Do you dive with a snorkel!??

[Thalassamania]

20 yrs flying
10 years diving

i think that most commercial pilots could put a glider down.
i doubt that most glider pilots could put a heavy down.

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regs work under water and on the surface
snorkles only work on the surface

if you are going to war and have a gun you dont try to hit the bad guys with stones.

Then I guess we need to discard your analogy, there being general agreement that most divers can not effectively use a snorkel, most instructor can not effectively reach the use of a snorkel and most students never learn to effectively use a snorkel.

In your terms that would mean that most commercial pilots could NOT put a glider down. Yes? But anyway, are we in agreement that Capt. Sullenberger's glider proficiency was key to the safe landing of 1549? Capt. Sullenberger seems to think that it was.

 

[mala]

Then I guess we need to discard your analogy, there being general agreement that most divers can not effectively use a snorkel, most instructor can not effectively reach the use of a snorkel and most students never learn to effectively use a snorkel.

In your terms that would mean that most commercial pilots could NOT put a glider down. Yes? But anyway, are we in agreement that Capt. Sullenberger's glider proficiency was key to the safe landing of 1549? Capt. Sullenberger seems to think that it was.

i have no idea about the effectivness of the teaching of the use of snorkles for diving.
as 99% of a diving course is about diving not snorkling what does it matter.
if you want to learn to snorkle then fine but we are talking about diving.

you dont need a snorkle to dive
you dont need diving kit to snorkle.

as for the flying i think you will find that most forced landings due to engine failure where carried out by pilots with no glider certs.
its part of the training .

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be interesting to know if the space shuttle pilots did most of there flying in gliders or under power.

 

[EastCoastWreckDiver]

I have noticed some instructors I have observed barely cover the snorkel at all, when I asked why not? one replied "Cool kids dont wear snorkels". So I guess if your a cool kid you shouldnt wear one.
I like the advantage of wearing a snorkel and not my reg all the time but the fact that is big, attached to my mask and not very comfortable, I have to say the disadvantages outweigh the advantages.
I would not use a snorkel.

 

[Thalassamania]

i have no idea about the effectivness of the teaching of the use of snorkles for diving.
as 99% of a diving course is about diving not snorkling what does it matter.
if you want to learn to snorkle then fine but we are talking about diving.

you dont need a snorkle to dive
you dont need diving kit to snorkle.

as for the flying i think you will find that most forced landings due to engine failure where carried out by pilots with no glider certs.
its part of the training .

---------- Post Merged at 11:38 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 11:32 PM ----------

be interesting to know if the space shuttle pilots did most of there flying in gliders or under power.

You have an amazing propensity for making my arguments for me. I have to thank you.

1. You say that, "if we are talking flying i would like free diving and snorkles to gliding-man against the elements." I say OK to that, but point out that the generally accepted idea is that student, divers and instructor lack free diving skills, thus the extension to your flying analogy is that most pilots would not be able to land a glider, either that or your flying analogy is a poor one.
2. Then you tell us that, "there is no need to be able to fly a glider to pilot a 747." Yet, clearly, being an experienced glider pilot was, in the opinion of Capt. Sullenberger, a significant contribution to his ability to safely land the heavy he was commanding. I submit that there is first class evidence that belies your claim, at least in an emergency situation.
3. Then you go on to say, "as for the flying i think you will find that most forced landings due to engine failure where carried out by pilots with no glider certs. its part of the training ." So if we extend your argument that, "its part of the training" we must conclude that you support the idea of free diving training for all and carrying a snorkel at all times.
4. And finally you ask: "be interesting to know if the space shuttle pilots did most of there flying in gliders or under power." From what I know of Shuttle Pilot training, forgetting about simulator time, the Shuttle Pilots put in many, many, hundreds of hours in the four C-11A Shuttle Training Aircraft that NASA owns, that are designed and trimmed to behave like a gliding Shuttle. Now most (if not all) Shuttle Pilots come from a military test pilot background with tens of thousands of hours of flight time. The point is not what they did the most of, the point is that at each step in their careers they learned about how to handle unpowered and powered aircraft ... it was part of the job, up until the Shuttle where they concentrated on landing an unpowered aircraft.
5. You say that you, "have no idea about the effectivness of the teaching of the use of snorkles for diving." Try this on for size: In the science community we have never had a fatal accident involving someone who went through one of our training programs. We teach all candidates to be effective free divers, in full gear (that is to say less tank and regulator) and then, often rather late in the program, add the tank and regulator since they have already mastered most all of the skills in the more difficult framework of breath hold diving. So it is not a question of adding snorkeling to the course, as you imply, it is a matter of adding scuba to what is, basically, a core free diving course.

 

[OldNSalty]

I haven’t read all the back and forth (but I suspect that I know what most said). I dive almost exclusively in the ocean and I don’t dive without a snorkel. I find it useful. My oldest wants to learn to dive-he is 10. I told him he would need to spend at least a season snorkeling before I would consider signing him up for anything. IMO it will make him a better diver. I know that I enjoy skin diving almost as much as SCUBA-sometimes more. I think the skill is under-appreciated by most SCUBA folks and should be emphasized more in the courses.

