Do you carry a snorkel on your dives?
I've met several divers lately who leave the snorkel at home when they go SCUBA diving. The snorkel has become percieved as dead weight that tugs at the mask strap. Today I'll talk about the importance of strapping that tube to your head.Snorkels are annoying
They add extra drag to your head. They poke you in the chin. You forgot the one that isn't pink...Yup, they're just obnoxious, until you need them.
I'm diving, not snorkeling
According to reports by DAN(The Divers Alert Network), the majority of diving deaths at the surface in 2005 were due to exhaustion. In one case a diver drowned at the surface after he dropped his regulator because his tank was empty at the beginning of his dive.That boy's head is like Sputnik
In full diving kit, keeping your head above water is very exhausting. The human head averages about 12 pounds. That's a big weight to keep out of the water. Oh, and don't forget that the top of the tank and your regulator are poking out of the water. Lets make that 20 to 25 pounds of dead weight. Inflating your BC will offset the weight of your noggin, but todays BCs are not designed to keep the divers head out of water.Please sir, make them smaller
It's not entirely the diver's fault that snorkels are being left behind. It has become difficult to find a simple, streamlined snorkel in a dive shop. Purge valves certainly make clearing a snorkel very easy. Unfortunately adding a purge valve makes the snorkel bigger and heavier, resulting in more drag on the divers head. My favorite, trusty, valve free SCUBAPRO snorkel isn't even made anymore. Purge valves are simple devices, but they can fail. A piece of sand in the right place can turn that spiffy valve into a water inlet. Aside from children's gear, my local dive shop doesn't even carry a snorkel without a purge valve.You're still not convinced?
For the local Advanced Open Water course, we have a skill designed to prove the importance of the snorkel. In full gear, the divers swim laps around the pool with everything but a snorkel. In a class filled with 20 year olds in good physical condition, most hit exhaustion between 5 and 8 laps or 250 to 400 yards! After a break, we give them back their snorkel. Once their heads is comfortably in the water, previously exhausted students easily swim the same distance and more with very little energy use. This skill is designed to produce exhaustion, DO NOT try it without an instructor to keep you safe.Failure is not an
option
Have you really considered what happens if you experience an equipment failure at the surface? An
aborted dive can easily result in surfacing away from the dive boat. BC failure, broken fin straps, an un-recoverable
free flowing regulator all become more serious problems if you left your snorkel in your bag. Even in an out of air
situation, most people take their regulators back once they get you to the surface. Gearing up?
Every year, several diving deaths occur at the water surface. The majority of these deaths are due to
exhaustion. Snorkels may be a drag, but carrying your head out of the water is even worse. Swimming at the surface in
full gear without a snorkel will quickly exhaust even the most physically fit diver. The snorkel is sort of a secret
seat belt for divers at the surface.Me? I carry my snorkel on every dive.
I'll even take the pink one.
1. From a technical diver perspective, while diving, snorkels are best left on the boat or in your car.
And that's it.
The idea is to put the energy into planning the dive to avoid emergency situations, rather than to carry all sorts of gear "just in case".
For example, real gas planning so even if one of you loses their air at the worst possible point in the dive, you and you buddy can surface normally and get back to the exit point/boat/whatever breathing on your regs.
And if everything goes South, inflate your wing, roll over on your back and swim back with your face well out of the water. No need for any extra gear to accomplish that.
This spilled over into my recreational diving as well and I do long surface swims in the ocean without a snorkel on a weekly basis.
Snorkels have their place but they are when skin diving or snorkeling, not while diving.
Your mileage may vary.
Posted at 6:50PM on Mar 14th 2006 by Bill Reals