Drysuit snorkelling

[David Wilson]

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As a family activity, snorkelling has a long history. Back in the early 1950s, it was not undertaken wearing wetsuits, diving skins or rash vests for cold water protection but clad in the kind of drysuits illustrated in the picture above. Father of the family Bill Barada was an early American pioneer of what was then called "skin diving" and he designed a chest-entry drysuit to combat low water temperatures, supplying his wife and children with this garment to share his aquatic passion with them. Then named "Bel-Aqua" and based in Los Angeles, the company manufacturing his suit design is now called Aquala and operates in Louisiana.

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In February 1961, the Santa Cruz Sentinel published the above article about the "Golden Tiger" drysuit made in Loveland, Ohio, by the So Lo Marx Rubber Company. This "Skooba-"totes" drysuit proved its worth as an exposure suit for a snorkeller diving the Pacific Ocean in search of shellfish for the table.

The "Golden Tiger" drysuit above is from my diving history collection and I have used it while snorkelling in the North Sea off the coast of North East England. This apparel had the virtue of simplicity, its thin material worn over warm underclothing not only reducing body heat loss but also raising fewer obstacles to swimming movements.

 

[David Wilson]

In the new millennium, the use of drysuits in snorkelling is seeing something of a resurgence, thanks to the growing popularity of "wilderness swimming" or "wildswimming" in seas, lakes and rivers much closer to home and far, far away from the tropical paradises now long associated with vacation snorkelling.

The above article appeared in Montana in the Billings Gazette newspaper of14 October 2021.

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This piece from the Statesman Journal published on 28 August 2019 in Salem, Oregon.

It's good to see some snorkelling returning to its roots in domestic waters as an alternative to exotic climes in this day and age. Drysuit use can contribute to this development when the practice of snorkelling is confined to the surface of the water and to shallow depths beneath the waves. Freedivers and snorkellers need not use the same gear for their respective activities.

 

[JMBL]

Could you tell us about your experience snorkeling with this suit ?

 

[David Wilson]

Could you tell us about your experience snorkeling with this suit ?

Thanks for asking, JMBL.

I found the suit warm, dry and liberating for surface snorkelling off North Sea beaches since the thin material will not bind arms or legs when moving through the water. Thanks to water pressure, deeper dives will expel all or most residual air, flattening the suit against the body, but shallower dives will have less impact.

It is all in the preparation. Donning the footed trousers is relatively straightforward, while the hooded top may need a little soapy water or talc for lubrication when passing the arms through the sleeves, especially if perspiring on a hot day. Beach shoes or fins should be worn over the feet to prevent abrasion.

After dressing, suit watertightness necessitates careful sealing of the sleeve cuffs against the wrists, the hood aperture edge against the face and, last but not least, the jacket and trouser waist skirts, which must be twisted together into a leaktight roll between the top and bottom of the suit.

The final stage of the process is venting the air trapped inside the suit. Failure to do so will lead to the suit ballooning in the water and preventing even shallow submersion. Residual air is removed by walking slowly into the water, which will result in the air being squeezed upwards from the trouser legs by water pressure and then released from the suit by raising a wrist or hood seal momentarily from the skin.

My yellow So-Lo Marx Skooba-"totes" suit has been out of production since the mid-1960s, but a modern replica is available in black from Hydroglove. Here's a video showcasing the suit:

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[JMBL]

Thank you for your return of experience. I'm still wondering how you could lay hands on that suit in such pristine condition. Is it a big secret or can you tell us ?

 

[David Wilson]

Thank you for your return of experience. I'm still wondering how you could lay hands on that suit in such pristine condition. Is it a big secret or can you tell us ?

No big secret, JMBL. I post occasionally on the Vintage Scuba Diving Board Forum and a number of years ago this discussion group was associated with a vintage diving equipment store called Vintage Scuba Supply and run by Dan Barringer in Selma, Oregon, where new-in-box gear from the past was available for sale.

