Is Oceanmaster Still Around? I found this weird website...

[archman]

Hi, my amazing OceanMaster dry snorkel with nearly 20 years' hard use broke its keeper off today. I am so totally bummed. The Oceanmasters are my favorites by a long shot for snorkeling.

I picked up this XS Scuba M-line snorkel a few years back for visitors.
https://www.amazon.com/XS-Scuba-M-Line-Snorkel-Crystal/dp/B000O6CHP6?tag=scuba-text-table-20
It is roughly comparable to the Oceanmaster and I will be forced to actually wear it myself tomorrow for the first time. After messing with it all afternoon I am finding it frustrating to adjust. It just doesn't have the same freedom of motion adjustment for the mouthpiece. It looks like some manufacturing alterations were made to simplify cost, but dang... I'd rather pay extra to get back the giant ball and socket joint and the straight-drop purge.

Anyways, I went scouring the web, and lo and behold, I came across this flashback website.
Snorkels - Ocean Master

I have not come across a website so dated in many years. Has anyone ordered from here recently? Is this legit? I thought that Oceanmaster sold off its manufacturing and patents to the XS Scuba folks over 10 years ago.

If I can lay my hands on the original Oceanmaster dry snorkel (and some spare parts for them) I will easily cough up the money. It is a superb product. But this Oceanmaster website is kind of sketchy and retro to the point of creeping me out. Any help/advice would be great.

 

[W W Meixner]

Hi, my amazing OceanMaster dry snorkel with nearly 20 years' hard use broke its keeper off today. I am so totally bummed. The Oceanmasters are my favorites by a long shot for snorkeling.

I picked up this XS Scuba M-line snorkel a few years back for visitors.
https://www.amazon.com/XS-Scuba-M-Line-Snorkel-Crystal/dp/B000O6CHP6?tag=scuba-text-table-20
It is roughly comparable to the Oceanmaster and I will be forced to actually wear it myself tomorrow for the first time. After messing with it all afternoon I am finding it frustrating to adjust. It just doesn't have the same freedom of motion adjustment for the mouthpiece. It looks like some manufacturing alterations were made to simplify cost, but dang... I'd rather pay extra to get back the giant ball and socket joint and the straight-drop purge.

Anyways, I went scouring the web, and lo and behold, I came across this flashback website.
Snorkels - Ocean Master

I have not come across a website so dated in many years. Has anyone ordered from here recently? Is this legit? I thought that Oceanmaster sold off its manufacturing and patents to the XS Scuba folks over 10 years ago.

If I can lay my hands on the original Oceanmaster dry snorkel (and some spare parts for them) I will easily cough up the money. It is a superb product. But this Oceanmaster website is kind of sketchy and retro to the point of creeping me out. Any help/advice would be great.

AM...

The web site is certainly retro...put together in 2008...phone the number listed for ordering...you'll know right away if they're still active...a PAYPAL purchase...will not be charged against you if there is a problem...

Myself...if they're active and they have no PAYPAL account...I would pass...I'd not give them a CC number...

There are lots of good snorkels on the market now...

Interesting regulators...second stage bottom LP hose banjo fitting...with bottom flow adjuster...

There is no e-mail address...you may be out of luck...they could be long gone...

Warren...

 

[Wookie]

I would have no knife aside from OceanMaster. 2 of my knifes wore out their cases. I ordered 2 new oceanmaster cases 2 months ago and they came in just fine in about a week. They are absolutely legit.

 

[archman]

Hey Wookie, did you order the OM knives direct from that old Oceanmaster website?

 

[Wookie]

I bought one at Captain Pete’s in Fort Myers and one at Discover Scuba in Houston.

 

[Wookie]

But I bought the knife sheaths from the website....

Hey Wookie, did you order the OM knives direct from that old Oceanmaster website?

 

[HKGuns]

Funny, I thought the same thing. I have one of their more expensive purge masks from the late 90's an was looking at what other gear they sold while outfitting myself for my first dives.

The website looks really, really old but appears to work well. Given the genuine quality of their merch you'd think they would find other distribution models like Amazon or something. I suppose they have good reasons for operating the way they do.....

I too would like to know if that website is legit. The purge mask I have from them is very high quality and very comfortable.

 

[archman]

Update #1: Submitted an order through their ancient website. Never heard back nor received email receipt.
Update #2: Re-sent same order a week later through ancient website. Waited a few days. Never heard back nor received receipt.
Update #3: Emailed them directly and hand wrote out my order. That seemed to work, but turnaround was slow. About 3-ish days later I received a paypal payment request that matched my order. From there, all my ordered items were fast-shipped! Success! I got a brand new actual Oceanmaster dry snorkel and some spare heavy duty snorkel clips to repair both of my remaining 15+ year old Oceanmaster's.

Here's a pic of my brand new Oceanmaster snorkel, next to one of my old ones from the early 2000's (now with a new snorkel keeper clip). There have been some design changes that took a little getting used to. The older model had a huge ball and socket joint that gave unmatched adjustment freedom. This newer model seems to have swapped out the giant ball and socket with two smaller ball and sockets, one in the original location and a new one directly underneath the mouthpiece. It took a little bit of work to figure the new system out but now it feels similarly awesome as my older model.

The new heavy duty snorkel keeper clips don't pin your strap down like the old ones, which was a definite bummer. But the new ones do still clamp around my old snorkels just fine so it's still an improvement over the jury-rigs I've been doing with generic snorkel keepers.

 

[Popgun Pete]

Figuring (wrongly) that the Oceanmaster dry snorkel was going to be a flash in the pan I bought two at a Dive Travel show in 1994 when they were first being shown here. One was a spare which I never had to use as the first one kept on going. Why did I buy one? Well it was for near shore diving as a year before I was spearfishing and scanning the bottom when something shot into the back of my mouth and I nearly choked, ripping the snorkel mouthpiece out and forcefully exhaling into the water. Then I spied little splashes occurring randomly in front of me and scanning around saw kids on the nearby island promontory shore (low tide walking access) throwing beach pebbles up into the air and out to sea. They were not aiming at me, but one unwittingly scored a hole-in-one down my big bore snorkel. Never had a problem since with the dry snorkel, but when diving in more remote and deeper situations it was always back to my no frills, open top snorkel. That is why the dry snorkel lasted so long as it only had so many outings each season.

 

[Popgun Pete]

Looks like Amazon still has them in clear, so either old stock or they are still being made.
https://www.amazon.com/Famous-Brand-Master-Taiwan-Snorkel/dp/B001P4C4QI#customerReviews
I used a blue version, seen here on my post-dive wash table, the spare is all black and has been stored in a cupboard and should still have its original packaging.