Waterwulf
Contributor
A separate mask and snorkel are inherently safer than the snorkel mask due to two primary reasons.
Snorkeling is done at the surface with maybe some shallow dives. It seems safer than SCUBA diving and usually is. It's not only for amateurs but they usually try it first before going with SCUBA.
A snorkel can be a simple J tube with a mouthpiece or a complicated thing with anti back flow, purge valves and a custom mouthpiece. However, every single one of them has the same thing in common: A mouthpiece that can be spit out. I enjoy snorkeling and I'm sure that I have spent more time breathing air thru it than thru a regulator. I first did it in about 1968. In all that time, in assorted oceans, lakes, ponds, rivers, canals and a few places that I like to forget, I have only had one snorkel failure. My purge valve got jammed open by a piece of seaweed and it kept flooding. It was simple and more importantly a "natural fix". I spit the mouthpiece out and breathed.
A snorkel mask unfortunately, can not be spit out. If it's flooded, you just ain't gonna get any air unless you remove the mask. So now you're coughing, trying desperately to breath and starting to panic. Every cough results in a breath which just gets more water into your lungs. You're using all of your energy just to stay afloat because you have no flotation gear. Why can't you breath? Your face is out of the water!!!!! There is no "natural fix".
The problems are no natural fix and the deceptive psych that you should be able to breath because your face is out of the water. Combine that with no or little training and no flotation gear and it's disaster.
I used the words "natural fix" but it could also be called instinctive reactions or the result of good training. Regardless, it's where you just naturally do something as a reaction to current circumstances. Like give your primary to an out of air diver and grab your octo or grab your line cutter when you feel that fish hook sink into your shoulder or check your J Valve rod every few minutes or lift your head every once in a a while while snorkeling to see where you are or spit out the snorkel so you can breath.
I am almost seventy years old and took my first underwater breath in the late sixties. I have learned many things about being in, on and under the water in that time. The most important is that is you ain't breathing, you're having a bad day. Nothing else is as important so make it easy on yourself. Use a mask and snorkel and stay and away from snorkel masks! They're not natural!
Snorkeling is done at the surface with maybe some shallow dives. It seems safer than SCUBA diving and usually is. It's not only for amateurs but they usually try it first before going with SCUBA.
A snorkel can be a simple J tube with a mouthpiece or a complicated thing with anti back flow, purge valves and a custom mouthpiece. However, every single one of them has the same thing in common: A mouthpiece that can be spit out. I enjoy snorkeling and I'm sure that I have spent more time breathing air thru it than thru a regulator. I first did it in about 1968. In all that time, in assorted oceans, lakes, ponds, rivers, canals and a few places that I like to forget, I have only had one snorkel failure. My purge valve got jammed open by a piece of seaweed and it kept flooding. It was simple and more importantly a "natural fix". I spit the mouthpiece out and breathed.
A snorkel mask unfortunately, can not be spit out. If it's flooded, you just ain't gonna get any air unless you remove the mask. So now you're coughing, trying desperately to breath and starting to panic. Every cough results in a breath which just gets more water into your lungs. You're using all of your energy just to stay afloat because you have no flotation gear. Why can't you breath? Your face is out of the water!!!!! There is no "natural fix".
The problems are no natural fix and the deceptive psych that you should be able to breath because your face is out of the water. Combine that with no or little training and no flotation gear and it's disaster.
I used the words "natural fix" but it could also be called instinctive reactions or the result of good training. Regardless, it's where you just naturally do something as a reaction to current circumstances. Like give your primary to an out of air diver and grab your octo or grab your line cutter when you feel that fish hook sink into your shoulder or check your J Valve rod every few minutes or lift your head every once in a a while while snorkeling to see where you are or spit out the snorkel so you can breath.
I am almost seventy years old and took my first underwater breath in the late sixties. I have learned many things about being in, on and under the water in that time. The most important is that is you ain't breathing, you're having a bad day. Nothing else is as important so make it easy on yourself. Use a mask and snorkel and stay and away from snorkel masks! They're not natural!