I can see where some diving situation it might not matter or even be a bad idea (wreck penetration? Lakes?) Regardless, if you show up on the boat without a snorkel I will still dive with you (I’ll just assume you had poor training or don’t dive in the open water much).

 

[dvankirk]

Regardless, if you show up on the boat without a snorkel I will still dive with you (I’ll just assume you had poor training or don’t dive in the open water much).

I would be happy to dive with you as well, but I wouldn't assume too much by not seeing a snorkel attached to my mask. I feel like I have been well trained and dive the open waters of the Atlantic often, but my snorkel is tucked away in a pocket - available if needed.

 

[oncearugger]

Snorkels are well worth having in drift diving or when seas are rough when you are waiting to be picked up.

 

[DaleC]

You don't need a snorkel to dive,
you don't need a bcd to dive
you don't need a spg to dive
you don't need an octo to dive
you don't need a knife to dive
you don't need a computer to dive
you don't need a smb to dive
and the point is???

 

[beanojones]

Why the heck to people get so twisted into a knot about something as simple as personal gear choice?

Because it is not personal choice.

Old timers call a snorkel safety equipment. I think basically we have come to some agreement that that is a rather suspect idea. Moreover, lots of old timers ideas have been cast aside, and if it were just the old farts saying "you need to know how to use a snorkel, the is lowering training standards, MacDiver, Damn kids get off my lawn!" then we could safely ignore them as we can with regard to tables, and swim tests, buddy breathing, and the other holdovers from the old days.

However,

PADI also calls it safety equipment which borders on insane, given the utter lack of training, and subsequent practice in its use that most people get with it. Students are trained to use snorkels in pools and quarries by instructors who cannot free dive, and are told a snorkel is safety equipment, and then get themselves into real trouble when they treat it as such.

So in the real world of diving (where accidents happen mostly to tourist divers, and most divers are tourist divers), we have a group of divers who are told by the world's largest training organization that something that regularly gets divers into trouble is mandatory safety equipment.

This is not a matter of personal choice when it is mandated by the world's largest training organization. Nor is it a matter of choice when that same 'safety equipment' not only does not help the others, but actually causes the problems that divers get into.

Someone made the analogy to power tools. That is a great analogy because we do not for a second think of power tools as safety equipment. Useful perhaps, but not safety equipment; rather equipment that makes us take special precautions to use. In fact we use safety equipment in order to use power tools. If we likened snorkels to power tools, then we would be on the right track, and we would get the snorkel out of the OW course, where few instructors have any idea how to use it, let alone teach it. And new divers would not be trying to use it while diving.

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Trying to cram all the first with all the second in a foreshortened course creates an incredible amount of task loading that results in many skills being inadequately learned/re-enforced.

If someone said: for new divers unfamiliar with absolutely everything, a snorkel adds additional task loading to someone already extremely task loaded I would agree. That is not the same as saying snorkels do not belong in diving because many divers are not task loaded by a snorkel (or their other gear).

Now we are getting somewhere in understanding. Snorkels are a tool, that some might find useful. And some, especially new divers (note the forum in which this thread sits), should be wary of using or depending on a snorkel, despite it being labeled as 'safety equipment' by the agency (PADI) which likely trained them.

They should further not trust that their experience in using it one place, resembles in any way what their experience in using it will be somewhere else. (This is in contrast to regulators, and the rest of the gear, which works more consistently from place to place.)

As long as snorkels are not required for training or diving, and PADI does not label something that gets (some) divers in trouble as safety equipment, and PADI does not require snorkels for courses or an instructors, well why would anyone disagree with that? Use it at your own peril, or for your own enjoyment. That's fine.

The problem is that the snorkel is required, and it is labeled as safety equipment by PADI. The problem is not that anyone chooses to use it. It is that people who don't know any better, who have to trust the judgment of the experts they rely on, are being given really, really, really, bad advice. We PADI instructors tell people not to hold their breath, and we tell them that snorkels are mandatory safety equipment. We need them to do the first, so we need to have their trust.

But then we violate that trust by telling a flat lie, that snorkels are necessary, that they are safety equipment, and that all divers are better off with them. How do I know it is a lie? Because that same training organization lists no such nonsense for tech diving students who are far more likely to face be on the surface for hours in the open ocean. If snorkels were actually safety equipment for helping being stuck on the surface in the open ocean, then they would be required for tech divers who are routinely stuck on the surface for hours. They are not.

(Now watch as PADI adds snorkels to required equipment for tech training, as they have for sidemount training. A bungied reg, and a looped hose, and they require snorkels.)

 

[windapp]

Here is a challenge:

For those who insist that a snorkel is an essential piece of safety equipment, I challenge you to find one fatality where the person who died might have been OK if he/she posessed a snorkel.

For those who believe the snorkel to be a hazard, I challenge you to find one fatality (outside of an overhead environment) where the person who died might have been OK if he/she was not wearing a snorkel.