A few boxes of yellow Skooba-"totes" suits was once offered on the Vintage Scuba Supply website and I immediately responded as I had always regretted not buying one of these drysuits back in the late 1960s before they ceased production in Loveland, Ohio. They looked so lightweight and minimalistic at a time when drysuits were starting to get bulkier and, dare I say it, overengineered. The price tag was also much lower than the cost of a wetsuit back then, which was a consideration for me as a penniless university student.

When it arrived, the Golden Tiger drysuit fitted me like a glove and it has stood up better to its few outings than one of its modern black replicas, which I also own. These suits helped me convalesce after my radical prostatectomy a couple of decades ago when I decided to exercise gently back to health by snorkelling in the waves of the North Sea off the North East coast of England.

Used Skooba-"totes" suits sometimes appear on eBay, where they are quickly snapped up. I am indeed fortunate to have obtained a pristine and unperished model, although it cost me in the new millennium many times the late-1950s/early-1960s asking price of $19!

 

[JMBL]

Thanks a lot. A nice addition to an already interesting story. Best of luck for 2024.

 

[David Wilson]

As evidence of growing recent interest in snorkelling colder domestic waters, I have cited two newspaper articles originating in the Northwestern United States.

Coldwater snorkelling has also inspired a couple of books to be written. I will reproduce my reviews of these titles here. First up is Keith Williams' Snorkeling Rivers and Streams, published 2020:

When I come across any new title relating to underwater swimming, I generally turn out of habit to the equipment pages and I did so in this case too:

Gear can be as simple or as complex as you like. At a minimum, you need a mask. Just about any mask will do, so if you are just starting out and aren’t sure if you are really going to take to river snorkeling, go on the cheaper side. Once you are sure this is your thing, you can upgrade to a more expensive model. At a minimum, the mask should have a soft skirt of pliable silicone, and it should fit well. To test the fit, hold the mask to your face without putting the strap behind your head. Inhale through your nose. Does the mask suck to your face? Does it feel comfortable? If not, find another model. Masks really come down to personal preference and comfortable fit. Hopefully, you will be wearing this for hours, so make sure it feels good.

The snorkel is the tube that connects you to the surface so that you can breathe while watching incredible underwater life unfold before you. The basic snorkel tube works well. It doesn’t need a purge valve that helps water drain out after submerging. It doesn’t need a float to plug the end of the tube when you submerge to keep water from getting in. However, those things make clearing water from a flooded snorkel easier. Things to consider are a flexible tube attached to the mouthpiece versus a rigid one. The flexible tubes are often more comfortable since they conform to the angle between where the snorkel tube connects to the mask strap and your mouth. On the downside, they can trap water so that your tube always gurgles, and they can crack over time. While purge valves are great for making clearing water from a flooded snorkel easy, they also leak. My personal preference is a flexible tube snorkel with a purge valve, and yes, mine leaks, so I almost always have a gurgle on inhalation and exhalation, which makes sneaking up on skittish fish difficult. I should upgrade.

Fins are entirely optional. It depends on the kind of river snorkeling you plan on doing. If you intend to get in at one spot and stay more or less in that same area of river, fins are not recommended as they tend to get in the way and kick up bottom. If, on the other hand, you plan on doing a downstream run or snorkeling some kind of distance, then fins come in handy to speed you through the slower parts. If you decide to go with them, get something that you can get on and off easily, as you will be doing that often.

The hike in was tough but worth it. This stream was about as pristine as they come, and the clear water had just a hint of aquamarine in its deepest parts. I pulled my mask out of my pack, pressed it to my face, slid the strap around the back of my head, and snap. . . . It broke. Now what? I was two hours in with no mask. Lesson learned. Always pack a spare: spare mask strap, spare snorkel keeper, the little plastic or rubber doohickey that attaches the snorkel to the mask, and a spare fin strap. When I travel long distances or fly to a destination, I pack a whole extra mask, just in case.

