Directionally Challenged...

[jobowker]

Edlin. Wow. That's going back a bit. People still think I'm weird for using vi. As far as the navigation goes, I found a couple of things that helped me.
1) Rather than taking a compass heading when I'm at the anchor, I move away a little - it seems that the anchor was throwing off my compass a little. 2) When I'm diving off my own boat, I throw a 100' length of polypropylene line (the cheap floating stuff) and tie off at the transom with a buoy at the other end. This drifts with the current, so if I'm off when I surface due to a strong current, the line drifts that way too. Makes the progression back to the boat a little easier.

 

[bradymsu]

I have found that natural navigation along depth contours is often much more reliable underwater than relying on a compass. For example, if I know a certain wreck is at 75 feet I will take a boat to about 50 yards to the left of where the GPS coordinates say the wreck should be. For a shore dive, I would swim to about 50 yards left of where my directions indicate the wreck should be. Then, I swim to the right along depth contour. This system hasn't failed me yet.

My brother-in-law is working on a GPS unit that can be used at depth as his graduate project in electrical engineering. I let the board know how it turns out.