How are you at Navigation?

[Teamcasa]

To me, navigation is two things.
It is skill that can be learned or it is an innate ability some people just seem to process.

For me, and I can not explain it, navigation comes easy and I seem to always know where I am and what direction I need to go in order to find what I'm looking for.

My lovely bride just does not have this ability and as such never leads a dive. We do work on the compass skills and if pressed, she can do it if she starts the dive and makes notes as to headings and such.

Many of the buddy's I have used ask if I can navigate and as a result, I end up leading most of the dives. How about you?

[300bar]

I do 99% of all navigation.
But then again 90% of my dives are with students.:D
For me it's just as walking the street,just end up where I started or where I need to be.

Do I never get lost :confused: Heck yes,in new locations I do sometimes have to take a new surface barring.But I'm not ashamed to do so.:no:

Most divers I've seen getting lost,never took a new barring, just kept on going in the wrong direction.

[*dave*]

I have internal GPS. Unfortunately, it doesn't include an altimeter/depth gauge, so I need to pay close attention to depth and surroundings.

When I first started, my navigation was spot on, but my SA left a bit to be desired. Like golf, half the trick is getting distance down. Many times, I'd blow past the boat or target because I was too deep to recognize the landmarks I'd seen on entry.

Now, I'll spend a few minutes noting the depth of the anchor and taking in the landmarks from different perspectives. On my return, I'll match the depth I observed the anchor from once I get close.

[Lottifish]

I'm terrible at it. Leave it to me and I will swim North when I meant to go South every time! By the time I get to the bottom of the anchor I'm completely turned around.

[sabbath999]

I am terrible but trying to improve.

I am fine at dive sites I know, but at new sites I am bad.

I am especially bad if somebody is leading the dive, I don't really know why... I do better if I have to rely on myself to find my way back. Also, if I am taking pictures I am concentrating on that and not as much as I need to be on navigation.

I WILL get better, but right now I stink.

[TSandM]

I've gotten good at running a compass (no matter what my husband says) and it's a crucial skill here in Puget Soup. I'm also very good at recognizing landmarks and knowing where I've been. Where my navigation comes apart is in finding the boat again, when diving off a charter in unfamiliar territory where there isn't much slope to the bottom (and therefore depth contours aren't very useful).

I had a very embarrassing dive off the Spectre in Southern California. I had two buddies I didn't know before the dive, and therefore one of them led. I kind of paid attention to depth and how much time we had swum away from the boat, but we wound through the kelp, in and out of rock structures, and I remember thinking at some point, "Boy, I'm glad "x" knows where he is!" Shortly thereafter, "X" turned around and signaled to me, "You're #1." I had a moment of near panic, as I thought, "We may end up in Japan if you depend on ME to get us back!" But I got us near, and then asked with the hand signals, "Question, boat?" And we were almost directly under the anchor line.

I don't do much of that kind of diving, and I'm not very good at it.

[Jim Lapenta]

I was fortunate in that during my Ow checkouts there was a guy who is no longer diving but had a scary sense of direction. His Nav skills were downright awesome. I made my mind up during the next few times we dove together to get as good as he was. I don't know if I'm quite there yet but it's damn close. He instilled in me the idea that every dive is a skills dive and along with whatever other skill I choose to work on, UW Nav is ALWAYS one of them. I took it upon myself to write an Underwater Navigation course for my agency. It is still under review with other new courses but I am allowed to teach it now. Any instructor who asks for guidance with a nav course will get the materials as I wrote them.

The problem I see with UW Nav and why some have such difficulty with it goes back to OW training. I put more than required in my course with Nav. Not alot but more than set a heading and follow it out to the marker, platform, etc. I also make it clear that even as a new diver, trusting a DM or guide to take you where you want to go and get you back is not the ideal way to dive. You still should be watching for landmarks, taking a compass heading, noting depths, and times. If you're not doing this you are only adding to the risk factor should something happen to the guide or you get seperated. You don't need to be an expert all at once. But it is so easy to just note the direction you started out on, the depth of the site, how long you've been swimming, and how much air you used. All of this is valuable info to get back to where you started. Not doing it is just plain laziness.

If you really have issues with it, make it a priority to work on this skill every dive or get more training with a good instructor and then work on it on every dive.

[stefo2]

I find using a compass is one of the things that you "forget" unless you do it regularly. Every time I hold one again (be it on a dive or on land) it takes me a good while to work it out again.
I'm not bad at natural navigation, usually have a fair idea of where I am and while I have got a little lost and came up to get my bearings, I have never been completely surprised at where I came up.

