Never Eat Shredded Wheat...

...Naughty Elephants Squirt Water - whatever the mnemonic, it's pretty easy to sort your North from your South, isn't it? Not for the humble dive compass, it turns out, which can get confused when taken out of it's comfort zone (ok, maybe not confused per se, but slightly inaccurate). Useful, since that's it's sole purpose…

The nice fellas at Stoney Cove enlightened me when I went to pick up a new compass and thus provided me with yet another random, and admittedly somewhat dull, factoid to add to my battery of useless information. Only on this occasion it might actually be quite useful, so I thought I'd share.

Apparently compasses should be balanced, by region, to compensate for the curvature of the planet - something to do with magnetic fields and stuff. Granted, my understanding wouldn't withstand much scrutiny, but what I did get is that Mexico's region 2, whereas the UK is region 1. I don't think it makes that much difference when it's only the region next door, providing your compass doesn't decide to rebalance itself mid-dive or magnetic north suddenly swings 20 degrees clockwise, that is. Pretty damn unlikely.

I went for region 2 anyway. Just in case. If nothing else, I'll know which direction to head in if I want to find penguins...

There's a bit of info about compass balancing and which countries are in which region on the Suunto site, if you feel so inclined (no pun intended): http://www.suunto.com/en/Products/Diving/SK-7-Dive-Compass/#Story

Never Eat Shredded Wheat...