Compasses *sigh*
I'll start with the oldest one I currently have.
An old Sherwood module like this but with older looking fonts and numbers. Worked pretty good until a bubble started growing. Now the bubble is huge and interferes with the compass movement. They are not eternal. I must have cracked it open on a rock or something, though I can't find said crack.
I have 2 Suunto SK6 modules like this one but only one wrist mount. The one I originally had on the wristmount stopped freely rotating all of a sudden. Some white plastic looking shards started floating around in the oil -- so I guess it died of old age. I took the dead module out of the wrist mount, but inadvertently left the wristmount on top of my car and went for a drive. It just so happens that the wristmount is made of a brittle hard plastic. I found the completely broken remains of the wrist mount in the middle of the street three houses away from mine. So now I have 1 perfectly fine SK6 module, but no wrist mount for it.
I got a brand new one of these generic Taiwanese compasses off from ebay for around $15. I never got around to putting it into bungees. Because of that I would often tighten the straps at depth and loosen them at surface (neoprene seals). The factory strap was not very secure. It fell off one time while I was cutting off a old stainless buckle from a weight belt we found at 140 ft. Luckily my buddy noticed it and caught before it fell off into the abyss. A few weeks thereafter it fell down again as I was getting out of the water and after just loosening the straps. This time I lost it for good.
Then I decided to start carrying out one of these in my watch band. They are really cheap, something in the order of $3 for 2 modules in ebay. Initially I got them to permanently have a discreet compass with me at all time -- above or below the surface. I was using it underwater along with the 1st SK6. If I had doubts about the SK6 pointing out north correctly I would confirm with the watchband one. It was slim, unobtrusive, and cheap. Then the 1st SK6 died and I destroyed the wristmount so for a while this was my only compass. Surprisingly, on one dive where I went down earlier than originally intended I successfully used it to navigate underwater for about 120 yards and get to a wreck in 10-15 ft vis. I was happy, but my happiness did not last long. A week after the wreck dive, I noted that the cheap compass was no longer pointing north. It now seemed to erratically point more to the south. The other cheap module I had home was not rotating too smoothly and it seemed to sometimes get stuck pointing in the wrong direction. Cheap garbage.
Last week I got one of these at my local outdoor store for $3. The ones on the shelf seemed to point in the right direction and rotated freely and smoothly. This last weekend I tried it out underwater taking it to 101ft. I ran my watch band through the closed brass safety pin. It does have a small bubble like the picture above shows. It being cheap, I half expected it to implode. It survived and performed very well. It was also very nice to have it point in the right direction without having to put it in a level position.
This is me checking out the compass performance this last Sunday. It may be breaking rule #6 but, honestly, it wasn't obtrusive at all. And besides, it feels good making your own rules. Notice how it doesn't seem to have a higher profile than my dive computer.
I'll let you know when I decide on one!