Wetsuits offer protection from cold water and abrasion. They trap a thin layer of water between your body and the neoprene, and your body warms it up. They also provide buoyancy, which can be a blessing or a curse depending on your reasons for snorkeling. I always like to be positively buoyant (1.e., float) when I river snorkel. I can usually see everything I want from the surface, so there is no need to submerge. Wetsuits provide the thermal and abrasion protection I need, plus they make me float like a cork. Wetsuit thickness depends on water temperatures: 3/2 mm provides comfort in water 60 degrees and up, 4/3 mm for 52 degrees and up, and 5 mm for 45 degrees and up.

There are times when I want to be on the bottom, and the buoyancy of a wetsuit is counter to getting there, so the addition of a weight belt is necessary to become neutrally buoyant. The amount of weight needed is based on individual body composition, so the only way to arrive at the right added weight is through experimentation in a pool.

When the water is just too cold for a wetsuit, the next level of protection is a drysuit. Where a wetsuit allows a thin layer of water between you and the suit, a drysuit, theoretically, doesn’t allow any water to touch your skin. Drysuits by themselves offer no thermal protection, so an insulating underlayer is needed. I snorkel year-round. Polypropylene thermal underwear under a fleece jumpsuit, all protected by the drysuit, 1s usually sufficient to keep my core warm. Neoprene gloves and hood keep my hands and head warm for a while, though my hands are usually the limiting factor. In the mid-Atlantic, I switch from wet- to drysuit right around Halloween and back again right around Memorial Day. If I’m snorkeling Cascade Mountain rivers in the Pacific Northwest, I wear a drysuit year-round, and I wear my drysuit when I plan on being in the river all day regardless of geography. Drysuits can be expensive. A heavy-duty drysuit can run upward of one to two thousand dollars. I have been using a lightweight, low-end drysuit for four years without any problems. The lightweight suit before that lasted 4 years before the neck seal blew, a common problem regardless of price and thickness. However, lightweight suits don’t have the same abrasion resistance that heavier suits do.

I was immediately hooked. Here was an author prepared to let his readers make up their own minds and heed their own needs when it came to selecting and purchasing underwater swimming gear.

Many years ago, I subscribed to an online swimming group with an outdoor aquatics section. I was hoping to find some likeminded people who wanted to enioy open-water swimming for the sheer pleasure of it , but instead I found a set of alpha males priding themselves on swimming in rivers and lakes kitted out with nothing more than a swimming costume. When people like me suggested wearing some kind of aquatic exposure suit to beat the cold, we would be ridiculed as "softies" reluctant to undergo the necessary coldwater training. Ridicule rarely works as a means of getting me to follow another person's example and I soon left the entire forum, still respecting the "polar-bear" cold-water swimming community for its spartan exploits but deploring the mockery used by certain members to recruit new blood.

But back to Keith Williams' book. His view of snorkelling is very much the same as mine. For both of us, snorkelling in rivers and lakes is a complementary activity to trail walking, all part and parcel of the wonderful world of hiking. It's about enjoying the diversity of terrestrial and aquatic animal and plant life, feeling at one with nature and definitely nothing to do with inuring my septuagenarian body to freezing temperatures or indeed seeing how far I can descend in the water on a single breath. It's not about proving anything, breaking records or meeting impossible challenges as I engage in my favourite water pastime. The working life from which I have retired has tested me to the limits and I have no wish or need to replace such stresses to satisfy some fatuous "bucket list". Like French philosopher Voltaire, I respect those whose exploits require them to undergo regular arduous training, but like him, I have no intention of following their lead.

And what Williams says about snorkelling equipment resonates with me too. A snorkeller in a drysuit with warm underclothing may well weather the winter cold much more easily than one wearing just a thin wetsuit, however close-fitting it might be. And snorkelling fins don't necessarily mean mono or long-bladed fins if the snorkeller is just interested in fish-watching; no fins at all may indeed represent a valid choice. So, for me, snorkelling equipment is about what makes me feel comfortable and permits me to paddle around at my own pace in the water. And Keith Williams' book reinforces my belief that there can be a simple joy in snorkelling outside our otherwise far too competitive world.

