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It doesn't matter to me in the slightest if you believe it or not but I'm glad you enjoyed it. It was not a life altering or even particularly dangerous incident due to our training. I only recounted that experience to justify why I like and will always carry a snorkel. Whether you believe it or not will not affect the facts as I related them.
In the old old days, pre mid about 1070's, there was no such thing as BC's or BCD's. I think they started gaining popularity when people saw the ones that were stolen from the military and modified. In the early days, they were all Horse Collar Buoyancy Compensators. Most of them had a tendency to float a diver face up if you relaxed on the surface. That's why they were recognized as "Life Saving devices". We all had and used our snorkels for surface swims. Most of the new modern BCD's tend to float the diver face down if they relax on the surface. I would think snorkels would be even more needed but I don't use a modern BCD so i really don't know.
Once something is labeled as being all-important, it's quite hard to walk that back. Quite often the origins are forgotten. We had steel 72s, no spg, no depth gauge, no wetsuit, and no BC when I first learned. I was always a bit negative and the first sign you were low on gas was the butt pucker you got when you couldn't get air out of your reg. Oh yeah, no octos either. So you reached down and pulled the rod connected to your j-valve, so you could ascend. Every now and then, it was already in the open position, so you had to swim like hell to the surface. Yeah, our buddies were mostly SOBs (Same Ocean Buddies). You can't imagine how tiring it is to do an ascent like that, and once you get to the surface you have to keep swimming or you'll sink. Snorkels really helped. They're mostly in the way now.
One more piece of information on waves I found fascinating. There are generally two types of waves: wind-driven and tsunamis. As indicated by the description wind-driven waves build up by the wind. You can always dive under these waves to calmer water below although for very large waves you may have to go deep. Not so for Tsunami waves. Tsunami's are not caused by wind action but by earthquakes or by ocean floor displacements. As a result, the entire water column is moving and the sheer mass of that water contains far more energy than surface waves. This is why Tsunami's don't stop at the shore but sometimes are driven far inland, sometimes for miles depending on the flatness of the terrain. To escape a large wind-driven wave from breaking on top of you, you can dive into the wave to get underneath it. Not so with a Tsunami. Since it's a wall of water coming at you, there is no diving underneath it to escape its fury.
Where was this? 15 feet at a dive site? How can you even dive in these conditions. Usually people check the forecast and don't go out when a major storm is rolling in.
