Navigation

[antattack]

The navigation skills necessary for a shore dive are usually more demanding than the navigation skills you need when diving off of a boat. When I dive off a boat, it usually means that I'm diving a site that I'm not familiar with. The easy thing to do there is to simply descend on the anchor chain, take a heading and swim out and explore in one direction for 100 kicks. Then head back to the chain. Take a different heading and explore in a star patter radiating from the anchor chain. This way, it is easy to learn the dive site knowing that you aren't going to get lost.

It gets more interesting when I dive with someone who "knows the way" . In this case I always keep track of the way points and headings because I am responsible for my safety. It's very easy to get turned around swimming through channels in rocks and such. More than once I've had a leader get turned around and head 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Tic tok, we are all burning gas time, and in these cases we communicate. I try to keep navigation as simple as possible, but no simpler than is necessary.

 

[boulderjohn]

Again, not a newbie, but it has been my experience that compass navigation skills in OW courses is saddly lacking. Only one of the instructors that I have worked with had the students do a reciprocal heading drill. The others simply had them set a heading to the buoy and go there. Heck, you could just stay with the group and get there, not learning anything. I guess that's just one of the things that left the OW course long before I was certified.

No, it did not leave the OW course. It sounds like the instructors you have worked with are violating standards. If they are still doing it, you have a duty to correct that in some way, either by pointing out the standards violation to get them to change or by contacting the agency if they don't.

---------- Post Merged at 02:49 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 02:40 PM ----------

A properly trained OW student should be able to follow a heading and then return via its reciprocal. The problem I see in that minimum training is that most students are never shown how to use that skill in a practical way. It can be a very useful skill in certain environments, even allowing you to explore a wide area and return to your starting point, not just going in a straight line and back. If you don't understand how to use a compass in actual diving situations, that knowledge does not do much good.

What happens after that comes down to a lack of a need for any compass skills for many divers. In the Fort Lauderdale area in Florida, for example, many divers will experience two kinds of dives: 1) use an ascent/descent line to visit a wreck and 2) drift with the current while carrying a float. Cozumel is all drift dives. Many other sites require divers to follow a guide. In Bonaire and Curacao you are diving along a wall--head into the current and then turn back to your starting point. Now a compass can have a real value in all of those cases, especially as a safety factor, but I bet there are people with more then 10 years experience and hundreds of dives who have never used a compass other than on certification dives. It's easy to lose your skills that way.

 

[Hawkwood]

Again, not a newbie, but it has been my experience that compass navigation skills in OW courses is saddly lacking. Only one of the instructors that I have worked with had the students do a reciprocal heading drill. The others simply had them set a heading to the buoy and go there. Heck, you could just stay with the group and get there, not learning anything. I guess that's just one of the things that left the OW course long before I was certified.

Umm....check your IM.

 

[tyesai]

Did you not get enough practice with a compass? No, in theory I swam a box pattern once in my OW class. I may have been an oval or a triangle, who knows.

Did you not get good information about natural navigation? Very basic, just what was in the PADI manual.

Do you just not have the bandwidth to manage everything you need to do to dive, AND handle navigation? This would depend. Could I do a beach dive, swim one way out to a point say a sunken boat, check it out and then come back? Yes. Could I go to open ocean in a kelp forest, jump off the boat and have a good time? I'd stay very, very close to the anchor line. In part I would say that as a new diver "bandwidth" may be an issue depending on the circumstances. Especially in an unfamiliar area. Current, surge, topography all make things easier or harder....

Or did no one ever make you think about what would happen, if you followed a guide to somewhere unknown and then lost them? Hadn't really thought about it but in the places I've dived you couldn't really get lost. My local diving is here on the Isle de Tarifa o de las Palomas. It is kind of hard to get lost for the most part, although the current rips so I always carry a SMB, flashlight with strobe, whistle, and mirror just in case I get separated from my buddy, group and dive guide. The last dive I did there we actually did get separated right at the very end because of the current. My amigo and I looked for a minute, did our safety stop in the blue (I impressed myself), popped up and waited for the boat. Well I waited, he being 20 something was going to swim the 70 meters to the boat. After about a minute of finning and only being 3 meters in front of me (I was floating on my back) he decided that it would behoove him to wait it out too...

Here is what I see as the problem with diving with guides. Many times, not all, but in the few dives I have I've found unless I explicitly say something about not racing, or moving slowly, dive guides believe we must hurry up and get to the fire. This is natural because divers have a way of creating their own reality so an underwater fire is very feasible in a divers mind. I believe if I moved at my pace, navigation would be easy. Go a few feet stop, look around, check compass, look back, go a few feet, stop, look around, check compass, look back. Hit the halfway mark on the gas and turnaround rocks on opposite side (no reefs where I'm at), check compass and fin back. I'd even take a few brief notes on my slate...

I have mostly taught myself how to use the compass by watching youtube and walking around in the backyard with a towel over my head but...One day soon I'm going to take a nav course for the benefit of focusing solely on underwater nav...

 

[divergirl6]

For me, as a very new diver, my main problem with navigation is that it is kind of overwhelming to pay attention to lots of things at once. I've mainly been focusing on buoyancy/trim and letting my buddy do navigation for me. Of course, these have been shallow dives that don't cover a wide area. They are in a cove and when you get shallow enough, you can't get too far away in a west or east direction because you will either hit a dock or a bunch of huge rocks. However, when I become more advanced I will have to think about navigation more because I won't always be the one following. For now, though, I believe that navigation is something that I expect of my buddy and that he expects to do.

