The Hai dragon: when the range enters from 330 degrees
For Hai the position that matters most is the dragon; the Cuiguan's dragon chapter treats the Tianhuang dragon of Hai as first among dragons. We look for a range from the north-west that turns its last section onto Hai and enters with a full rounded head and a visible neck. Stand where the stone would go and look back up the ridge: the last node should be whole, not quarried or road-cut.
A stone sitting Hai faces Si and wants an open front with a peak. Water arriving from Hai across the front of a south-sitting site counts too, provided it turns before the stone.
Tianhuang, the sovereign star, carries the most weight
Hai carries Tianhuang, the Heavenly Sovereign, the Celestial Emperor's star: highest rank, name and command. It leads the four nobles, and Hai is also one of the three auspicious with Mao and Geng; no other mountain is in both.
When the land is right, this school confirms Hai most fully: a true dragon entering on Hai, or a tall clean peak on Hai before a site, receives the best the sky gives. The order never changes, though. First the dragon is walked, the hills counted, the water followed, the site chosen. Only then is the star read; a cut or hollow hill on Hai stays cut or hollow, the Sovereign silent above it.
What this means on the ground
Stand inside the door with your back to it, or behind the stone sighting along its face. Level the luopan, read three times a step apart, keep the middle, and stay away from steel and phones. A phone compass goes on magnetic north.
Hai covers 322.5 to 337.5; 326 to 334 is its solid middle. From 323 to 325 you lean to Qian, Metal; from 335 to 337 to Ren, also Water but in the Kan group, so the trigram changes. The fen jin turns the stone back into Hai by a degree or two. For the dragon, sight from the site back up the ridge's last node.
Common mistakes
The first and worst is buying a plot because 330 is Hai and Hai is noble. The star is read after the land; Hai over a cut ridge is nothing. The second is mixing Hai with Ren: both Water, but Ren is a Kan group stem carrying Tianfu, and a stone meant for Hai that lands on 338 has changed both.
The third is true north from a map or app, which in Toronto or Melbourne shifts a Hai site a full mountain. The fourth is a stone on the 322.5 or 337.5 line. The fifth is sighting the dragon from the road below, not from the site.
Questions people ask
What direction is Hai on a feng shui compass?
Hai is north by north-west, 330 degrees, covering 322.5 to 337.5. It is the twelfth branch, the pig, Water, between Qian and Ren, and its opposite is Si at 150 degrees. On our luopan Hai carries Tianhuang.
Why is the Hai dragon so highly regarded?
Because Hai carries Tianhuang, the Sovereign star, and is in both the four nobles and the three auspicious; the Cuiguan treats the Hai dragon as first among dragons. That applies only when a real dragon with a whole body enters from Hai; the bearing alone is not a dragon.
Is sitting Hai facing Si good for a house?
It can be, when the ground behind rises to the north by north-west, the front is open with a bend of water or road, and the reading sits in the middle of Hai, not on the edge by Ren. Those come first, the star second.
If your family stone or your door sits on Hai, ask Master Zhang for a site reading to see whether the land answers the star.