Proper use of Snorkel in Free Diving

[BoltSnap]

Does anyone have definitive information on the proper use of snorkel when making a dive U/W while free diving? Should the free diver leave his snorkel mouthpiece in his mouth while U/W or should he let go of it while submerged? I would appreciate the reasons for the recommendations.

 

[ccup]

Not an expert by any means...but do a fair amount of freedive spearfishing and am constantly learning the sport. Remove the snorkel from your mouth when you dive. Mitigates some risk of flooding your lungs if you shallow water blackout. Read up on this. Plenty can be found via google

Sent from my DROID RAZR

 

[Hank49]

X2
What he said.

 

[ImmersionFreediving]

I teach all my students to ditch the snorkel upon descent. When you are freediving underwater with the snorkel in your mouth, the only thing stopping the water rushing into your lungs is your tongue which actively blocks the water from coming in your mouth. Were you to blackout underwater, your tongue would no longer perform that function and you would be introducing water into your airway.

Most free diving training agencies that I'm aware of teach student to ditch their snorkel on descent as its a drowning hazard.

 

[nimoh]

I never thought of ditching the snorkel, but it makes sense that you should ditch it.

would you put it back in on ascent when nearing the surface?

 

[ImmersionFreediving]

No just surface and breathe through you mouth. Snorkel would be full of water as well so would need to be cleared in order to be used. Most freediving classes will also teach a specific type of recovery breathing on the surface in order to increase safety.

 

[nimoh]

sorry for hijacking this thread, but it is sort of on topic

at what point does snorkeling become free diving? Is it a matter of depth?

I have never considered myself a free diver, but when I'm not scuba diving on vacation, I will commonly do some snorkeling of the shore, and dive down maybe to 20 feet or so once in a while if I see something interesting.

 

[Hank49]

That's an interesting question.....kind of like, when does a wind chop become a swell?

I would say that free diving is just diving under the water while holding your breath. Competitive free divers do their breathing up while lying on their backs on the surface and don't use a snorkel at all.

"Snorkeling", to me anyway, would just be cruising around on the surface.

20 feet is not shallow. A lot of people say, "yeah, I can dive to 40 feet on breath hold". Oh yeah? Put on a free dive computer and dive. 40 feet is pretty deep.

 

[Arubandi07]

Agree with Hank, as long as you're diving on a breath hold, be it 5' or 50', 20 seconds or 2 min, you are freediving ...

 

[BoltSnap]

For me, snorkeling is staying on the surface most of the time and breathing through a snorkel with "occasional" dives underwater. Free Diving is making repetitive and frequent breath-hold dives underwater.