Most of my diving has been done on fairly easy to navigate sites, though, with realively clear depth contours.

[300bar]

Any instructor who asks for guidance with a nav course will get the materials as I wrote them.

Allway's willing to learn more,so I would be interested to see.

[paddler3d]

I've always found that my navigation skills were spot on and solid, even before the Army. In the Army I had a job were navigation was my job.

I've found that there are really two form of navigation. As someone mentioned prior, there is terrain association (natural navigation) and there is mechanical navigation (compass).

I've also found that people either have a natural intuitive ability to know where they are or they don't.

I've found that a lot of folks can navigate using the terrain, okay. However compass skills seem to throw folks for a loop. I don't think that it isn't because enough time is not spent on teaching compass skills in OW, I think it is because OW is the first time a lot of folks pick up a compass.

I've learned that I like to get lost. Sounds weird. I haven't done it successfully yet, or I would be here now. It allows me to relax and enjoy the dive, or frankly what ever I'm doing.

What I've found works awesome for getting better at UW Nav is going to a quarry where the vis is poor and having to navigate 3 dimensionally from various suspended swim platforms to others. With the fact that the vis is poor, you have to maintain direction and depth awareness, and you cannot terrain associate, one can really improve ones navigation skills.

[NorthernShrinkage]

Learned in about grade 6 how to use a compass and did a lot of orienteering courses in school. Then proceeded to learn much more in the Military so i am very much at home with one.

That being said I definetly prefer a regular compass to anything digital I have switched to my compass mode on the Vyper maybe twice and dont care for it at all. I generaly just set a heading as a guide and as checking it just remeber I am way left or right of where I want to be and correct upon my return. It seems to work for me well enough that nobody I dive with is willing to do the driving and follow behind .

[merxlin]

I found this poll but was looking for the classifieds...........

[300bar]

I found this poll but was looking for the classifieds...........
:rofl3::rofl3::rofl3:
:dork2:

[NorthernShrinkage]

I found this poll but was looking for the classifieds...........

Well thanks for letting us know you stopped by:mooner:

[ssidiv3r]

I took a Nav course shortly after my OW and after a bit of practice I started getting comfortable with it and was able to maintain depth a lot better than when I started. In local quarries I almost always know where I am even though I still try to use my compass at least every other dive. For new sites (i.e. NC wrecks) I haven't had any trouble getting back to the anchor line, however, I might have inherited a small sense of Nav from my father who is a merchant marine

[Teamcasa]

I found this poll but was looking for the classifieds...........

Keep going 25 kick cycles on a 120 heading, turn right to 190 and then 15 kick cycles, it's on your left.

[300bar]

:lol:

[Jim Lapenta]

Allway's willing to learn more,so I would be interested to see.

PM sent. Should have made it clear that it is available for SEI instructors via SEI HQ. I do occaisionally make the student guide available on a very limited basis myself.

[charlesg3]

I am able to follow a compass heading well but that imo isn't very difficult. For me what helps navigation is trying to keep a mental picture of an overhead view map of the site. I dive a lot of shore sites and coves and I try to remember at all times what direction the cove is and then check the compass to make sure I'm right. Every time I surface I try to point at the direction of shore and check once I can see.

Adding in the natural navigation cues is what helped my navigation get a lot better... to the point where I'm not checking the compass as often. When going for lobsters, when you find a rock or the like you swim to it and then search all around (under) it. Knowing which direction you were originally swimming in is a good test of nav skills.

It's funny when other people are leading who are not great at navigation. We discuss where we're trying to go at the surface and they start out in the right direction but get turned and don't notice. Sometimes I let them swim and figure it out, but sometimes I'll go flag them down give them the signal for the direction they should be swimming.

[RJP]

Navigation is easy if you're a wreck diver...

There's a line.
There's a boat on either end.
Follow the line to the boat on the bottom.
Follow the line back to the boat on the top.

If both boats are on the bottom, it's a bad day.

[Atomic_Diver]

I am very very good about navigation, and if the viz is bad, i just cheat and use my Cave diving reel, and tie off and do pretty much an expanding circle, for instance, i went solo diving off of ft.myers, FL the other day with 25' viz, and a depth of 60' i had Nitrox 40% and dove whine doing an expanding circle, with double LP 121's and had an amazing dive, surfaced, exactly at the same spot i entered, and went home.......

[boulderjohn]

Navigation is easy if you're a wreck diver...

There's a line.
There's a boat on either end.
Follow the line to the boat on the bottom.
Follow the line back to the boat on the top.

