I would echo the previous sentiments. Don't dive with a camera if you are not completely comfortable with everything else. You will do stupid stuff like dive too deep after a fish, bump into fire coral, forget about your air, etc. Also, you have to have a really understanding buddy, because he/she will get bored while you are working on the "perfect" shot, or at least you have to be comfortable with solo diving. All this is based on experience.
Now back to your question. Navigation on Blackbeard's is not too hard, in fact as long as there is not significant current, I did not worry about it, I just cheated. If I had no idea where the boat was, I would check to see if my buddy had been paying attention. If not, we would just ascend normally, look for the boat, take a bearing (need a compass) and go back under about 20 ft and swim back. You will never get too far from the boat (unless there is significant current). If you do surface away from the boat and cannot make it back, they have a signal that you can give and they will come out and get you (a little embarassing to those with big egos, but not a big deal). My advice is not to allow the worry of navigation to ruin the enjoyment ot the dive. Now if there is current, be sure to swim into the current on the way out. When you decide to ascend, just come on up and follow the procedure outlined above. The current should be such that you will only have to swim cross current at worse to get back to the boat. Oh, night dives. Try and swim in one direction, say east, and then swim back in the opposite direction. They have a flashing strobe under the boat that is visible from a distance which makes it fairly easy to find. Once again, if you can't find it, just go to the surface and take a bearing. The one big caveat to all this is to properly manage your air so that you have enough to make the swim back to the boat if you need to. If we got back to the boat with excess air, as happened frequently, just hang out under the boat and explore the area within site of the boat.
Hope this helps some, and btw, if you check out my picture page below, I have pictures from two of my blackbeards trips posted. I've been four times and loved it every time, I'm sure you will have a great time...
