Following a Divemaster is easy.
Knowing exactly where you are underwater – and finding your way back again – is a completely different skill.
The SSI Navigation Specialty develops the skills and confidence to navigate underwater using a combination of your compass, natural references and awareness of the environment around you.
Across two training dives, you’ll go beyond the basic navigation skills learned during Open Water and start building the techniques to plan routes, maintain direction and navigate more independently underwater.
1 Day | 2 Dives | 4,800 THB
1 Day | 1 Dive | 3,800 THB (Navigation specialty after Advanced Course)
Navigation Specialty Course in Koh Tao
Why Learn Underwater Navigation?
Good navigation changes the way you dive.
Instead of spending the entire dive wondering whether you’ll recognise the way back, you start building a picture of the dive site in your head.
You notice which direction you’re travelling. You recognise landmarks. You understand how the reef changes with depth. You know where the boat should be in relation to where you are.
Most importantly, you start making decisions about where you’re going rather than simply following the fins in front of you.
Whether you want to become a more independent recreational diver or eventually Go Pro, good navigation is a skill you’ll use throughout your diving.
Your Navigation Course Schedule
The SSI Navigation Specialty is completed in one day, combining your academics in the morning with two training dives in the afternoon.
09:30 – Orientation, Academics & Exam
Meet us at Funky Turtle Divers at 09:30 and we’ll start with your course orientation before working through the Navigation academics.
We’ll cover the techniques you’ll be using underwater that afternoon, including compass navigation, natural navigation, route planning and maintaining awareness of your position throughout a dive.
You’ll then complete the SSI Navigation exam and get ready to put everything into practice.
12:30 – Boat Departure
Time to go diving.
We’ll head out on the 12:30 boat for two training dives, where you’ll take what you’ve learned in the morning and apply it in real diving conditions.
Across the two dives, you’ll work on your compass skills, natural navigation, route planning and your ability to build a mental picture of the dive site around you.
By the end of the afternoon, the goal isn’t just to be better with a compass.
It’s to be a better navigator.
Two Dives to Find Your Way
The Navigation Specialty isn’t about spending two dives staring at a compass.
Your compass is an important tool, but real underwater navigation involves combining it with everything the dive site is telling you.
You’ll learn to use direction, depth, natural features and memorable landmarks together, developing a much stronger awareness of where you are and where you’re heading.
The aim is to make navigation something you naturally do throughout a dive – rather than something you only think about when you suddenly realise you don’t know where the boat is.
Master Your Compass
You probably used a compass during your Open Water course.
Now we’re going to make it genuinely useful.
You’ll develop your ability to maintain a heading, navigate different patterns and use reciprocal headings to return towards where you started.
More importantly, you’ll start using your compass as part of a wider dive plan.
Instead of swimming along a bearing until somebody tells you to stop, you’ll learn to combine your heading with depth, time and the environment around you.
With practice, checking your compass becomes another normal part of the dive.
Learn to Read the Dive Site
Some of the best navigation tools underwater aren’t attached to your wrist.
Reefs, sand patches, pinnacles, rock formations, depth changes, slopes, distinctive coral and other underwater features can all help you understand your position.
You’ll learn to identify useful natural references and remember them as you dive, gradually building a mental picture of how the site fits together.
This is what experienced guides are doing when it looks like they somehow always know where the boat is.
It’s not magic.
Well… usually.
Compass + Natural Navigation
Good underwater navigation isn’t about choosing between a compass and natural references.
It’s about using both.
Your compass gives you direction.
The environment gives you context.
You might follow the edge of a reef, use a depth contour to maintain your position, recognise a distinctive rock formation and use your compass to confirm your direction back towards the boat.
Put those skills together and you stop simply remembering a route.
You start understanding the dive site.
Plan the Dive. Then Dive the Plan.
Navigation starts before you get underwater.
During your training, you’ll learn to think about the route before you descend.
Which direction are we heading?
What’s our planned route?
Where will we turn?
What natural features should we expect to see?
What depth should we be at?
And where should our exit point be in relation to our current position?
Thinking about those questions before and during the dive makes it much easier to maintain awareness of where you are.
And if something changes?
You’ll have the knowledge to adapt the plan rather than simply hoping someone else knows the way.
Become a More Independent Diver
One of the biggest changes as you gain experience is becoming less reliant on a professional guide.
Good navigation gives you the confidence to plan and complete dives with your buddy within the limits of your training and experience.
Instead of automatically following somebody else, you can start exploring familiar dive sites independently, take turns leading with your buddy and become more comfortable diving in new environments.
It gives you another level of freedom underwater.
And that confidence carries into almost every dive you make afterwards.
Navigation on Koh Tao
Koh Tao is a great place to develop navigation skills because our dive sites give us plenty of different underwater environments to work with.
You might navigate around pinnacles, follow the contour of a reef, cross a sandy area or use depth and underwater features to maintain your position.
The important thing is learning to look at the site differently.
Instead of just seeing a reef, you start seeing a route.
Instead of just noticing a rock formation, you recognise it as a landmark.
Instead of reaching the end of the dive and wondering how your guide found the boat…
You’ll start understanding exactly how they did it.
Thinking About Going Pro?
Then navigation becomes even more important.
Once you’re a Divemaster, people are following you.
You’ll need to listen to a dive-site briefing, understand the planned route and then translate that into what you’re actually seeing underwater.
You’ll need to maintain awareness of your group while navigating, respond if conditions change and know how to adjust the dive without losing track of where you are.
That’s why the full SSI Navigation Specialty is included in our six-week Go Pro All In programs at the Funky Turtle Dive Academy.
It’s not there simply to add another specialty to your certification card.
It’s one of the fundamental skills of becoming a capable dive leader.
Who Is This Course For?
Navigation is useful whether you’re a relatively new Open Water Diver or already have plenty of experience underwater.
For newer divers, it’s an opportunity to take the basic navigation skills introduced during Open Water and spend dedicated time actually developing them.
For experienced divers, the course can help turn techniques you’ve naturally picked up over time into a more deliberate and reliable approach to navigation.
And if Divemaster is somewhere in your future, learning to confidently find your way around underwater is a pretty good idea before other divers start following you.
Navigation Specialty or an Adventure Dive?
A Navigation adventure dive gives you an introduction to underwater navigation.
The full SSI Navigation Specialty gives you dedicated academics and two training dives to develop those skills further.
If navigation is an area you know you want to improve, we’d recommend going directly into the full specialty.
You’ll get more time to practise, more dedicated training and the full SSI Navigation Specialty certification at the end.
Build Your SSI Recognition Levels
Navigation is a full SSI Specialty and can contribute towards your SSI recognition levels as you build your training and logged dive experience.
Combine it with specialties such as deep diving, Enriched Air Nitrox, Perfect Buoyancy or SSI Night & Limited Visibility, and you can continue progressing through the SSI recognition pathway.
And if professional diving is your goal, Navigation is one of the specialties included within our Go Pro All In Divemaster program, alongside Deep, Nitrox and Perfect Buoyancy.
