snorkel, what’s it good for?

[MXGratefulDiver]

When you swim on your back generally you don’t use a snorkel but how often do you swim on your back without the need to turn and either swim face down or to check to see where you are on a long surface swim?

I never have to turn around and swim face down ... and checking to see where I'm going is a simple matter of swivelling my head. For that I have this very specialized piece of equipment ... it's called a neck.

It is inevitable that one has to turn around and swim face down and thus needing to use their snorkel on long surface swims to avoid going off course.

Somehow I've missed this inevitability ... in roughly 2700 dives over the past 10 years I haven't had to do that even once.

It is almost always that divers swimming on their backs get off course by considerable distance when they are trying to swim back to the boat or shore (exit point). When these divers are off course they will unnecessarily spend more energy to correct their course than they had to if they used their snorkel and swam face down.

All this tells me is that these people lack proper technique ... probably because they never really attempted to learn it.

I personally swim face down with snorkel when doing any type of surface swim but switch to “on-back” just to alternate find kicks or when tired but then go back to face down swimming position. Having a snorkel in this scenario is obviously of great value and it would add to the comfort and safety of the diver.

Then this is what makes you comfortable ... the safety issue is a red herring, as it is no more or less safe to surface swim with your face in the water than it is to do so on your back with your head out of the water.

As to swimming on the surface using the regulator SS, I don’t know why on earth would anyone do that considering that the air in the tank is finite and would not last that long compared with the free air all around us on the surface.

Ah ... if you're going to miss that 100 psi you'd use on those rare occasions when you need a regulator on the surface, then you're cutting your dive plan too close with respect to your available air supply. In that case, the prudent thing to do is either make a less aggressive dive plan or get a larger cylinder.

I think that it is poor planning and very irresponsible “Gas Management” to waste air from tank on the surface before going U/W with the abundance of the free air around us.

First off, Gas Management has nothing to do with where you choose to use your air. It has everything to do with planning your dive based on your available air supply, and knowing before you enter the water that you're taking enough for the dive you're planning to do. If you plan to use your air supply on the surface, proper Gas Management dictates that you take it into consideration as part of the dive plan. It has absolutely nothing to do with how you choose to surface swim to your drop point.

Secondly, choosing words like "poor planning" and "irresponsible" only tells me that you haven't a reasonable argument ... so you're instead choosing words meant to be inflammatory. Let's not play that game.

People are going all crazy with the various types of redundancies in their air supply they carry on their backs, sides, etc. only to waste it on the surface where don’t really need to use it!!

Another red herring ... those of us who surface swim on our backs almost never have to use a regulator on the surface ... and in those rare occasions when we do, it's more a choice than a necessity. Furthmore, most folks I know who do prepare for that eventuality by carrying sufficient reserves.

If a person is dumb enough and can’t tell his snorkel from his BC LPI or anything else, they shouldn’t be diving IMO.

... I take it you don't dive with heavy neoprene gloves or drygloves ...

One should, again, look at their training and at the standards of the agency that let them go in open water without the proper and thorough familiarization of their equipment.

Once again, you and I teach for the same agency ... so we're both familiar with the Standards and the curriculum that agency uses. So we can speak to this with some common ground.

As someone who trains people to dive in a place where the water is cold, the exposure equipment is on the heavy side (OW training in drysuits is common here), and conditions are challenging, I can tell you that the training and standards of the agency ... if you apply them strictly ... is insufficient. Like all of the major agencies, the curriculum is geared toward the largest target demographic ... which is the tropical diver.

The skills needed, the optimal choice of equipment, and the challenges faced, differ quite a lot between those two sets of environments.

These types of mistakes only indicate that the person in question did not have enough time in their scuba training course to become thoroughly familiar with their equipment and/or gain the proper skin and scuba skills.

Ah ... the same old tired argument that the scuba self-righteous always fall back on ... "if you don't do it my way, you obviously didn't get properly trained".

It's a crock ...

Snorkels have nothing to do with that.

At last something we can agree on ...

You can also argue that the BC LPI is bad since divers confuse it with the snorkel, can’t you?

You can argue it ... but it would be a silly argument.

I suppose that your argument and most others’ that do not advocate the use of the snorkel are largely due to the fact that in some agencys’ training standards skin diving skills are totally ignored and in the typical entry level scuba course most skills are barely glanced over without taking the time for the student to actually master these skills and become second nature to them.

