Snorkle Use while diving

[jlovold]

A snorkel is a great tool for snorkeling.

For diving it´s just not needed.

Wearing a snorkel on your mask is just plain dangerous. It is dangerous because it makes it a lot easier to lose your mask due to a inadverted kick from your buddy, a line, donating a longhose. Yes you may have thought out how to donate in a slow, controlled manner, but that doesn´t help your buddy who needs air right now, and yanks the reg out of your mouth, removing your mask in the process. Not exactly ideal, not being able to see much while having an air-starved half-panicked buddy clinging to you...

The only time you need a snorkel while scubadiving is when you attend to a PADI-course, and even then it´s not required that you wear it on your mask. You can just as well keep it in a pocket.

 

[Dr Neil]

Mine is tucked between my backplate and wing. Ninety-eight percent of the time it's serves it's primary purpose as a holder for a spare mouthpiece.

 

[Coldwater_Canuck]

PADI's "left side reasoning" is so that the snorkel doesn't come in from the same side as the reg. Not so you don't use it instead of the reg, but so that you can access both with separate hands and neither gets in the way of the other.

Oh I thought it was a safety thing, I can honestly never say it's caused me any difficulty switching between them or whatever.

 

[crowleyW]

Not using and most likely never will.

 

[fnfalman]

I carry a roll-up snorkel in my cargo pouch. If I need it, I'll whip it out. If I don't, it stays in there.

But generally speaking, I'm a bad example to newbies: mask on forehead and no snorkel attached to mask strap.

 

[AbyssalPlains]

why the emphasis if no one is going to follow through.
Robert, A Diver

Welcome to the real world!

You will come across many more things that were drilled into your head during your cert and find later on as you gain more experience they make no sense whatsoever. Generally speaking, there is a very strong inverse correlation between a diver's number of logged dives and the probability of him/her wearing a snorkel. In my humble opinion, a snorkel makes sense only if you are doing a shore dive where you have to swim a long ways to get to and from the site. In those cases, it can be easier to stay on course, keep a watch for boat traffic and swim on the surface with less drag because your tank and wing are out of the water. Other than that, I find a snorkel to get in the way with my equipment and simply to be a dangling nuisance. I remember exactly the dive after which my snorkel came off permanently: When I descended onto a fairly deep wreck and the current was so strong that the drag of the snorkel pulled on my mask and caused it to leak. I took the snorkel off right then and there and haven't missed it since.

 

[Thalassamania]

I always dive with a snorkle (except under the ice and in saturation).

PADI's "left side reasoning" is so that the snorkel doesn't come in from the same side as the reg. Not so you don't use it instead of the reg, but so that you can access both with separate hands and neither gets in the way of the other.

In the early days (two-hose) you carried your snorkel under the straps that held your dive knife to the inside of your calf. When you needed it you pulled it out and stuck it under your mask strap. When single hose regs first came on the scene you wore the snorkel on the right since: "all air comes from the right." Somewhere in the mid 1960s people started moving their snorkels to the left , some agencies formalized this, others thought it was quite too obvious to have to put in print. Cave divers never wore snorkels and much of the current disparagement of snorkels comes from the cave tradition where the fine points of snorkel use were never mastered. Most of the complaints such as drag, entanglement, mask leaks, etc., are not things that I have experienced.

There are no dive police-after your classes you can do what you want. I find they interfere with deploying my long hose, so I don't wear one.

Properly worn this is simply not the case.

I use mine since I prefer swimming forwards with my face in the water to swimming on my back to get to the descent point.

However, I ignored PADI's "left-side" rule. Unfortunately if you have a newer style snorkel that goes straight when not in use, the soft bottom part feels way too much like your inflator hose, and I kept grabbing the snorkel by mistake under water. PADI's left side reasoning is so you don't use your snorkel instead of the reg:I don't see this as an issue however. I've descended with a snorkel in my mouth, but the side of the face was irrelevant to doing this, and underwater your reg is never going to be anywhere near your snorkel mouthpiece if it falls out of your mouth anyways.

