Just because you choose to subject yourself to the least competent sample of divers that there is out there doesn't really entitle you to describe things like a snorkel in the absolutest terms that you use. For example:
beanojones:
Originally Posted by beanojones ... Snorkels are indifferent in calm places quarries. They are stupidly dangerous in the ocean in the mouth of most people, for the situation I see daily listed above.
That's patently absurd from the point of view of a competent instructor who trains competent divers.
Of course taking into account the fact that these are my divers (or at least people on the boat I am on), but not my students, what exactly can be done?
Most instructors are simply unaware of what (for instance) the Hawaii ocean can be like so they think they are teaching adequate snorkel breathing patterns. This is treading into I2I area, but I have said, and I believe, that instructors using pools to train, unconsciously (at least I hope it is unconsciously) end up training people to dive in pool like conditions by not enforcing ocean awareness (airway protected until on dry land, facing the waves, no standing in fins) while they practice in the pool.
This goes along with what passes for snorkel/free dive training in OW courses.
Anyone can free dive in a pool because the surfacing diver can completely exhale to clear the snorkel when they surface, because there are no waves. This makes divers think of snorkels as a magic air tube instead of the garden hose it becomes in the ocean.
If a diver is forced to only partially exhale to clear because there is no reason not to expect a wave, then snorkel clearing becomes a much harder proposition, and the overwhelming urge to breathe just makes that proper breathing pattern go out the window on the never properly learned, and never practiced skill confronts water in the airway in the ocean.
Which makes snorkels stupidly dangerous when these divers come to the real ocean which is only pool-like in order to trick people into acting stupid, and then turns the magic air tube into a garden hose, and then the divers spit out the snorkel, and suck more water, and quit diving for the day, or for good, because someone somewhere made the inane suggestion that snorkels belong on divers heads to save air, or to provide safety.
One solution: revoke everyone's C-Cards until they take a proper Ocean based free diving course, and have the necessary breath control to hit 50 feet comfortably and repetitively, and clear the snorkel on surfacing while only exhaling less than half of the air on their lungs. (Not realistic, because right now few instructors can do this, let alone teach it. It would mean most instructors would lose their basic OW certification.)
Here's another solution: Recognize the world as it is, where inept snorkel use causes panicked divers. Admit that snorkels are not necessary for safety, and in at least some cases, counter productive to safety because the skills are never properly taught, and/or are never practiced, and just move snorkel use to a separate course. Make the leave 500 psi rule that boats idiotically enforce for no good reason make sense by actually providing a reason to leave 500 psi instead of using most of it at the safety stop. (Realistic)
I know where I fall, not that I have dove many places; but because I have seen divers from all over the world, and they all can get themselves in trouble by thinking of the snorkel as a reasonable option in the ocean.
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To deny their place in any and all diving situations and to argue that they are inherently unsafe is being obtuse.
Or realistic. You gave one example where snorkel could be used. But there is no reason why it is preferable to using a regulator.