 

[drl]

My name is Deborah, and I (sometimes) rely on the DM for navigation
I learned the basics of navigation in class, but my earliest dives were drift dives, guided (Cozumel), so navigation was not something I had to worry about. For a long time I relied on DMs or my buddy for navigation. I've gotten better, but I am one of those people who is "directionally challenged." I struggle to navigate on land. I can get lost even in a familiar environment if I have to detour from my usual route. It has taken a lot of effort to learn to pay attention to the right kinds of things to allow me to find my way--things that come naturally to most people. I can use a compass if i have to, but I have to focus on it to the exclusion of seeing or enjoying anything else. As a newbie I needed a DMs help for navigation. I don't anymore, but in an unfamiliar environment I will take all the navigation help I can get!

 

[nolatom]

I have found through experience that my navigation (in most conditions) doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to exist in the first place. Meaning, remember as you fin away from your anchor or whatever your return point is going to be, to look at your compass--then tell yourself which way you're swimming so you'll remember. Better yet, rotate the bezel to lock it in.

If you do that, I have found that it puts me ahead of about three-quarters of my fellow divers, who it seems never looked at their compass at all.

Looking at it after you're lost isn't particularly useful. Now you have a compass that will tell you which way you're going, but not which way you're supposed to go.

"Duh!", right? Yet it's amazing how many divers don't look at their compass at the beginning. You don't have to navigate much on the typical dive. You just have to do it a little at the start, and things will work out. Miss that, and it's hard to "catch up" later.

 

[Teamcasa]

I'm lucky, having done most of my diving here in SoCal I was forced to learn how to navigate. This skill is indeed learned by doing, not by books. I'd say 90% of navigation is by observation followed by compass for general orentation.

Once you hit bottom, take a few headings, be observant, make mental notes of structures and their orentation relevant to your starting point. Do the same thing with each major structure that you encounter during the dive. Use wet notes or a slate if needed.

Two problems many new divers have is that they rely on a DM/guide too much and they swim looking straight down without looking around. Plus DM/guides tend to move too fast from point to point, never allowing a new diver to take the time to look around and get their bearings. Discuss this with the DM/guide before you splash, many times they will be happy to help and give you directions and point out navigable structures.

 

[OldNSalty]

Coming from a military background before taking SCUBA I had a lot of experience with a compass but I still feel that navigation skills underwater for me comes down to not enough good areas to practice/perfect. In class we practiced in a pool. If the correct heading is 85 degrees and you go 80 or 93..you are still going to reach the right corner and probably not even notice that you did it wrong.

Same thing for our checkout dives. My instructor covered it but we were diving in crystal clear spring. All you had to do was get a general bearing and you could see what you were suppose to swim to. Now once we got out to salt water, it's almost all wrecks so if you can find your way around on the boat going out you will probably find your way around after you hit the water.

I don't know how accurate underwater navigation is suppose to be...in the service we might walk 800 meters through thick brush to come out and find our selves looking at 6 points all 5 meters apart with someone standing there asking 'Well soldier, which one is it?'

I suspect that good underwater navigation does not need to be that precise but what is a good measure?

 

[jewelofnile69]

Coming from a military background before taking SCUBA I had a lot of experience with a compass but I still feel that navigation skills underwater for me comes down to not enough good areas to practice/perfect. In class we practiced in a pool. If the correct heading is 85 degrees and you go 80 or 93..you are still going to reach the right corner and probably not even notice that you did it wrong.

Same thing for our checkout dives. My instructor covered it but we were diving in crystal clear spring. All you had to do was get a general bearing and you could see what you were suppose to swim to. Now once we got out to salt water, it's almost all wrecks so if you can find your way around on the boat going out you will probably find your way around after you hit the water.

I don't know how accurate underwater navigation is suppose to be...in the service we might walk 800 meters through thick brush to come out and find our selves looking at 6 points all 5 meters apart with someone standing there asking 'Well soldier, which one is it?'

I suspect that good underwater navigation does not need to be that precise but what is a good measure?

I always wondered this same thing. I'm prior service as well and those land navigation courses suck sometimes with how close they'll stick markers together. I've run those courses as well and know that even a GPS is generally slightly off what the marker "says" is the correct coordinates. But also, we aren't usually out there for fun.

Anyway, aside from what we had to do in our OW, I feel lost underwater often when I'm in a lake or quarry in WI. Down in Bonaire, Key Largo, etc, I generally don't feel lost and generally only need to pay attention (especially in Bonaire) to a natural marker to let us know we got back to our entry point and my air supply and dive times.

We've now been practicing using the compass on our past 3 dives in WI lakes/quarries and it's tough. Our bouyancy is so much different in cold fresh water in a 7mm and you can't see sh!t so it's hard to control everything and still see your buddy.

The one thing I don't understand as we haven't practiced kick counting yet is how that leads to a relaxing, fun dive? Why would I want to count kicks when I'm out for recreation? It's one thing to pace count when you are doing a land navigation course or running battle lanes, it's an entirely different thing when I'm trying to enjoy a reef underwater. Can someone explain that to me?