Quite.

If it feels in the way you probably just need to push it back further on the mask strap. Where it should be attached is as far back as you can get it, right where the mask strap starts to widen. Doing that puts it in the right orientation for snorkeling and it keeps it out of the way while you're diving.

Many people, for some strange reason, attach the snorkel right at the clip that holds the strap onto the mask and if you do that it feels in the way, in my experience, and it hangs too far forward when you're using it.

R..

Yes.

1+

A properly-positioned snorkel is pushed as far back on the strap as possible so that:

1.) It is in the correct position for face-down swimming on the surface
2.) It is out of the way while diving.

Also, this is one of those cases where "simpler is better". The old-style "J" snorkel without bells and whistles is easier to get out of the way, and works just fine if you practice with it.

And as far as using a snorkel in choppy water? That is what the snorkel is there for! It raises your airway. Ever watched Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers jumping from helos in to the roughest imaginable ocean conditions? That "J"-shaped tubular thing on their mask..... oh, gosh, it is a snorkel

Not DIR... but I dive long hose with a snorkel. Just position it back where it is supposed to be, and slide it down a bit in the keeper. (Ignore my avatar, I was testing a foofy modern snorkel and ditched it soon after that dive for my old "J" snorkel, partly because the new snorkel was harder to position properly)

Best wishes.

Yes.

Easy answer.

A foldabale snorkel that fits in your pocket.

Most folding snorkels are too narrow.

+1

As well, they create an entanglement hazard in overhead environments such as wrecks or anyplace where there's likely to be lots of monofilament around.

Not in my experience.

Snorkels are for sissies and children.

I guess I'm a sissie.

Snorkel debate......use what ever works for you. Snorkels have there place. They do not belong under water attached to your mask...it just adds drag. If you do any type of wreck exploration then that snorkel is a hazard. If you cave dive...that snorkel is a hazard..if you are in current..that snorkel will be a pain in the side ...

If you want a snorkel...take it off once you've done your surface swim..put it back on if needed. I carry one in a pocket. Rolls up in a small ball...Got it from Aqua lung...I have never had to use it...In chop-rough waters...My reg is in my mouth...Just do what is comfortable for you in the environment you dive in.

Also note that if you advance your dive training to any level above recreational diving..you will quickly loose that snorkel.

We did some tow tanks tests, there is not any measurable drag added by a snorkel that is properly worn.

A snorkel is a great tool for snorkeling.

For diving it´s just not needed.

Wearing a snorkel on your mask is just plain dangerous. It is dangerous because it makes it a lot easier to lose your mask due to a inadverted kick from your buddy, a line, donating a longhose. Yes you may have thought out how to donate in a slow, controlled manner, but that doesn´t help your buddy who needs air right now, and yanks the reg out of your mouth, removing your mask in the process. Not exactly ideal, not being able to see much while having an air-starved half-panicked buddy clinging to you...

Even if you have the bad luck to be stuck with such a buddy in such a situation, that simply is not true, at least I've never had such an experience.

Welcome to the real world!

You will come across many more things that were drilled into your head during your cert and find later on as you gain more experience they make no sense whatsoever. Generally speaking, there is a very strong inverse correlation between a diver's number of logged dives and the probability of him/her wearing a snorkel.

Very true.

 

[BioLogic]

The diver I know in real life (as opposed to On the Internet) in whose judgement I have the most confidence is the guy I did OW training with. I don't know how many dives he has, but his PADI number for his shop is under 150. He's big into cave diving as well. He still carries a snorkel in open water because he's seen it turn out badly when someone had to do a long unexpected swim in rough water without one.

So I carry a snorkel in open water.

 

[xjkip]

i never wear one, but its not a bad idea to get a small folding one for drift dives where you may be on the surface for a while waiting for the boat to get to you.

 

[R A Diver]

This is my response as well, ue snorkle when appropriate. If seas calm, I enjoy just floating. If seas too choppy, using a snorkle doesn't help as water get it it then. Thanks for the reply.