If both boats are on the bottom, it's a bad day.

I know RJP was kidding, but there is a serious point hidden there.

A lot depends upon where you dive.

There are many places which call for good navigation skills from the start. If you dive those locations regularly, you have to have good navigation skills.

There are lots of places where navigation is so obvious you don't think about it. I am including typical drift dives and resort area dives led by a DM as well as the wrecks mentioned above. If that type of diving is what you do most frequently--or exclusively--you will forget any navigation skills you ever had before too long.

[merxlin]

Keep going 25 kick cycles on a 120 heading, turn right to 190 and then 15 kick cycles, it's on your left.

Thanks Dave. As usual, if I get to The Pub I've gone too far.

Although I do claim to be bad at nav, my nav skills aren't horrible, I just have a hard time recognizing natural landmarks. Honestly, on land, no map, no compass, no problem. Underwater I seem to lose that ability, compass or no compass. Out & back, left then right turn and come back. Its just when to head toward the boat thats an issue for me. That rock with the kelp looks just like the other rock and kelp to me. But I am working hard on it. I usually get us back even with the boats distance from shore, just inside or outside.

Maybe Dave will let me lead a dive tomorrow and help me "adjust" when needed.

[LeadTurn_SD]

Navigation is easy if you're a wreck diver...

There's a line.
There's a boat on either end.
Follow the line to the boat on the bottom.
Follow the line back to the boat on the top.

If both boats are on the bottom, it's a bad day.

:rofl3: Classic!

I was a ship's navigator in my 20's, so using a compass is easy.... but yes, if I don't pay attention I still get lost. :lotsalove:

The shorter sight distances underwater can make it easy to get "turned around" or miss a landmark... and sometimes long stretches of gently-sloping coral reef can begin to look uniform, and it is easy to miss a turn point.

So my "sub-surface" navigation will always be "getting better" with time.... no sextants underwater (yes, we used sextants back then, GPS was still rare).

Best wishes.

[Teamcasa]

Navigation is easy if you're a wreck diver...

There's a line.
There's a boat on either end.
Follow the line to the boat on the bottom.
Follow the line back to the boat on the top.

If both boats are on the bottom, it's a bad day.

Good one! But following a string is not really navigation, it more like what Hansel and Gretel did but without the dissolving bread crumbs.

[boulderjohn]

If both boats are on the bottom, it's a bad day.

Especially if you are using surface supplied air.

[dwhthediver]

:lol:

[@sea]

I always carry a compass with me.
On a few dive sites it's very useful.
For this reason I recommend the compass for any diver.
It’s not too much to carry even if you don’t use it all the time.

[Teamcasa]

Maybe Dave will let me lead a dive tomorrow and help me "adjust" when needed.

Last time I let a guy lead a dive in the dive park we ended up in Ensenada:)

[fdog]

Weeeellll....this last weeekend I had to appoligize profusely to my team mates - returning from Three Sisters, I had missed our staging buoy, at the boat ramp at Point Lobos, by about 10'.

Darn. Mea culpa.


All the best, James

[Buoyant1]

I can usually find my way to the surface...I'm not quite that bad but I have had my moments of precise navigation. I can usually prevent long surface swims to a boat, but have a tough time sometimes at my local quarry.

I'm getting better at it though.

[pdelannoy]

How good I am at navigating depends on the conditions. In the ocean with good visibility I do pretty well without a compass. But in the lake where I train, visibility can be so bad that you must rely entirely on your compass skills.

PD

[boulderjohn]

So I was trying out a scooter for the first time, taking a class. Our instructions were to take a heading, descend on a line created by shooting an SMB up from a spool to near the bottom (about 45 feet), scooter out on that heading for two minutes, make a turn, scooter back on the reciprocal, make a turn around the descent line using a specified technique, get back on the original heading, and then repeat (2 minutes out; 2 minutes back) until we had demonstrated all required turn techniques.

Visibility was about 5 feet.

I have to admit I had some difficulty getting back to that descent line.

Where does that put me?

[fdog]

So I was trying out a scooter for the first time, taking a class. Our instructions were to take a heading, descend on a line created by shooting an SMB up from a spool to near the bottom (about 45 feet), scooter out on that heading for two minutes, make a turn, scooter back on the reciprocal, make a turn around the descent line using a specified technique, get back on the original heading, and then repeat (2 minutes out; 2 minutes back) until we had demonstrated all required turn techniques.
Visibility was about 5 feet.

I have to admit I had some difficulty getting back to that descent line.

Where does that put me?

