How often do you use your compass (in clear waters)?

[serapis]

Compass nah GPS. Honestly often the vis in Ca sucks.

 

[Mike Veitch]

What's a compass??

 

[Floridawannabe]

This is more of a curious question. When in clear waters, how often do you find yourself using your compass? I typically dive clear waters and as a result find myself using reference points for navigation (when needed) rather than using a compass.

Unless I am doing a boat dive/ Drift Dive with a planed guide. I use the compass all the time. I like knowing where I am and how to get back. We went down to the keys and did a dive from my friends boat. We took a reading and headed out, then we did a 180 and headed back when we had a enough. I was in the Army and they preached Land Nav, there are no land marks in the desert.

 

[Fly N Dive]

i use my compass on almost every dive. i take a bearing back to land and back to the boat. sometimes i'll dive a square and take bearings at every corner

 

[jimmyboy]

I use it everydive because you never know when the viz can go bad, also it's good practice as well as smart and SAFE

 

[hvulin]

I use it almost every time (viz is over 20m over here, but I don't care), when I get under the boat i check the depth (so I know where to get back) and pick a course. Getting back is a peace of cake this way, although with this kind of vis. I can get back by just looking around and remembering site formations.

 

[hecker-the-wrecker]

I usually use my compass in bad vis, or under the ice. I thought i would never need one in great vis. Until my last dive. I was diving a wreck in lake superior (maderia) a few weeks ago in an unfamiliar area of the wreckage. I saw a piece of the hull about 70ft out in the sand and assumed there must be more beyond where the chunk was.I started to swim along the sandy bottom and realized without any landmarks, i better take a compass reading off the last piece. I almost thought my compass was wrong. It seemed like i was swimming at an angle but i was going straight out. I went out a couple hundred feet (80ft deep) and turned around to see nothing. everything looked the same in every direction. I followed my heading back to the first piece. I think I would have got lost without my compass!

 

[ScubaSarus]

Here in RI , clear or not clear we practically live by our compass

 

[J75]

I use it on every dive, even in great viz (the 1% of the time *that* happens). I like to keep my navigation skills sharp, and also to avoid a surface swim to the boat or shore.