Navigation skills (or lack thereof)

[Kalatin]

I am a terrible underwater navigator. On land, my directional skills are not good and often involve obscure landmarks from eight years ago (turn left at the funny looking bush down the road from the house with the funny yard sign for Al Gore). I have tried to apply these navigational "skills" to my diving, with no success. I have taken a course and get the theory. I am just having a terrible time actually making it work underwater.
As more things become "natural" to me on a dive and more bandwidth becomes available, being unable to navigate with any success has become increasingly bothersome. This is a basic skill and I need to get a handle on it. The other day, I handed off my compass to another diver. When asked what I was going to do without a compass, I confessed that a compass on my wrist is completely useless. Embarrassing, but accurate.
In my continuing quest to suck less as a diver, let's hear your hints, tips, and tricks for underwater navigation. How did you learn? How did you improve? I am going to get a bunch more practice with my regular buddies, as admitting a weakness is a guaranteed way to get more practice with my crew. Practice practice practice. Any other advice?
-Kate

[Sounder]

You just need practice... it's not hard once it "clicks."

[Alex]

I would say try all these skills above water first... Have someone with you knows how to do it and have them show you or read over your book again. Then, go outside and try taking some headings and work on basic paterns just to get a feel for it. Make sure you count your paces so for example take a heading and go forward for 10 paces take a 90 degree turn then another 10 paces etc. If there are obsticles in your way like a bush go around it and get back on your heading. Just do that untill you can start at a certain point in your yard and using only the compas and paces go out to a certain point and return to where you started.

[Pez7378]

Diving a site frequently, helps a great deal in learning to navigate that particular site. When diving a familiar site, I rarely if ever look at my compass.

Diving a new or unfamiliar site is much different. Here is what I do. While on shore, I get my bearings by determining which direction N S E W are. Then I face the water, and while looking down the lubber line (Red fixed line) I turn my Bezel (spinny part with the numbers) until the two marks that look like a W are at the N point of the compass card. (there are two opposing marks on your Bezel which are represented by something like a W and V) By doing this, when the North arrow is pointing at the V mark, I know I am heading towards shore. (Reciprocal Heading or Azimuth)

If it's sunny, determine the position of the sun, and guestimate where it will be during your dive. If you're turned around, look up. The position of the sun will give you a general idea which way you are going.

Pay attention to the current. Watch the vegatation.

Look for the ripples in the sand. Generally they run parrallel to the shoreline.

When you begin your dive (after descending) take a compass bearing. Whenever you get to a land mark, do it again. And each time you change direction.

If all else fails, USE THE FORCE. Sometimes you just "know" which way you're going.

[Joshua Smith]

I think everyone should know what direction the entry point is, when shore diving- Do what Alex recommended- try taking a simple bearing with your compass, then seeing if you can duplicate it- on dry land. Do it over and over again.... then do it underwater.

[scottsax]

My biggest stumbling block is, not surprisingly, my brain. While I have very good "instinctive" navigation skills on land, underwater not so much. I have to force myself to trust my compass. "Thank you, brain, for your assistance in getting me to the dive site, but right now I need you to take a break. I'll call on you on the way home."

I'd be in to going out to a park and doing some compass navigation on land sometime...

[Sounder]

Redondo is great for practicing. When you're at the deeper structures, the slope actually goes back up-hill as you continue west. This will REALLY screw with your head at 100fsw when you're a bit narc'ed and your brain says go one way while your compass says go the other... trust the compass.

[lurch]

Start simple. Grab a snorkel and navigate to the honeybear at Cove 2 on the surface. Get a bearing from one of the boundary line buoys, pop the snorkel in and kick. Don't look up to check your progress. Once you're confident you can swim from the 4th buoy to the piling that marks the bow consistently try it underwater. This map can help. Enter at the Silver Cloud at Muk and take a heading on the surface to the geodome buoy. Submerge and follow that heading until you hit the geodome. Reverse the headings and return to your starting point after a short dive, swap out your tank and try again (though at the Muk Silver Cloud I'd shoot for the end of the fishing pier for a second dive to keep it shallower). There's the buoy marking 60fsw at cove 2 that would work too. The honeybear would be a good second (shallower) dive afterwards. Work your way "up" to more complex routes ie: ### degrees to X, ## degrees to X, ### degrees to X, ### degrees back to shore.

[Pez7378]

Redondo is great for practicing. When you're at the deeper structures, the slope actually goes back up-hill as you continue west. This will REALLY screw with your head at 100fsw when you're a bit narc'ed and your brain says go one way while your compass says go the other... trust the compass.