I would argue that snorkels are very efficient for teaching skin diving skills ... and that learning skin diving skills are an effective means for transitioning to scuba diving. But once the student has learned the skin diving skills, and has met the requirements for the class, the need for a snorkel for scuba diving is going to be more one of choice than one of safety. And therefore ... like so many other things ... a matter of individual preference.

As a NAUI instructor, I am fortunate to be able to teach all of the requisite and proper skills to train students who are able to handle themselves and their equipment properly and safely. In fact, since I teach the proper use of snorkel in the confine water part of the course prior to open water training, my students have gone through most of the issues that can face them with snorkel use (or any another type of equipment) on the surface and U/W and they have learned how to handle their equipment and can tell the difference between snorkel, BC LPI and regulator SS before they are in open water. My students spend around 18 hours in the pool with me with around half that time learning and practicing skin diving skills. I’d spend more time with them in the pool if they need it before we would go to open water. I would not let any student in open water if they are still unable to tell the difference between their SS and snorkel.

These "my class is so much better than your class" arguments are tiresome.

BTW, I do realize that in certain instances and in very specialized type of diving, snorkels would not be used. This type of diving, is the on the extreme range of scuba diving and is generally irrelevant to recreational diving.

The choice to use a snorkel or not has nothing to do with "specialized" diving ... extreme or otherwise. It's a matter of choice. Some people are more comfortable using them on the surface, others are not. If you choose not to train people how to dive without relying on a tube of plastic, then it is you who are limiting the knowledge and training of your students ... not those who would open their eyes to the choices and assume that the students, once trained, would be intelligent enough to make their own choices.

I personally don't use a snorkel for local diving. It's not because I don't know how to use one ... or wasn't properly trained ... it's because I find it presents more drawbacks than useful advantages in local conditions. When I travel, I always take a snorkel with me ... because in a different environment, that equation needs to be evaluated based on the conditions I'll be diving in.

That's really what we should be training people to understand ... that diving presents you with a lot of different choices, and that the properly trained and prudent diver evaluates their equipment options based on the dive plan and the conditions they'll be diving in.

All this other stuff is just useless hyperbole that has no value other than internet entertainment.

I did a dive on the 30th and was the second one in the water. It took so long for everyone to get in that many used up over 15 min of air hanging out waiting on everyone. I spent my time watching the fish using my snorkel. When we went down I never thought about it. My dive Buddy and I were busy taking photos and the next thing I saw everyone going up and I checked my gauge again and still had plenty of air. I got a few more outstanding photos and when we surfaced they were all in the boat......... My dive buddy like me hangs out on the surface with the snorkel so we do not waste air.

I will probably keep using mine.........

As I see it, it's more a preference than anything else ... use one if it suits your diving style and environment, and if you don't find it particularly useful then there's not much point in taking it with you ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[TMHeimer]

Bob, I pretty much agree with all your responses. I think your best one is that using a snorkel is more of a comfort thing with some folks than a safety one. The only thing is I'm not sure I'd go as far as calling safety here a complete red herring. Avoiding panic is a mental thing. Comfort is important-- especially if you have a long surface swim ahead of you, maybe in a current that has increased since you began the dive. I know you should never get yourself in a situation where having a snorkel will prevent panic. But I imagine this has happened, especially to inexperienced divers. Any bit of comfort is good for one's state of mind, if nothing else. And there could be a situation with chop that having a few inches of tubing may keep out one mouthfull of water (I know one should have enough tank air to just use the reg., but maybe somebody did a dumb thing and doesn't). Do we want to relate all this to safety? Maybe to 1% of one's mental outlook??? I think this illustrates how really unimportant the whole "arguement" one way or the other is re snorkels.

 

[DennisS]

What a hot button using/not using a snorkel is. If it creates problems for you don't use it, if it makes your surface swims more comfortable, use it

 

[BoltSnap]

What a hot button using/not using a snorkel is. If it creates problems for you don't use it, if it makes your surface swims more comfortable, use it

Exactly.

 

[rx7diver]

New-b here. I have lost two snorkels so far; one on my certification dive and then another one on a later dive. I find I never use it and it gets in the way. On my last 3 dives I have left it in my dive bag. I know I can use a better clip but the question is why do I need one. Thanks.

