Grupo Mayan Resorts: The Concept of Underwater Navigation
July 30th, 2009
The reference term, ‘Underwater navigation’ is basically used to stand for navigation techniques that are learnt by professional Scuba divers so as to accurately navigate their way in and out of the underwater environment during dives, say the Grupo Mayan professionals.
A common viewpoint of many experts concerned about or involved with scuba diving is that underwater navigation, being a basic skill of all divers, ought to be taught conventionally and into detail in modern institutions of higher learning. Today, underwater navigation is only skimmed through as a limited subpart of the basic Open Water certification course, say the Grupo Mayan experts. In fact, North American training agencies for divers only teach these significant elements and skills of underwater navigation as a subtopic in their Advanced Open-Water Diver certification programs.
The fact that underwater navigation is always included as a core component of almost all advanced diver training programs and courses, show how important it is. And experts feel that the skills should be taught at the lowest possible level of diver training not the highest. All divers ought to have the skills needed to maneuver their environment when they are under the water surface.
Among the private agencies and public interests vouching for the inclusion of underwater navigation skills among the most basic diving skills have initiated such programs in their individual centers of training, say the Grupo Mayan experts. These training agencies are now promoting underwater navigation skills for the following four key advantages of having the skills:
a) It builds a diver’s confidence while exploring underwater because he or she knows what to do when and how.
b) The skills save a lot of energy usually expended by divers in excess swimming. Underwater navigation helps economize on swimming requirements and aids buoyancy navigation.
c) It helps make dive planning, implementation and monitoring not only more effective but also thorough.
d) The skills help save lives because dive buddies can stick together during the entire navigation without loosing track of each other like it happens often in ordinary diving.
e) Finally, say the Grupo Mayan professionals, it reduces the consumption of the pressurized air while underwater simply because it makes exploration faster and more effective. At the end diving costs are lowered and the emergency air supplies are eliminated.
An assortment of equipment has been developed lately to assist divers while navigating underwater, such as the magnetic compasses as Scuba sextant, Nav-finder, Compass boards or hand-held sonar. In future, there are talks of using GPS technology to aid underwater navigation, say the Grupo Mayan experts, and if that materializes, underwater navigation will be much better.