Right..TRUST the compass. And use both the numbers and the letters. Know that 90 deg. is West. 180 is South 270 is East and 0 or 360 is North. And to find a reciprocal heading, anything from 1 deg to 180 deg. Add 180. A compass heading of 180-360 Subtract 180.

[scottsax]

Redondo is great for practicing. When you're at the deeper structures, the slope actually goes back up-hill as you continue west. This will REALLY screw with your head at 100fsw when you're a bit narc'ed and your brain says go one way while your compass says go the other... trust the compass.

Right..TRUST the compass. And use both the numbers and the letters. Know that 90 deg. is West. 180 is South 270 is East and 0 or 360 is North. And to find a reciprocal heading, anything from 1 deg to 180 deg. Add 180. A compass heading of 180-360 Subtract 180.

Yeah, I've done a fair amount of hunting and hiking navigating by compass. But brain functions different underwater. :naka:

[Dusty2]

It is tough to use above water practice to learn underwater navigation for one simple reason. It's to easy to cheat on land. you can just look ahead and know where you are going. Underwater you can't cheat cause you can't see those distant landmarks.
Try this, do the practices on land but do them on a nice dark night where you can't cheat. Preferably a large unlighted open area that you know is flat and safe. Have a friend stand 100 ft away with a small penlight and take your headings on them then have them turn off the light. Turn around couple times Then using your compass only walk 30 paces in that direction. you should be very near your friend at this point. If that works ok then turn 180 degrees and walk back 30 paces. You should now be at your starting point or very near it. Stop and using your compass only turn back to the original heading. Have your friend turn on their light. if you are doing it right you should be pointing right at it. If not do it over and remember to get that 180 deg number the easyest way is to simply look at your compass while still pointing in the original direction. The number directly across the dial from your heading (closest to you) is your 180. No math, no figuring just a simple glance at the dial

[Grateful Diver]

Compass headings are only part of the picture ... they only tell you what direction you're going.

In order to navigate underwater, you also need to keep track of a few other things.

Start by establishing which direction is out and which is in. That's your "starting line". Then, when you descend ... say down a buoy or anchor line ... note your depth. That's the basic "X" on the line.

As you proceed on your dive, note which direction you're going relative to that starting line. Also keep track of how long you go in that direction (a bottom timer is generally the most practical way to measure it). Use that information to build a little mental "map" in your head of where you're going, relative to the "out/in" line you started on.

When you're ready to come back to the buoy, all you need do is swim to the depth you started at and either turn left or right ... depending on which side of the starting line you're on.

Remember the three D's ... depth, direction, distance. Using those three pieces of information you can generally keep track of where you are, relative to where you want to end up.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Sockmonkey]

Looking on the googles I found a couple pages that outline basic scuba nav:

http://www.ukdivers.net/diving/uwnav.htm
http://www.geocities.com/k_o_dionysus/s ... .html#comp

The quality of the writing is up for debate.... but regardless of how useful or valid the information in these links are... they're keeping me awake at work.

-Eric

[gcbryan]

I'm sure all of the basic advice/hints have been given but I would just say that you will get better with practice over time of course. In the meantime keep it simple. If you set your compass with a relative heading of North heading out to the deepest area straight out from shore and therefore South will take you straight back to shore you can't get too lost. At least you can always get shallow and back to shore.

By using relative headings you will also know that East is right and West is left (both running parallel to shore) when heading out. After you go to a certain site more than one time you will develop a picture of that site in your head (you can look at site maps as well to help develop this skill).

If you have a map in your head as long as you have one fixed point that you do recognize then it's easy to navigate to all of the other points in a relative way.

After while you also remember certain landmarks on your way out and therefore recognize them again on your way back. As was mentioned you need to factor time into all this. If you go parallel to shore one way for 20 minutes then when you turn around it's going to be approximately 20 minutes before you return to the starting point.

For me the basic starting point though is setting your compass before you get into the water so that North points straight out and South points straight back towards shore.

I'll add even though many places can be navigated without the use of compass if you've been there enough times there are days when viz is so bad that you don't see any of those recognizable landmarks and it's mainly the compass at this point that you will be relying on.

[Scubak]

Give me a shout and we can do some dives on UW Navigation.
How bout this weekend!
Its really quite simple once the lightbulb pops on!
Kirsten

[GetWet]

Do you use something to write on when you are diving? It's handy to make notes of things like the depth you need to get back to, some of the things your observations. For me it helps to record the things that need remembering for when I want to return to the starting point. You can also use this for recording times in specific directions. I think in time we'll be able to do this in our head, but for now, I need to write it down.

Good luck! I'll be out there practicing too! Well, that is as soon as I can get back in the water! Have fun