How often do you use your compass?

[Hang Loose]

I added a compass to my first purchased gauge console. How important a compass is depends on the kind of diving you do. If you do any self-guided diving, you absolutely need a compass unless you are doing the most basic, perfect conditions, not moving much, type of diving. Ditto night-diving, poor visibility, significant current issues, wreck diving, cave diving, etc where you may get separated on a guide-led dive. It is important even in a drift dive, because if you get separated you will have a better idea on what to do to find your group or boat.

If you are a newbie I recommend you get one and start practicing with it to improve your navigation skills, because eventually you will move to self-guided diving. Having a compass doesn't help you unless you know what to do with it. There are specific navigation classes/instruction from different groups like PADI.

 

[TLRRHOBO]

Just something to think about! If your boat leaves you which has never happens unless your in Mexico, but if it does it would be nice to know which way help should be coming from.. Get a radio just in as a back up..

 

[billt4sf]

I carry my compass on every dive, but I don't actually use it on every dive. Most of my dives are drifts along a reef structure, so as long as I'm within sight of the reef, regardless of which way the current is running, I'm not in danger of getting "lost". But when in a bay or if I have to find a specific place, I do use it, and I like having it handy regardless of the dive, "just because." Here're some examples. We have a dive site here that's a series of pinnacles with sand between them. I generally go all or most of the way around the first pinnacle (current permitting) and then head over to the second one. I use a natural feature to know just where I need to head away from the first pinnacle, but I also know the bearing from that natural feature, and I check the compass to know how close I am to getting to it. Another dive site has a small wreck in deeper water off a sloping reef. Again, I've got a compass bearing I follow to get to the wreck, but I need the natural feature to know which point of the reef to start out from. When I start from the right place, I follow my bearing and get right to the wreck. In a big bay where the bottom all looks pretty similar, even in clear water I use a compass to get back to the mooring line and avoid a long surface swim; in this case I need to keep a pretty decent eye on the compass throughout the dive and to have a plan in mind for the route before splashing in.

I like this post because, although I carry a compass, I don't know how to use it very well (yet). [I am being honest about my limitations here.] Quero listed some examples of *How to use* the compass, which I appreciate, and I'd like to hear more of them. I assume that all of your example assume no current, right? And some assume that you know your dive site pretty well already. If there is current, it seems to me a compass would not be reliable.

For those of you who said you use a compass "every time", what do you do with it? Know the heading to the shore or boat? OK, that makes some sense. But unless you track yourself carefully as you swim, (which I don't think I have a mind for while I am diving, certainly not unless I wrote it all down) the compass is no more than "generally helpful", it seems to me.

Tell me why I am wrong and how I should use it (bearing in mind that I am not going to go out and take a huge navigation course any time soon.)

 

[DennisDiver1]

I check my compass every time before dive and durning dive. Just because some is leeding you do around may not be going on the right course. What happens if you get seperated?

 

[Quero]

I like this post because, although I carry a compass, I don't know how to use it very well (yet). [I am being honest about my limitations here.] Quero listed some examples of *How to use* the compass, which I appreciate, and I'd like to hear more of them. I assume that all of your example assume no current, right? And some assume that you know your dive site pretty well already. If there is current, it seems to me a compass would not be reliable. For those of you who said you use a compass "every time", what do you do with it? Know the heading to the shore or boat? OK, that makes some sense. But unless you track yourself carefully as you swim, (which I don't think I have a mind for while I am diving, certainly not unless I wrote it all down) the compass is no more than "generally helpful", it seems to me.

Tell me why I am wrong and how I should use it (bearing in mind that I am not going to go out and take a huge navigation course any time soon.)

In your AOW training you should have done an introductory navigation training dive (not talking about the "big" nav course, but just the one training dive meant to give you a notion of the skill). In that training dive, you may have noticed that in the practical exercises you are not required to get exactly back to where you started, but within some maximum distance from your starting point, like 20 or 50 feet. This is because you really only need to get "close enough" to avoid a long surface swim or a long walk along the beach to get back to your exit point/your moored boat. Keeping this in mind, consider that in my examples of using a compass to find the next pinnacle, the wreck, or the mooring, I really only need to get "close enough" in these cases as well. Usually a reef or a wreck are pretty big structures, and you see them looming out of the haze as you approach them,* even if there's a bit of a current pushing you off a direct heading. And while I often can't see a mooring line until I'm right on top of it, if I surface 20 or 50 feet from it, I'm close enough to the moored boat to swim comfortably on the surface or to signal for a tag line to be tossed to me. In a stronger current, you would have to compensate by angling your body a bit so that your kicking would help keep you on your heading. In a current, you may end up further from your target than you'd like, but you'll be closer than if you just headed for any old spot on shore or ascended wherever you happened to be and swam on the surface to the boat or shore.

