Specialty of the Month – Underwater Navigation
Specialty of the Month – PADI Underwater Navigation
Learning to Navigate underwater is very different to doing it on dry land. With a constantly changing environment that is often unfamiliar it can be a challenge for a lot of divers.
My advice is if you are not confident in your navigational abilities is either to pay for a dive guide or learn how to do it yourself.
Being a good navigator makes you much more confident in the water which in turn leads to less stress, better air consumption and buoyancy control and ultimately is safer. I have seen several near misses in my time diving where a diver has popped up to the surface for a quick peek to see where the boat is, only to be narrowly missed by another boat!
The PADI Underwater Navigator course teaches you the main methods to help you navigate around a dive site including natural navigation and using a compass properly.
When people think of natural navigation they often just think of sand and rocks & boulders. But there are plenty of others too such as direction of the sun, sound, depth, marine life and wave direction.
Once you have learned the ways to navigate through the course then it is always a good idea to practice these skills and do them regularly.
We tend to teach our navigation courses at Wraysbury Dive Centre as we find it safe and challenging. i.e. visibility often means that you have to rely on your compass and if you do get lost or need to surface there are no strong currents or boat traffic.
There are 4 dives required to complete the course, or if you have already completed the PADI Advanced Open Water course then there are just 3 remaining as you will alreadty have completed a navigation adventure dive as part of your training.
Oyster Diving are offering a 10% discount on the PADI Underwater Navigation course which can be completed on either the 10-11th October or 24-25th October.