How often do you use your compass?

[KeithG]

Never. Just like in my car....

All of the dives I do are high visibility, terrain dives. There is always an identifiable slope. So a compass is not really needed unless your short term memory is ****. I always have one, rarely use it underwater.

I pay attention to the predive briefing and then use my compass predive to verify the orientation. Sometimes their "north" is really "east north east" which can really screw you up once you get underwater and try to rely on your compass.

Underwater it is a simple case of rembering am I going away from the boat or returning?

I have had to use it a few times underwater to provide "proof" to my direction challenged dive buddy that all those other divers are headed in the wrong direction. The boat is behind us, right over there, exactly where I left it. I do not care that they are swimming way from it. I am NOT following them.

 

[Bob DBF]

Only when I need it.



Bob
-------------------------
I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.

 

[Crass3000]

As often as it's needed. Lots of times it's pretty smart to take a reciprocal heading from shore. You want to know the direction of shore.

 

[drrich2]

Because of the type of vacation diving I do (mostly shore diving Bonaire) I don't need one much (very good viz., willing to pop up near shore to see where the exit point is, the reef slope lets me know my direction out & back), but even there, it can be useful.

Diving a site (I think Angel City) with unusually large waves one day, the surge was bad & stirring up sand. We had to abort out first attempt because the surge knocked us around in the shallows & the viz. was awful due to sand stirrred up, so we got disoriented. Went back in with compasses and could reorient to 'which way is the reef,' & got out to it. This was not this year, and I don't think it was typical of the dive site, but that happened one day.

Richard.

 

[spectrum]

Because of the type of vacation diving I do (mostly shore diving Bonaire) I don't need one much (very good viz., willing to pop up near shore to see where the exit point is, the reef slope lets me know my direction out & back), but even there, it can be useful.

As I remember down south between the double reefs orientation was less apparent.

Otherwise the slope of the fringing reef does tell a lot of the story.

Pete

 

[clownfish60]

Always have it... use it when it is needed. For shore diving.. I always take a bearing. Not so much for boat / drift diving.

 

[diverrex]

A compass can be useful out on the double reef at Bonaire where it flattens out. I also use it on the Hilma Hooker dive done from shore since it's an angle from the wreck back to the exit point. Most all other Bonaire dives it's the reef on one shoulder on the way out, the other shoulder back in, find your starting point and head back to shore.

 

[kaerius]

I use it for spread out divesites in light/no current, and for shore dives. It's not of much use on walls, circular reefs, channels/corners, drift dives, etc. I used it a lot in thailand, some in cyprus, hardly at all in the maldives(a couple of nightdives anchored to circular reefs I used it to surface close to the boat).

 

[TSandM]

I wear one on every dive. I don't always use it. Some of the sites we do allow fairly easy natural navigation. Others have little structure and little depth contour, and require a compass to get home. When I do a dive on structure where it's possible to keep the reef on my left throughout, or on the left going out and right coming back, I don't refer to the compass. When doing a dive with a guide over irregular structure, I'll check our outbound heading, so that if I get separated from the group, I know which direction to head back. It is a useful tool, among many useful tools for navigation, and although I don't always use it, the one thing I DON'T do is cede responsibility for a safe ending to the dive to someone else. If it's live boat, I don't much care where we are. If we have to get back, though, I want to make sure the person leading isn't having a senior moment . . .

 

[Peter Guy]

I have a compass on just about every dive -- but I almost never use it. Almost all of my diving is terrain based so I am using "natural navigation" instead of compass nav.

If I need to use it, for example, the next reef is on a course of 300, then I'll use it -- but I'll take natural navigation over compass nav every time I can.