Points to Remember While SSI Dive Navigation Specialty Course
After your Open Water certification, if you are diving locally, you will find that you are diving at a dive site multiple times over a while. Each time you dive at the site, the conditions will likely be different. Scuba in Andaman is something more than your expectations. Sometimes you’ll have good visibility, sometimes it’ll be no more than a meter, there might be heavy currents or the surface conditions could be extremely harsh.
All of these conditions allow you to become familiar with the dive site and you will eventually be able to find your way around the site with your eyes closed, you will figure out where you can go to hide from the current, how deep do you need to go to avoid being affected by waves and most importantly where your entry and exit points are.
You won’t always have the luxury of diving at a site repeatedly and getting familiar with it. You need to be able to figure out where you are going and how to get back to the boat/ entry point. You can get an idea of the site and what to expect from the boat crew and divemasters or instructors who dive there regularly, and with the aid of your compass you can navigate the site safely and with a greater amount of confidence.
The SSI Navigation program provides students with the knowledge and skills needed to safely navigate underwater using both natural and compass navigation techniques. You would complete a minimum of two dives and a series of skills which include reciprocal bearing and making patterns such as squares and triangles.
Dive Fitness and Safety
As all Scuba divers are aware, diving can be a strenuous activity particularly if one is unfit. As part of any SSI educational program before any in-water training, you are required to fill a medical questionnaire.
You may request the dive center to email you a copy of the questionnaire before you arrive in Havelock. In case you are suffering from any of the conditions mentioned in the questionnaire, a medical fitness certificate has to be issued by a physician, ideally a barometric physician.
Given the weather many people get a cold or congestion, while you can take decongestants to allow you to dive, we recommend avoiding the dive as in case the effect of the medicine wears off in the middle of the dive you risk getting a reverse squeeze.
Course Work
Your dive center will issue your online learning materials, which you can access online as well as offline with the MySSI app. You can complete the theory and review section before reaching Havelock. The final exam can be given online or on the app, upon completing the exam and all of your dives, you will get your certification.
You can navigate a site without the help of a compass simply by being aware of your surroundings. You can keep an eye out for certain distinct topographical features, or marine flora and fauna like a giant barrel sponge that was near your descent line, or maybe a huge sea fan that marks the turning point of your dive.
Topographical features can be extremely obvious, for example, if you are performing a shore dive on your return you would be keeping an eye out for a sandy slope that is getting shallower and shallower. If you are a bit further from the shore you can look out for the ripples in the sand that always form parallel to the shore, to get an idea of which direction to go. Natural navigation can be a bit tricky as you can get disoriented when you can’t see the landmarks you have selected for navigation.
A compass is a powerful tool, that helps you set your orientation. This allows you to reach your destination and return without needing to face harsh surface conditions. A simple course that involves going in one direction and returning along the same path is known as a reciprocal bearing.
Forming a square is a great way to navigate a dive site, it only requires you to make four right-angled turns, you can estimate when to take the turn by counting your kick cycles or timing yourself, unfortunately, kick cycle counts and timers are easily affected by current.
It would take you less time to reach your destination if the current is with you but it would take a long time coming back as the current would be against you, this would also result in a greater number of kick cycles. Thus, the best way to navigate a site is by combining both natural and compass navigation. Check Scuba diving in Andaman price and book your preferred diving course with us.
Dive sites
To become proficient at navigation, we select sites that allow you to use both natural and compass navigation.
Tribe Gate
Tribe gate is an oval-shaped reef with its shallowest end at roughly 3 meters and its deepest end lying at 12 meters. There are three distinct buoy lines set up at various points in the reef, which allows them to act as individual landmarks as well as provides you with the challenge of forming a triangle with the aid of your compass to navigate the site. Each part of the reef also has distinct Corals and marine fauna, allowing you to orient yourself and estimate your position to your boat.
There are also plenty of smaller reefs surrounding the main reef that provide the additional challenge of navigating back to the main reef using reciprocal bearing.
Juvies
Juvies is a coral garden with its shallowest end lying at 4 meters and its deepest part lying at 12 meters. The dive site is filled with vibrant emerald green Pavona corals. The lack of distinct natural landmarks amongst the corals in the shallower part of the dive site makes it ideal for navigating with a compass. The corals change with depth, going a bit deeper gives you access to a garden of Staghorn corals.
Here natural navigation has a greater role in estimating your vertical position, if you find you are amongst corals at a depth shallower than 4 meters, then you know you’ve ventured from the dive site and are now nearing John Lawrence Island. You must include SSI navigation in your package while opting for Scuba diving in Andaman.
I hope everything is clear before you choose the SSI navigation specialty course. For further queries feel free to contact us, we will be happy to assist you to clear all of your doubts.
