Navigation?

[TheRedHead]

Hi All,

Just finished my OW a week ago and I was contemplating taking a navigation class. I feel we didn't do enough navigation in class to be able to apply it practically. It seems to me that navigation is a very important skill in diving at any depth, anywhere.

Questions: Is this a good class to take right after open water? What additional skills are taught? How many "practical" open water dives does the student get to do?

Thanks in advance!

 

[mack50md]

One thing nice about navigation, its one of the few skills you can practice on land.

Compass skills and land lubber orienteering principles are very similar in water. It's all a matter of finding direction and measuring distance and what to do when you have to go around something to get from point A to B. For insance, instead of counting paces on land you count kick cyles in the water.

If you are a PADI diver, their Underwater Navigation Adventure course can be used as credit toward Advanced Open Water. This course is standard for AOW. I'm taking the course next weekend and I'm newly certified.

After reading the PADI "Adventures In Diving Manual", I found a lot of the material could have been taught in the OW course with a bit more class time (couple hours).

I agree with you. The basic course material and video gave you just enough information to point a compass and swim a short distance in a straight line with some relative confidence.

I say go for it if you want to do it!

 

[donacheson]

Hi All,

Just finished my OW a week ago and I was contemplating taking a navigation class. I feel we didn't do enough navigation in class to be able to apply it practically. It seems to me that navigation is a very important skill in diving at any depth, anywhere.

Questions: Is this a good class to take right after open water? What additional skills are taught? How many "practical" open water dives does the student get to do?

Thanks in advance!

IMHO (based on a lot of wreck and reef dives), compass-based navigation skills are not especially useful. On steel wrecks, compass readings can be deceptive. On reefs, there are usually just too many twists and turns.

I've found getting an overall picture of the dive site from a good dive briefing or asking questions of divemasters AND paying attention to the overall layout of the wreck or reef along with a deliberate effort to identify landmarks a better way to navigate in the sense of either returning to a fixed point (such as the anchor or mooring line) or reaching a given end point at the end of a drift dive.

If the dive is relatively shallow and the visibility good, wave direction and sun direction (especially in the morning or afternoon) are also good navigation tools. Ripples in the sand can also be a good indicator of direction.

I recently spent a week diving with my daughter in St. Vincent. She's always been remarkable navigator. To conclude one dive, she returned us straight to the anchor after 90 minutes over almost featureless sand, coral rubble, and a few small coral heads. I asked her how she did it; "I just memorized the coral heads on the way out and followed them back."

In short, there are other, important ways to navigate other than using a compass.

 

[pasley]

Navigation is an important skill. There is nothing like swimming out to sea, when you think you are heading to shore on a night beach dive. Have a friend walk beside you so you don't break you neck and practice on land with a blanket or towel over your head. It is good practice.

You need to lean all the ways, including the compass. Looking at your surroundings and looking back behind you so you know what it will look like on the return trip are all good things to know.

The navigation class will teach you how to read the compass, count your kick ccycles, watch for clues kike the ripples in the sand that normally run parrell to shore, so if you are corssing the ripples you are either heading to shore or out to sea, but not parrell to shore. It is normally taken iwth the Advance course, but you can do it now. The advance course is a good thing to take after you have some time and dives under your belt (say 40-50)

 

[GDI]

Yes it is a important skill and yes it is a good class to take

 

[TheRedHead]

Navigation is an important skill. There is nothing like swimming out to sea, when you think you are heading to shore on a night beach dive. Have a friend walk beside you so you don't break you neck and practice on land with a blanket or towel over your head. It is good practice.

Yo nee dto lean all the ways, including the compass. Looking at your surroundings and looking back behind you so you know what it will look like on the return trip are all good things to know.

The navigation class will teach you how to read the compass, count your kick ccycles, watch for clues kike the ripples in the sand that normally run parrell to shore, so if you are corssing the ripples you are either heading to shore or out to sea, but not parrell to shore. It is normally taken iwth the Advance course, but you can do it now. The advance course is a good thing to take after you have some time and dives under your belt (say 40-50)

Hi All:

I don't plan to do the Advanced OW yet. I feel I performed pretty poorly during the navigation part of the OW dive. My cert is through SSI and you cannot do the AOW with fewer than 25 logged dives, but I want to learn more about navigation because I did not remotely master it and it would be helpful for quarry diving where there is poor viz and I want to be able to find the submerged stuff without accidentally running into it.

I bought a copy of PADI's "Adventures in Diving" on ebay for $4.00 and the chapter on navigation mentions all of the methods you guys have pointed out in your posts:

Distance Estimation (arm spans, kick cycles)
Waves, current, sun angle
Natural references
Light and shadows
Water movement
Bottom composition
Plants and animals

and how all of the above can be used in navigation. I was wondering if the class would be useful enough to spend the $$$ on or if I could try these things on my own without endangering myself. What I need to do is practical application and wanted to know what a typical navigation class covers in the practical dives.

Thanks!

 

[pasley]

Hi All:
... I was wondering if the class would be useful enough to spend the $$$ on or if I could try these things on my own without endangering myself. What I need to do is practical application and wanted to know what a typical navigation class covers in the practical dives.

Thanks!

The class is normally a briefing on the above, and one dive. You be the judge of its value to you at this time.