When rec diving, I use one always, always wear it attached to my mask, attached using a silicone snorkel keeper. I generally recommend this to other rec divers who ask. In my initial open water course (a university semester-long PE course, taught in 1986 to NAUI, YMCA, and PADI standards), we trained extensively with snorkels in both skin diving skills and scuba skills.

I generally use my snorkel whenever I am on the surface, either when surface swimming, pulling myself to the anchor line from where I've splashed at the stern of the boat (when a strong current is running), or hanging out waiting for other divers to splash, etc. I usually switch to my second stage just before descending.

In 1987, during my first ocean dive trip after being certified, during my first night dive that trip, a group of us who had trained together descended in glass-flat seas and enjoyed a very long, relatively shallow (~45 fsw max depth) dive. We very-newly-minted divers surfaced into seas that were extremely rough (a squall had blown in while we were at depth) well away from the brightly lit dive boat (the anchored boat had swung away from us). No problem. We simply surface swam, hand in hand under snorkel power, the between 1/4 to 1/2 mile to the dive boat. It took us a while to get there: A surface current was running in a slightly different direction than the wind that was blowing the boat and the rain, and there were small whitecaps. When we boarded the boat, finally, we all were extremely giddy about the great dive we had just completed! I think that if we had had to surface swim using our regulators, at least one of us would have drained his/her tank. I think that if we had had no snorkels, the swim would have been extremely grueling whether we swam on our stomachs or on our backs. I think that had we not had our snorkels (and been well trained in their use), this would have been a very stressful dive, indeed. This dive took place in the northern Florida Keys.

Someone earlier in this thread wrote that he/she would rather have a snorkel and not need it, than need it and not have it. I agree. I would recommend having the snorkel attached to the mask, since if a snorkel is needed in a stressful situation, it ought not have to be searched for, etc.

Safe Diving,

Ronald

 

[captbillncostarica]

IT seems as if the SNORKEL is not used much any more by the newer divers,,,,guess you never had any real troubles on the surface,

i have been using one for about 50 years and still do,,,

so everyone to his own thing,,,,but me i STILL BELIEVE VERY MUCH IN USING THE OLD SNORKEL it has been a friend for sure,,,,

i have said my piece!

 

[SoccerJeni]

As I understood your post, you have a problem with your hair, snorkel and possibly your mask. The hood (it doesn't have to be a thick one, even a polartec or Aeroskin would do) would help in preventing your hair from getting pulled by your mask and snorkel and would also make it much more comfortable when the mask strap is coming over your ears. The hood will also help you lose less heat and stay warmer U/W.

I always wear some type of hood when diving for comfort and staying warm.

Oh, ok, gotcha. Thank you! Only the clip on the snorkel that rips out my hair. I definitely like wearing a hood when I'm in cold water for sure. I never thought about the option of the warm water hood.

 

[knowone]

Whilst on your back, utilise the daunting cliffs and the beautiful sky, and the massaging effect of the water and the conversation of an interesting cohort, or whoever is on top, to alleviate the fear of what is not there that may bite you.

And to navigate.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Wow! I never realized using a snorkel could piss so many people off!

Now that I know that I'm going to have to use it way more often. I'll be thinking of you guys and smiling and giggling about your contempt for my sorry useless incompetent ass that uses a snorkel. I also have a very BIG knife on my waistband for killing enemy...never mind, and I don't use a BC. Oh my god the HORRORS!!!
I am so dead!

And some people here don't remember doing a no mask breathing skill or a maskless swim in the pool??
Snorkel to reg exchange, BFD.

Oh, and to the back wanders, just look at your compass on your wrist but remember to read it 180. Very important or else you'll be headed out to sea instead of back to shore. Do it right and you'll never have to turn your head once. That's the mark of a REAL proffessional snorkel basher!

And what's up with those people who put the mask backwards on their heads, I don't get it. Is that some new cool thing to do for the cool "in" crowd that I'm not aware of?? Do tell.

 

[BoltSnap]

I had a mask way back then in late 60's early 70's that actually had TWO snorkels that were actually attached to the mask skirt so you can breath through your nose!!! On top of that, if this wasn't enough, they both had the "ping ball" thingy just to make sure that you don't get any splashs.


What about using one snorkel and having one as a backup??? Did you ever think of that? How many people is that going to piss off you think? Would this be DIR compliant? I'll bet that I'd get my MSD certification just for having a back up snorkel. Perhaps I can even write my own specialty course for that?

What do you all think?