Pretty darn good I'd say; that's some decent scooter work!

Given that the typical technical scooter runs about 180 fpm, your 2-minute runs are at least 300' long - being able to return to the same point in 5' vis indicates an error of less than a degree. Good one!

Compasss on the arm or the scooter? If it's on your arm, it's even more impressive.



All the best, James

[boulderjohn]

Pretty darn good I'd say; that's some decent scooter work!

Given that the typical technical scooter runs about 180 fpm, your 2-minute runs are at least 300' long - being able to return to the same point in 5' vis indicates an error of less than a degree. Good one!

Compasss on the arm or the scooter? If it's on your arm, it's even more impressive.



All the best, James

On the scooter. It would have been impressive if I had hit the mark, but I didn't. When I said "I had some difficulty," I meant it didn't happen.

[OnceLoyal]

I am getting there. It kind of sucks lately since my inst. is my DB.. This makes me feel a little to secure at times and I find myself relying on him to do the work. I am trying to get over this... Seems like it would be easy to do, but for some reason it is not :) . I will be taking a dive next week with a buddy and it will force me to do the work..........so!!!!!!! Can I answer this again next week?

[RJP]

Keep going 25 kick cycles on a 120 heading, turn right to 190 and then 15 kick cycles, it's on your left.

Unless you're wearing webbed gloves, in which case it's 4 kick cycles and then 2. (But you'll silt the whole place up and go OOA before you get back anyway.)

:eyebrow:

[BioLogic]

So far I've managed to upgrade from my natural ability (unbelievably miserably bad) to merely very bad. That's in my usual 5 ft vis haunts.

In Kona, I could have told myself I was as impressive as 'not good' as at the end of the dive I knew where I was to within a stone's throw without looking up to check for the hull.

[NWGratefulDiver]

I manage to find my way back to where I want to be ... most of the time ... ;)

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[RJP]

I manage to find my way back to where I want to be ... most of the time ... ;)

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

I heard an interesting definition of "natural navigation" the other day:

Natural Navigation: Lost, right up until the last moment.

[Pearldiver07]

I was blessed to learn navigation from a very good Sergeant First Class while enlisted in the Army, then while going through Officer Candidate School a retired special forces colonel came out and volunteered a lot of his time to help. I also spent several years living in the field to practice it. This is key. Without practice, acquired skills will fade quickly.

The first one got me used to looking at the topography (under water would be "Bottom-o-graphy"? ) The second taught me/us how to move with limited visibility without getting lost. Then I had a retired helicopter pilot, now scuba instructor help me translate those skills to an underwater environment.

There's more than one way to navigate. Kicking and staring at a compass is great if you're going out to locate a specific location/item, but unless you're doing that, this kind of navigation is limited. And not much fun either. You've also got to learn to follow the bottom, features, and keep an innate understanding of your relative location given your approximate travels.

I have to say that this all came together to provide a very solid set of skills. Now I try to help instructors learn to really navigate. I've seen some instructors who don't even know how to travel with a compass, and I've seen students trained by commercial entities (read that: REI) that also didn't understand how a compass will assist them best.

In Lake Travis I like to take off in an area, roughly following general headings, then without looking at the compass, come back and surface at the entry/exit point. I've missed a few times, but it's really fun when you nail it. I guess this is how I keep my skills from fading too.

[fisheater]

I was blessed to learn navigation from a very good Sergeant First Class while enlisted in the Army, then while going through Officer Candidate School a retired special forces colonel came out and volunteered a lot of his time to help..

For me, it was an assistant Scoutmaster when I was about 12 years old.


I also spent several years living in the field to practice it. This is key. Without practice, acquired skills will fade quickly...

Yep. Backpacking as a Scout and adult and then teaching it as a Scoutmaster myself. Becomes second nature after a while.


The first one got me used to looking at the topography (under water would be "Bottom-o-graphy"? ) ...

"Bathymetry," actually. (You asked!)

[plumcrazy]

I am pretty lousy at navigation, actually I down right stink at navigation. I basically have had two diving "careers. When I first got certified I exclusivly dove at resorts where Scuba was an activity much like wind surfing and we all followed the DM like cattle. this gave me the opportunity to forget everything I had ever learned in my basic OW class! Now on my second "career" I am diving with a group that kind of says "well here we are. Be back on the boat by "X: 30" have fun. " I am actually having A LOT more fun with this group !! My first attempt at leading the dive brought us to the surface at least 300 ft away from where I thought we were. Actually if you look at size of the ocean I guess 300 ft aint that bad............ things havn't improved much