I am a notoriously bad navigator. Shockingly, embarrassingly inept. On the navigation dive for my advanced course, I swam a triangle instead of a square. Tony tried to console me by telling me that “a triangle is a more difficult shape to swim”, but doing it by accident doesn’t make it any less pathetic.
With this in mind, he gave me the PADI Navigation Specialty for my birthday last year. It’s been a great help. The manual deals with basic compass navigation, and then progresses to more advanced topics. It covers marking a particular spot – taking a bearing off several landmarks so that you can find it again – as well as estimating distances and bearings in the presence of a current.
Tools of the navigation trade
The course involves three dives on which specific skills are practised. I learned about natural navigation, using a Nav-Finder to follow an irregular path, and lots about compass navigation in general. It’s made me a more confident underwater navigator, which can only be a good thing!
Claremont Virgin Active - note the scuba divers at the end of the pool!
We spent Friday in a 24 degree swimming pool with a bunch of kids aged 8 and up. We were conducting Bubblemaker programs, open to all kids 8 and older and it was amazing how quickly they took to scuba gear. A small 10 litre cylinder looks huge when strapped to an eight year old, but within minutes they had the concept, good buoyancy and were off to explore the pool.
Bubblemakers in the pool
The wind was not kind in False Bay this weekend but we managed to dive with Open Water students on Saturday and Sunday in a calm and pleasant Simon’s Town yacht basin. Saturday afternoon we braved the rough ocean for Rescue diver course and despite the rough surface conditions we had good viz and pleasant diving. Many divers, eager to get wet, braved the wind on Saturday and I reckon there were easily 50 divers in the water.
The Sodwana weekend is here and 10 of us are off for a taste of warmer water and a relaxing long weekend. We leave on Thursday and will be back on Tuesday 12th. Gerard, Tami, Justin and Sophie will return as Advanced divers and Clare will complete her Underwater Navigator speciality. I hope to be armed with lots of humorous stories and many, many incriminating photos. Did you know you can make a fortune selling your friends’ incriminating evidence of them misbehaving purely buy using this statement: “How much will you pay me to keep this photo OFF facebook…?” Hehehe… Very profitable…
I am starting a new Open Water course on Wednesday 13th so I will be in the water every day from Wednesday to Sunday.
I plan to book a boat again for Saturday 16th to visit another wreck in Smitswinkel Bay. We will also simulate a few rescue scenarios on the trip so it will be fun. The last dive we did there was pleasantly rewarded with whales right next to us as we surfaced.
I am keen for a night dive again on Saturday 16th, I have torches and cyalumes. Sunday the 17th we plan to dive at Boulders and see if we can coax a few penguins to pose for us for a photo shoot… Underwater that is…
Be good, have fun, and go diving.
Don’t forget to get your dive permit from a post office.
