navigation

[budgy]

When you dive in the middle of winter in water thats freezing cold with little to no vis, you may have difficulty proving your sanity. When you regularly repeat such actions even in foul weather, there is very little defence. The question is are you dangerous? They won't lock us up these days, the national health has no money, and we have a national policy of care in the community for nutters like me.

 

[Scottri]

The best advice I can give on navigation is to always trust the compass. There will be times when instinct tells you one thing and your compass tells you another. Go with the compass! Using natural navigation is a great skill to learn. Pay attention to what you are seeing as far as features of the bottom, reef ect... A good dive watch is a great help in timing your swim in a certain direction so you know how long to swim on the return. Learning to use all of the tools available takes a little time but combined they make it easy to navigate. Good luck and have fun.


Scott

 

[sharpenu]

There are other ways to find shore WITHOUT using the compass for precise direction. Try these:

Ripples on the bottom are always paralell to shore.

The water usually gets more shallow as you approach shore (except in the case of sand bars)

Surge goes alternately to and away from shore

Most reef lines run paralell to shore- here in Fla that would be north and south

These tips help keep me oriented. I rarely have to look at the compass. If I am on the shallow side of a reef line in the Atlantic and the reef is on my right, I am swimming north and the beach is to my left (west)

Here in FL, the shore is to the east when in the gulf, and to the west when in the ocean. Get confused, you go to Mexico or the Bahamas- the hard way.

 

[ebbtide]

practice practice practice practice
practice practice

makes perfect be filmaure with your gear above and below the water ive recently got a new dive computer and dont fully know how to use it even tho ive read the book several times . i need the hands on experience so ill have to make sveral shallow water dives (15 to 20 ft ) in good vis to be acustome with it .
agin IVE got to practice practice practice practice
ya you will get tired of practice but it WILL pay off in the long run !

rob