SCUBA Theory is following the wet sessions of a unique, semester(three month) long university level Advanced Open Water SCUBA class. In our first session, we covered mask clearing. You might know just how much I love my snorkel. Today I'll cover the basics of snorkel clearing and we'll even start training for buddy breathing in today's SCUBA Theory.

Gear for today includes the usual weight belt for achieving neutral buoyancy, a mask and a snorkel. As soon as the class is in the water we have them unclip the snorkel and ditch their mask on the side of the pool. This keeps the student isolated to mastering the snorkel. (We'll be taking away our divers masks many times during the class. Snorkel day is a great introduction to this.) One equipment note - we don't teach the students with purge valve equipped snorkels. If they learn clearing with a non-purge snorkel, they'll become far more proficient.

The first skill for the morning is the ever so handy "PTOO-ey" technique. This usually takes the longest to master. The actual clearing is pretty easy, the difficulty is to keep from choking on the residual water. (And not breathing water up your nose without a mask.) The key to not choking is to place your tongue on the roof of your mouth immediately after clearing the snorkel - and before inhaling. When you inhale, any water that would splash into your throat will bounce off your tongue instead of causing the usual choke reflex.

The next clearing technique we cover is displacement. (Which probably won't work very well with most purge valves.) To idea is to clear the snorkel before surfacing. By tilting the head back so the snorkel is five degrees past the horizontal plane, we can clear the snorkel much like a mask. Just before breaking the surface, the diver exhales lightly into the snorkel until the resistance drops. Once the water is out, the diver just looks down so that the snorkel flips out of the water. When done properly, the diver can immediately breath as soon as they surface. This trick takes a minimum of air - but may not be the best in rougher waters.

The next skill of the day is popcorn breathing. I described it thoroughly before, so I'll avoid the details. In a nutshell, we teach them how to breath through a snorkel that's partially filled with water. It's a great skill/proof of the reason for putting the tongue to the roof of the mouth correct. It's an important skill to have, especially if you ever end up breathing on a wet, leaky regulator or are simply snorkeling in rough waters.

Next we bring the skills together by introducing buddy breathing with a snorkel. (I've covered buddy breathing in Sharing Air if you want an overview) The important points of the skill: Maintain control of your air when donating, bubble in between breaths and switch off every two breaths. We do a short review of the hand signals: Low on Air, Out of Air, Need to buddy breath. (If they seem excessive, consider that they are a good device to maintain the focus of a panicking diver.) Teaching all three signals is also beneficial - if you need air from someone who doesn't know your signals, they'll probably figure out what you need.

Before wrapping up class, everyone re-attaches their snorkel to the mask. Now we have them recover the mask, clear it, surface and clear the snorkel. The final task of the morning is to attempt swimming one length underwater. After that, they can practice mask/snorkel recovery in the deep end until it's time to go.