*Searching for small things like a lost object (or, heaven forbid, a human victim) on the ocean floor often requires the use of a compass, but not so much for navigation as for controlling the search parameters, and so even here, precision in compass use isn't critical--the compass is only a tool to aid in the search.

 

[diverrex]

I like this post because, although I carry a compass, I don't know how to use it very well (yet). Quero listed some examples of *How to use* the compass, which I appreciate, and I'd like to hear more of them. I assume that all of your example assume no current, right? And some assume that you know your dive site pretty well already. If there is current, it seems to me a compass would not be reliable.

For those of you who said you use a compass "every time", what do you do with it? Know the heading to the shore or boat? OK, that makes some sense. But unless you track yourself carefully as you swim, (which I don't think I have a mind for while I am diving, certainly not unless I wrote it all down) the compass is no more than "generally helpful", it seems to me.

Tell me why I am wrong and how I should use it (bearing in mind that I am not going to go out and take a huge navigation course any time soon.)

An example: this weekend we dove a big rock coming up from the bottom and breaks the surface. The boat anchors maybe 50 yards from the rock. On the boat we take a bearing to the rock. We surface swim from the boat over to the rock and drop down. When we descend there is only kelp and sea weed, no distinguishing landmarks. We swim around the rock at depths from 75 - 50 FSW. It probably takes 25 - 30 minutes to swim around the rock. But how do you know at what point of the circle you are? The rock is so big and viz is maybe 15 feet it really all looks the same. By turning my back square to the rock with my compass I can see how far around we are, for instance when the compass shows the same bearing as from the boat we are half way around and pointing away from the boat. So we keep swimming, checking the compass every so often till it shows the bearing 180 degrees from the original bearing. That means we are all the way around the rock headed towards the boat and now we can swim a distance away from the rock towards the boat before we surface.

As said you don't have to be exact just close. In my example the last thing we would have wanted to do was surface on the far side of the rock away from the boat. I was pleased how close we ended to the boat, not exact but just a minor swim.

 

[FinnMom]

I'm fairly lazy, but even I restrict leaving the compass in the car to dives in small lakes & quarries. Otherwise, if I don't plan to use the compass I nonetheless note the cardinal directions of the dive site and any info regarding the site's distinguishing features, how the depths change around the area, etc. If I want to be lazy I can take this info and then stow the compass high on my sleeve or clipped in a pocket. If I need the compasses help I will at least have both the compass and some general information.
Maybe 15% of the time I plan to use and actively use the compass, but only about 10% of the time to I completely blow off taking it with me.

 

[CamG]

I use it every dive no matter where I am.
Oddly enough I have been lost in total silt storms in really familiar dive sites.
Bad enough even though I have a hundred dives there you could not tell where you were!
Down lines in the Great Lakes are pretty easy to find when you take your bearings right off.
Again we were taught early on to dive in almost zero vis using a compass in OW / AOW and I always carry it in OW.
No pool of coarse but that is it!

CamG

 

[fila56]

Your compass is not a toy but a necessary piece of your equipment that may very well save your life or that of another. First, learn to use it- even though you may have some experience with compasses on land, using a compass underwater is different. Also, navigation in scuba means also learning to pay attention to your surroundings and natural landmarks. Take a PADI course in Underwater Navigation and then Practice, Practice and Practice! You will enjoy your dives more and enhance your safety greatly!!!
Cheers!!!

 

[Robert Partridge]

I have been diving for about 40 years, and the times I've needed a compass. Are when I do shore dives. Because when you have a flat sandy bottom you can't see which direction your going with out surfacing so you have to follow your compass. Also arguably in caves. I believe the times, you will need a compass, you will find a wrist mounted compass, much easier to use than a counsel mounted compass. Using a compass makes it possible to swim a strait line under water, when there is nothing to follow or the visibility is bad.