Snorkeling vest

[Joel2693]

Can you still dive underwater with a snorkeling vest inflated?

 

[Polarorbit]

That depends on your overall buoyancy. Likely not. You need to be fairly close to neutral buoyancy to be able to swim down. Of course, your fins and strength will factor in as well.

I have to ask, why would you want to? Just let the air out when you want to dive down and inflate it again when you’re on the surface.

 

[agilis]

No, you really cannot dive underwater with your vest fully inflated.

 

[Altamira]

What @agilis said. Plus, if you are wearing a wetsuit, you will likely need to add some weights to submerge even with the snorkel vest fully deflated. The thicker the wetsuit, the more weight you are going to need.

 

[Waterwulf]

The Snorkel Vest is like the Horse Collar Buoyancy Compensator but without the bells and whistles. Mine has dump valves, button inflator, manual inflator, pockets, gear rings, etc. I use it for snorkeling and SCUBA. I like to get my weights adjusted so that I am very slightly negative buoyancy on the surface with no air in my BC. A small puff or squirt of air and I'm neutral.

If I'm snorkeling, I'll adjust the air in it so that I'm just barely floating on the surface, "awash" as the description goes. It's still fairly easy to submerge that way but if you want to go deeper or stay longer, dump the air from your vest.

 

[dcvf2]

Hi Joel2693“​

To convince yourself, try in the pool to reach the bottom with your jacket and pretend that you are filming a fish… and tell us now what you think about this experimentation