A little confused on the Mares Icon HD Black Net Ready compass

[Chip Elliott]

Here's the scenario. You are out doing a boat dive. How do you set the compass on the Icon to point your way back to the boat? Just jump in, point the Icon at the boat and hit the set button?
Cuzza? Kharon? zoranb? Any instructions?

 

[JIMMY PHILLIPS]

I have an Icon HD and love the thing. To answer your question, if you know where you intend to go to, once in the water, set the compass to head toward your destination,(follow the dot). Then all you have to do is follow the runway back, which on the Icon is a II symbol that is 180 from your set point (the dot).

 

[JIMMY PHILLIPS]

And yes, you are correct, if already out on a dive all yo do is aim toward the boat and hit set and it will set it as your new heading

 

[CuzzA]

Yep. On a dive simply press the first button (from left to right) and that will pull up the split screen compass. Press the far right button and that will mark your heading with a green dot and the opposite reverse heading with two red bars. The third button changes the top split screen to continue to display depth and NDL time but also add a stop watch which is only available by actually being on a dive and pressing the second button.

The purpose of the stop watch is to assist you to measure distance traveled. Of course this has some limitations depending on current and if you're actually counting fin kicks. Nevertheless it's very useful if you were working a search and recovery area, especially in low viz.

Personally, we discuss the dive site before splashing. So for example the dive plan is to dive a ledge. We will discuss the direction in which the feature is situated. I often like to see the bottom machine on the boat especially if the boat is equipped with side scan. So lets say it's a ledge running north and south. We'll determine which direction is the break/drop off side and which direction is the top. Which is important because if you land on top of the ledge and head the wrong way you'll never find the ledge. I'll drop down the jug line we threw and mark the compass in the direction I'm heading and then turn the dive at my first alarm that I set based on half of the total tank pressure minus ascent pressure (second alarm, includes rock bottom reserve and a safety margin for the surface). If the current is coming out of the north I'll head up current first and vice versa.

I think this is good practice because some sites can have multiple bottom features. I had a navigational error once before really taking advantage of the Icons features where I accidentally jumped to an adjacent ledge that ended up running in a completely different direction.

 

[Chip Elliott]

THANK YOU ALL