Personally I would save the money and do i tmy self for now. IMHO with a dive buddy, you could very eaisly practice this yourself in the ocean of your choice. The land practice is very usefull too. The army taught me land navigation. In the water I just add the other elements (sand ripples etc) to what I was taught in the Army and I am there. My navigation is very precise, I am talking free water ascent to anchor chain slapping you in the back on surfacing percise. It just takes practice and learning to trust your compass. I find it very usefull to:
A. Get a picture in my head of the dive site area.
B. I rarely use kick cycles any more. I more or less use bottom time and ""ok we went this way for 10 minutes, and adjust a little for current direction we need to go that way for "x" minutes".
C. I also tend to use N, S, E, W, NW, SW, NE, SE more than say 135 Degrees (SE) unless the situation demands more precision which it normally does not.
Last but not least, you have to 1. Hold the compass level for it to work and 2. Trust your compass.

The practice on shore with the towell or blanket on your head is very helpfull and can be done in a local park or large back yard or beach. Just start out and determine to do an out and back or triangle course. Have some one walk with you to keep you from hitting a tree or hole. Start out in one direction and return to the spot of orgin after completing your triangle or out and back course.

When on dives, NEVER trust the navigation of another. ALWAYS even if you are not leading (and leading a dive is a good way to improve your skills. There nothing like having others rely on you to get you focused) you should always be checking the navigation yourself. Many dives at the end when we are heading for shore I have tapped the dive leader on the shoulder and politely pointed in the opposite direction. I am just not a big fan of swimming out to sea at the end of the dive when we wanted to go to shore.

I hope this helps. In the end only you can determine if it is worth the $$ now for you to take the course.

 

[mack50md]

I was wondering if the class would be useful enough to spend the $$$ on or if I could try these things on my own without endangering myself. What I need to do is practical application and wanted to know what a typical navigation class covers in the practical dives.

The PADI Underwater Navigation Adventure course is based on the student doing the book reading and chapter quizz on their own and watching a short video. The quizz answers are validated by the DI at the dive site and collected for your dive folder. There is no formal written test. The practical exercise is to find your personal measured distances (cycles) over a measured course and, navigate courses briefed by the DI with a buddy under the guidance of the DI.

I would certainly take Pasley's advice about the land exercise. Excellent suggestion to simulate 0 viz. or night conditions.

As for the value $$$ of the course that's a decision you have to make. Depends on your personal level of confidence. I don't see any problem going out and practicing if you have a competent dive buddy that can get you back safely and dive conditions are acceptable and familiar to you.

I'm doing it as part of an AOW weekend. I'm not looking at it from the perspective of coming out an "advanced diver". I'm looking at it as a finer tuning of OW with the added bonus of having a DI on hand to help me out and have some fun in the process. I've got a long, long, way and many, many dives to go before I would ever believe I'm "advanced" in this sport.

BTW the PADI book kinda glossed over the part about the use for a compass board. I plan to carry a dive slate for jotting down headings and references.

-Good Diving

 

[teknitroxdiver]

A good tactic I have learned through trial and error is to do two thing: Keep an idea of the 'big picture', and swim to points.

For the big picture, keep a mental image of what the dive site looks like, and move yourself around in your mind to keep track of where you go. Swimming to points basically involves looking around, finding an obvious landmark, swimming to it, finding another landmark, swimming to it, and so on. Then you just follow them back. Depending on vis, it's possible to follow the same landmarks in and out but see different things by going to either side of the landmark.

 

[TheRedHead]

The PADI Underwater Navigation Adventure course is based on the student doing the book reading and chapter quizz on their own and watching a short video. The quizz answers are validated by the DI at the dive site and collected for your dive folder. There is no formal written test. The practical exercise is to find your personal measured distances (cycles) over a measured course and, navigate courses briefed by the DI with a buddy under the guidance of the DI.

I would certainly take Pasley's advice about the land exercise. Excellent suggestion to simulate 0 viz. or night conditions.

As for the value $$$ of the course that's a decision you have to make. Depends on your personal level of confidence. I don't see any problem going out and practicing if you have a competent dive buddy that can get you back safely and dive conditions are acceptable and familiar to you.

I'm doing it as part of an AOW weekend. I'm not looking at it from the perspective of coming out an "advanced diver". I'm looking at it as a finer tuning of OW with the added bonus of having a DI on hand to help me out and have some fun in the process. I've got a long, long, way and many, many dives to go before I would ever believe I'm "advanced" in this sport.

BTW the PADI book kinda glossed over the part about the use for a compass board. I plan to carry a dive slate for jotting down headings and references.

-Good Diving

I think I will take Pasley's advice and try the land navigation with a towel. For the price of the course I can do a 4 or 5 (maybe 6?) dive weekend at the quarry and practice the skills in the book there.

When I did my OW navigation skill, I was using a rented reg with computer and no compass. I had to use a compass slate and look at the computer in order to maintain my depth. I was too task overloaded to get much out of the exercise, and it was surprisingly difficult to attend to both at the same time. I now have a compass and can't wait to try it.

I will eventually do my advanced open water too. Right now, there are just some things I want to learn just to learn them. Search and recovery sounds interesting too.

Good luck with your class!