 

[David Wilson]

I began with Keith Williams' title when I posted because its appearance in 2020 underlines the modernity of sea, lake and river snorkelling as a worthwhile aquatic activity in its own right. His Snorkelling Rivers and Streams: An Aquatic Guide to Underwater Discovery and Adventure is by no means the first publication in the field, however.

Swimming Free: On and Below the Surface of Lake, River and Sea.
Geoffrey Fraser Dutton. William Heinemann Ltd, London. 1972. Hardcover, dustjacket, 154 pages.
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There follow the opening paragraphs of a British book (dustjacket image above) published five decades ago and written by a man who climbs, skis, walks and swims as he travels. The volume focuses on what the blurb on the dustcover calls "adventure swimming", namely swimming in open waters, such as rivers, lakes and the sea, with the aid of fins, mask, snorkel and wetsuit, while hiking and camping across country. What he describes largely resembles what has come to be called "swimhiking" in the new millennium. I admire this book because it is very much "before its time" and because its robust portrayal of snorkelling as a cold-water means of getting from A to B while enjoying the view above and below the waves is so different from some people's perception of snorkelling as an activity confined to remote, expensive, warm, tropical resorts on ocean islands devoid of culture and nightlife, an exclusive pursuit for the overpaid, the effete, the very timid and the very young.

What can we do with ourselves - what is there to do - once we have learnt to swim? I hope to answer this question in the following pages. I hope to show that there exists for every swimmer a new and unsuspected world-not thousands of miles away or hugely expensive but here under his nose in river, lake, sea, even in pond and ditch and flooded meadow, available now with the simplest of equipment. You no longer have to brave frigid waters - warm rubber suits are for all; with fins and mask and snorkel you enjoy a confidence and freedom of the water never before offered to Man. You merely need to have learnt to swim - well. Then you can begin to look around you, at your new inheritance.

I offer in these pages a personal solution - but it applies to everyone who longs to explore aquatic worlds more imaginative than a swimming pool, and more accessible than the Red Sea; and who wishes simply to swim, and not be burdened with expensive specialized apparatus. It should whet the appetite of those who are not yet competent swimmers, and refresh those who are happy just to be beside loch, river or sea-everyone, surely, who finds adventure in our despoiled terrestrial environment becomes ever less satisfying and ever more mechanical. Here is simplicity and freedom, uncontaminated, unsuspected.

Dutton insists that he is offering something inclusive to his readers, open to everyone with basic swimming skills, a pair of fins, a mask, a snorkel and an exposure suit. We don't have to fly anywhere first, the nearest patch of open water will do. I can relate to this simplicity, because as often as I could in the not-too-distant past I headed off to the coast, 8 miles away, to snorkel in the North Sea in my vintage-style fins, mask, snorkel and drysuit, all new but a close copy of what the skin diving pioneers of the 1950s wore when exploring their own home waters, whether the Mediterranean, the Southern California Pacific or the Great Lakes of the Upper Midwest. I can recommend this book unreservedly to everybody, but particularly to those aquatic enthusiasts who see themselves as rugged individualists.

I always enjoy reading about people taking pleasure in swimming and diving in their own home waters rather than abroad. After all, that was how most people in the early days developed their passion for the aquatic environment. The Riviera and the Caribbean were for a privileged few back then. The activity of swimhiking has a strong connection with the part of the United Kingdom where I live, the North East of England. There's even a book about swimhiking hereabouts: Swimhiking in the Lake District and North East England by Peter Hayes:

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I just wish the swimhiker on the front cover had opted to wear an exposure suit for a less chilly experience and to use a diving mask, which would enable him to enjoy a view of life both below and above the waves. For me, open-water snorkelling is an improvement on swimhiking without gear, which is an improvement in turn on wildswimming a single body of water.

 

[David Wilson]

Another drysuit snorkelling destination is the Silfra fissure, details at Snorkeling in Iceland. Videos below.

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