 weekend(6 day) OW course, first weekend is theory, second weekend is pool, third weekend is open water. Although it perhaps needs to be mentioned, this being sweden, it's a combined OW+dry suit course, so there's a bit extra pool work.

Some instructors emphasize different things as well, for example I emphasized buoyancy and trim when I was teaching. My students at least could do the up and down well, I've seen many OW or even AOW divers who could not. (In fact I've seen AOW divers with no buoyancy control who were still bicycle kicking, didn't even know how to kick properly).

 

[TMHeimer]

I dont recall doing much of anything in my OW training in regards to navigation. I really have not attempted to do a whole lot of nav, even though I did get trained in it during my AOW. I have a kind of inate sense of direction on land. I really should start experimenting with nav/sense of direction while diving and see if that inate sense of direction still works when submerged.

My experience is it doesn't work nearly as well. There are no currents on land. Unless you have good viz and very distinctive bottom topography so it's obvious where you are and where you came from, even the slightest current messes up the compass, let alone natural navigation. If you have sun that helps, but unless it's fairly low in the sky it can be confusing at times.

 

[billt4sf]

My experience is it doesn't work nearly as well. There are no currents on land. Unless you have good viz and very distinctive bottom topography so it's obvious where you are and where you came from, even the slightest current messes up the compass, let alone natural navigation. If you have sun that helps, but unless it's fairly low in the sky it can be confusing at times.

Same here. I'm very good with my innate sense of direction on land -- just look for the sun, if nothing else. But underwater it's much harder. I am getting somewhat better at observing surge direction, sun direction (if any), etc. Depth also comes into play.

- Bill

 

[Badge353]

It is very basic. This is a compass this is how it works and how you hold it. In AOW you go more in depth. One of the reasons I am a believer in AOW shortly after OW. You learn more basic skills to better prepare you to be on your own.

If that describes your OW experience, for any WRSTC agency) and every other one I know of, your instruction was in violation of standards. I fear that may be common--I know mine was in violation, too.

It was a tad bit more. A reciprocal course and back. It want until AOW that I actually did patterns such as a square and triangle. o/w was just simply very basic on how to read a compass and go in straight line.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

When I took OW and having assisted with some, it included taking a heading and doing a reciprocal course. For more than that you need the UW Nav course or a good mentor. In 8 years I have yet to need to navigate a square or triangle, etc. but that stuff is good to know.

Squares and triangles are not really that common unless you decide to do that and that's where I think many uw nav courses fail the student. It is not made clear that squares, triangles, polygons, etc are just exercises. What I use them for is showing students the PROPER TECHNIQUES to execute them that will be used on actual dives with real life navigation. Ie. Slow swimming, precise turns as opposed to sloppy looping ones, proper buddy position and task delegation, determining currents to introduce intentional error to account for them, and locating reference points. And to demonstrate and emphasize the importance of above average buoyancy and trim as well as non silting kicks and documenting a site while doing the navigation. Those transfer to any navigation a diver may do.

Get those down and any course of any length with multiple legs is possible. And using all tools available including natural and lines and reels is encouraged. With a 100 ft reel or spool and good technique in ten feet of vis you can do a lot of exploring and cover a great deal of ground. I talk about this in the open water class simply because low vis is common locally and a reel can open up a lot of territory for new divers to safely explore a site.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Progen]

I'm glad I paid attention to the underwater navigation part so I was ok and didn't get lost during the underwater navigation part of the advanced open water course and deep diver one. I don't carry a compass now because my Suunto Vyper Air has one although I noticed many divers can't get used to digital ones because they don't have a lubber line and it only takes a crooked forearm and a few fin strokes for you to end up way off course.