SCUBA Compass

[mugwump]

A story that roundabout leads to a question.

Wife's sisters <shudder> came into town over the holidays, so the daughter and I skipped off wall-diving in Grand Turk for a week. Dove all week with a Playboy model ("What a coincidence! I like scuba diving and long walks on the beach TOO!"), and two days with a very fat Belgian . He saw me checking my daughter's safety gear (folded snorkel, strobe, sausage and spool, a good mirror, flashlight, whistle, 1-pint Platypus w/ fresh water, bandanna) and said "You Americanzzzzs. So much! You even waste energy when yeeeou play." Well, that's rich coming from a lardgut who needs 22 (!) pounds of lead to sink his skinny ass. Screw him, it all fits in one pocket. I may be paranoid but we've drifted for seven hours off Tobago playing "Open Water" and all that stuff falls under "lessons learned."

Well, daughter and I go seven coral cuts south against the current and seven cuts back. Beautiful dive. Turn right, find the mooring block, hmmm, no cable. We do our hang and come up to lardgut and spouse thrashing and moaning. No boat. Little tiny speck skidding away -- broke its mooring (very stiff trades blowing, very small boat, old moring cable) and took off. ("Can you say 'Irony?' Sure, I knew you could.") The divemaster, who can't stand the Belgian, says "Mon, you'd better swim in and get a boat. I don't want to drift past the north end of the island -- there are a lot of bullsharks there this time of year." LOL, you should have seen Belgian's face. I hand over my strobe, sausage and mirror to the divemaster and he, Hottie, and the Belgians stay put while daughter and I swim for shore (it was only about a mile, but much more than the Belgians could make). Made it about halfway when an eagle-eyed fisherman on shore saw the sausage I was towing and picked us up (big tip and nice steak dinner for Mr. Fisherman and his wife). The current was running pretty good out past the wall where they were and they'd drifted a piece but we saw their sausage and picked them up pretty quickly.

OK, end of story and now the query: What's a good SCUBA compass that is tolerant of less-than-perfect level? When we were swimming back there was some fairly decent swell and my compass needle constantly got hung up. Went northeast for a spell when I thought I was going east. I remember a spherical dive compass on a chain back in the day that couldn't hang up but I can't find one on the 'net.

Any recommendations gratefully accepted.