UCFKnightDiver
Contributor
No, snorkels are for snorkeling not diving!
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Don't know about Victoria.
Snorkels are essential for all but cave diving
Without some elaboration, that is a nonsensical statement. Would you care to elaborate?No, snorkels are for snorkeling not diving!
Rather irrelevant, charter requiring it or not, the point is: "why don't you choose to dive with one?"Nope. Though I did have to have one for SSI training that I did. But no charter or anyone else has ever required it.
As I stated in post #27:Why are they essential? I have never had a use for a snorkel when diving. Perhaps for other places they might be useful but I can't think of a situation in which I wanted a snorkel in the types of dives I do. So like other equipment I find no use for I do not bring a snorkel.
Without getting into detail let me say that have been in situations were having a snorkel made the dive easier, where having a snorkel made the dive more fun (e.g., longer), and even where having a snorkel played a role in performing a rescue of another diver as well as a role in what you might call self rescue. If you weigh all that against the nanogram of inconvenience that a snorkel rarely causes ... the intelligent conclusion is rather obvious.
A few examples:
A snorkel:
- lets you look at the bottom whilst swimming out the dive site.
- lets you steer around shallow obstructions.
- helps you to preserve air while shore diving and swimming to your submergence point.
- permits mouth-to-snorkel breathing and transport in an emergency, by far the fastest and most efficient way.
- can be used in place of a mouth to mouth barrier in an emergency.
- makes it much easier to swim in heavy chop that would banging against you and over you if you were on your back.
- is essential if you ever need to swim under a helicopter that is hovering over the water.