suss I know, doddle?  now, diddle I know  :-)

I've taken to using the term w.nker.  It's a great insult and few
people know what you've just called them.  Although one guy did call
me a manky git.

In article
<1Dfpc.60304$Ut1.1562744@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>, mike gray
<scrubadub@att.net> wrote:

#Alan Street wrote:
#
#> The US Navy does have some advanced navigation techniques based on sonar
#> and triangulating off of known reference sources, but these are well
#> beyond recreational diving.
#
#And they still do almost all their nav with a compass and slate (OK, a
#very fancy compass and slate. It's on the taxpayer.)
#

As luck would have it, one of the teachers at my wife's school is a
SEAL (the kind that actually dives, as opposed to the kind that mostly
swims). We were at a staff party a few months ago and were talking
about diving (actually, he was doing most of the talking and I was
happy just to listen and learn). He mentioned a navigation tool they
sometimes used that puts a display onto their compass board and uses
fixed underwater beacons to help locate the slate (kind of like an
underwater LORAN).

But you're right that they still rely heavily on tried and true
techniques like compass work (not to mention *really* good buoyancy
control)

They also generally use pure O2 in rebreathers, don't go deeper than
25', and have all kinds of problems associated with long term O2
exposure.

talking about underwater navigation a few months ago, and he told me
about the system they were testing that

#The only difference between scuba navigation and Boy Scout navigation is
#  that (a) you measure distance in kicks, and (b) you have to correct
#for current.
#
#As someone else mentioned, get a Boy Scout handbook and a compass and
#learn to navigate around the parking lot. Just knowing compass
#fundamentals will put you way ahead of the rest of the class. Then take
#the course, it's actually a lot of fun.
#