PJF's Pages - Osprey Bay, Hook Is [Navigation]

Date:	2003-10-26	Location:	Osprey Bay, Hook Is [Navigation]
Weather:	Sunny	Dive Number:	8
Sea Conditions:	Calm	Visibility:	4-7m
Dived From:	Stella Maris (boat)	Weights:	9kg
Time In:	10:14	Time Out:	11:00
Depth:	8.7m	ABT:	35 minutes
Start Group:	C	Residual N2:	39 minutes
End Group:	E	TBT:	74 minutes

The final dive in our 'specialist' training, this was our navigational dive. However it appears that the dive operators failed to bring any compasses on their vessel, so while we got to read about them, the dive itself was focused entirely on natural navigation. I'm wasn't particularly impressed when we were informed there were no compasses for the dive.

The dive was through warm, shallow, tropical waters with plenty of coral and scenery, and no strong currents, so natural navigation was pretty straightforward. We had the position of the sun, the direction of the ripples in the sand, and a number of very distinctive landmarks by which to go by, so navigation was a breeze.

As I was to discover quite some time later, natural navigation doesn't work particularly well in the colder, darker, deeper waters around Melbourne where I live. It's not as easy to tell the direction of the sun, there may be no sand (or no ripples in it), and often there are no landmarks except for the dive site itself. A compass is a very good tool for these later dives.

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