still using a snorkel? or does it stay in the car

[irishsquid]

Not to be dense but, what's a "power hitter" outside of baseball?

I was just taking a trip down memory lane, back in the day when I experimented with recreational "Mary Jane". A power hitter was a plastic/rubber squeeze bottle with a stem in the lid and a hole in the side. Place the lit doob in the stem, screw it on the bottle, place your finger over the hole and squeeze away. Soooo..........
this vision comes to me of a snorkle deployed and someone just squeezing away at the other end.
My memory must not have been affected too much, as that one came from deep down and WAAAY back! :doh2:

 

[Thalassamania]

I continue to wonder if the snorkel/no snorkel discussion is, in no small part, dictated by where you dive.

Most of my diving is either in Puget Sound (cold, little/no waves) or in a cave (no snorkel, ever). If diving in PS off a boat, have little/no need for a snorkel because I'm not swimming on the surface (almost always a live boat pickup) and as I wrote, no waves so I'm not worried about keeping my head out of the water.

IF I'm doing shore diving, I'm swimming on my back with my steel 130 or doubles underwater thus negating their weight rather than on my stomach with the monsters pushing me into the water. Just about every diver I know around here does the same thing. I don't think using a snorkel while swimming on my back is a useful exercise.

What say ya' Thal?

I think is a combination of things. Sure I grew up on the California coast with long surface swims and small tanks, that meant that you learned to use a snorkel well and how to get the most out of it. That skill and background translated into fine tuning snorkel use and it was never an inconvenience. If you did not grow up in that milieu, or did not have a long term relationship with an Instructor or Mentor who did you likely never developed that level of comfort (and dependence) and found other solutions that, while they seem pretty weird from where I sit, may be close or even equally effective in most circumstances. But try and get under a chopper without one ... it'll be an eye opener.

I was just taking a trip down memory lane, back in the day when I experimented with recreational "Mary Jane". A power hitter was a plastic/rubber squeeze bottle with a stem in the lid and a hole in the side. Place the lit doob in the stem, screw it on the bottle, place your finger over the hole and squeeze away. Soooo..........
this vision comes to me of a snorkle deployed and someone just squeezing away at the other end.
My memory must not have been affected too much, as that one came from deep down and WAAAY back! :doh2:

Ah, I was more expecting ... a pound of pocalolo on top of a GMC-671 blower instead of the injectors.

 

[Teamcasa]

Ah, I was more expecting ... a pound of pocalolo on top of a GMC-671 blower instead of the injectors.

A 671, Hilborn Injectors, and TV Tommy Ivo. Now that guy knew how to use a snorkel!

 

[charlesg3]

My snorkel generally remains in the car unless for some reason we have a planned long surface swim. Even still, I'm with Peter in that most of the time I do my surface swims on my back anyway. It is comforting to have for those days with lots of surf although it is more of a safety precaution at that point.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

I continue to wonder if the snorkel/no snorkel discussion is, in no small part, dictated by where you dive.....What say ya' Thal?

Hi Peter,

I'm obviously not Thal , but as an old snorkel-dude I'll also chime in:

Location, but maybe even more significant, generation may indeed be determining factors.

Everyone used snorkels when I started diving in the 70's, and that is how I was trained. My friends and I were freedivers before getting into scuba here in Hawaii. A snorkel was just part of our dive equipment.

It may be that all of our dives were shore dives. Swimming out over shallow reefs required us to be face down on the surface to find our way through the coral heads (on your back you'd kick the reef or drag the bottom of the tank).

I think many divers do just fine without a snorkel because for better or worse they have never encountered a situation that mandated using one, and most "typical" vacation dives don't require a snorkel.

Those of us that have done dives that required the use of a snorkel are less likely to dismiss the utility of a snorkel.... but in the same breath I will admit that on the majority of the dives I've done I could have done the surface swim without a snorkel... but it would have been a PITA.

Best wishes.

 

[DennisS]

A snorkel is great on beach dives for getting out to the dive area

 

[UCFKnightDiver]

Why do we have 3 of these threads going on at once? A snorkel is silly for diving, it's for snorkeling!

 

[Thalassamania]

Why do we have 3 of these threads going on at once? A snorkel is silly for diving, it's for snorkeling!

And seat belts are silly for driving, right?

 

[TMHeimer]

And seat belts are silly for driving, right?

Not at all, but never should've been into law everywhere. Sorry, off topic. On topic Q: You get caught in a wicked current taking you way somewhere. Rough seas. Used up all your reserve breathing from reg. surface swimming back to somewhere. Snorkel may come in handy in that rare situation, no?

 

[diver 85]

Not at all, but never should've been into law everywhere. Sorry, off topic. On topic Q: You get caught in a wicked current taking you way somewhere. Rough seas. Used up all your reserve breathing from reg. surface swimming back to somewhere. Snorkel may come in handy in that rare situation, no?

-----yes......