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As more of a Great Lakes diver, who moved south, my experience diving wrecks has been that a compass is useful most of the time. Particularly if the debris field is scattered, with not much intact overall. With scattered wreckage, finding the entry/exit point is a little trickier than just swimming from bow to stern and back again, depending on where the anchor/mooring line is located. A compass helps a lot, as does natural navigation techniques. The only time recently that I left my compass on shore, I was not swimming anywhere, just supporting decoing divers, but I was still sorry I did not have the compass. Steel wrecks make compasses somewhat useless, but I would still take one with me. When you are off of the wreck (floating above it, for example) the compass works again. As far as visibility, the cold water dives I've done have had visibility from zero (the compass in my face was barely visible) to close to 100' (in Kingston, Ontario). Usually it was about 12' in the Sanilac Shores area of Lake Huron. It is easy to get spoiled by the truly excellent visibility in the caves in North Florida (is that water or air I am looking through?) and in the nice warm water in South Florida. I measure visibility by estimating body lengths. One diver length is about 6'-7' depending on fin length and diver height. Visibility ends when that diver is no longer a distinct dark shadow. Of course, in that kind of vis, a diver who is just a shadow is too far away. Compass use is required in vis that low. The few northeast wreck divers I've dived with have been fine in the water, and have been good buddies. Believe me, I have read divers the riot act if they left me or otherwise were not good buddies. I am very glad that DIR values buddy procedures because I have always thought that it was important. Going up and down the line together is not enough. I like having a dive buddy, not because I am a dependent, wimpy diver, but because it is added redundancy, a safety factor, and a lot more fun. Some divers say they want to dive without a buddy because of the poor quality of their buddies. Pick a better buddy, or mentor the ones that need the help. The time investment will be worth it if you have a good buddy to dive with. I wasn't with you all in Virginia Beach; I don't know what happened on the dives, but I do know there are some basics about diving. Navigation (including with a compass) and buddy procedures are basics regardless of the type of dive or the location. If I'm missing something here, I know I can count on all of you to set me straight :). JS -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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