6.5 Snorkels

I have never needed a snorkel. There have been a few times early on when I had one and found it was irritating and in the way, but I’ve never actually needed it. If you get used to doing surface swims on your back it may at first seem strange that you have to occasionally turn over and look where you’re going and take a kind of mental bearing on whatever is in the exact opposite direction, but it becomes second nature pretty quickly.

Snorkels are an entanglement hazard in open water, and I’d never use one in a confined space. Also, the mouthpiece is right in the same area as your primary regulator. I can’t think off-hand of any good gory scenarios, but on principle I like the idea of keeping that area fairly clear of junk that gets in the way of hoses and regulators when you or your buddy might need one. This is especially true if you already necklace your backup rather than use an octo. In any case, the things definitely get in the way for me.

As a side note, people talk about wings tending to pitch you forward in the water on the surface (as against a jacket-style BC). Early on, I wondered if this would make it harder to surface swim on my back. It turns out that the wing made it much easier to lay back completely and minimize drag. This makes one more point against the need for a snorkel for me. If you really lay back and relax and zen out you can cover a lot of ground pretty quickly this way. You don’t re-breathe any air, like with a snorkel. That’s if you’re on the move. If you’re just sitting there, waiting for a boat or something then why do you need or even want your face in the water anyway? I’d be too busy waiving or shouting or whistling or something to want to be looking down in the water. And if you are afraid you can’t get your face out of the water then there are other problems. I personally, between my wing and my drysuit can just about be out of the water to my stomach if I really need to (slight exaggeration). If you’re diving wet and it’s really an emergency, drop some weight.

The other day a friend of mine helped out in a pool session for an open water class. It was a PADI class. She and I recently did a DIR-F class and decided to switch to 7ft primary hoses.

So she’s there helping with this class and the instuctor (who is a great instructor, by the way) says, no, she doesn’t mind if she uses the long hose in the class… but she does have to wear a snorkel, per agency requirements.

Long hose okay, but absolutely no going snorkel-less.

So there she is, holding on to students while they are doing a reg ditch and recovery and wondering how the hell she would actually deploy her hose past the stupid snorkel if she needed to. I don’t think she would really need to in 4 feet of water anyway, but still...

You could say that if you absolutely have to have a snorkel then get one of those that roll or fold up and carry it in a drysuit pocket. But really that is a solution to a non-problem. If you really think you need a snorkel, reconsider the dive plan.

2003.6.8
Based on a posts to rec.scuba and thedecostop.com