DM Mapping

[OTGav]

Just a quick bit of advice I wish I had had before starting my Map for the DM course.

1. Choose the most boring spot that you have ever gone to, no life, smooth curves, no drop offs.

2. Do not choose a site that suddenly fills with 20+ Grey Nurse sharks for the whole weekend. They will distract you a lot, making your map a complete PITA to tidy up once you get it back home.

Am being tortured by my own rubbishness, should have kept my eyes on the rocks and not on the toothy friends that wanted to come and have a sniff around me.

[CompuDude]

I would feel more sympathy for you had you not just finished a dive where you got to see 20+ grey nurse sharks!

[SkuaSeptember]

Well, if the sharks only show up for the weekend, you'll just have to map in the midweek.

[ReefHound]

Don't forget to map the locations of the sharks.

[No Misses]

Next time, spear a fish. It will keep the sharks busy while you finish your work :-)

[Rogue]

I'm really trying to determine whether you are bragging or complaining .


I agree you'll just have to go re-map midweek.

[OTGav]

Originally Posted by Rogue

I'm really trying to determine whether you are bragging or complaining .

Can I take a little from group A, and a little from group B?

Was a once in a lifetime experience.

But I REALY need to get this map sorted out too - and seriously, pick an easy spot to map when you get round to that part of the course - I planned 4 dives on the site over the weekend to cover it. Only got 3 due to weather, and was all distracted for most of them ;o)

The mapping suffered a lot.

To answer a couple of other comments - there is no spearo on scuba round here, and mapping at 30m was maore than my lungs can handle on one breath.

I did try to draw all the pretty sharks on the map, but each time I went down again they had switched places - I think they were doing it on purpose.

[cummings66]

Since I've never done that, and probably never will. Tell me, how do you map it in detail?

I could envision a first dive to see the big attractions, then a number of smaller dives to note where they are in relation to the other things.

I've taken a notion to mapping a quarry I dive in. I've got an aerial photo I took of it and could use that to get an exact outline, and I know roughly what's in it and my thoughts were to start out at the entrance and move from there. I figured on mapping it in feet because that's easier for everybody to translate into their own fin kicks. The headings when they're a couple hundred feet apart with 5' of vis might be the hard thing, ie the other side of the quarry.

Is it cheating to use a line? That's the part I wonder about, do you just take random stabs at it? How do you do it exactly? All the methods I'd use above ground just won't cut it in the water so I've been kind of curious how they teach you do map.

[texdiveguy]

I thought of my DM course the mapping was the most fun.....course I did not have to contend with SHARKS!

[CompuDude]

Originally Posted by cummings66

Since I've never done that, and probably never will. Tell me, how do you map it in detail?

I could envision a first dive to see the big attractions, then a number of smaller dives to note where they are in relation to the other things.

I've taken a notion to mapping a quarry I dive in. I've got an aerial photo I took of it and could use that to get an exact outline, and I know roughly what's in it and my thoughts were to start out at the entrance and move from there. I figured on mapping it in feet because that's easier for everybody to translate into their own fin kicks. The headings when they're a couple hundred feet apart with 5' of vis might be the hard thing, ie the other side of the quarry.

Is it cheating to use a line? That's the part I wonder about, do you just take random stabs at it? How do you do it exactly? All the methods I'd use above ground just won't cut it in the water so I've been kind of curious how they teach you do map.

Buy the book, or hope some other sucker will type it in for you. I'm too lazy.

The techniques are pretty straightforward, however.