Should I wear a snorkel or not

[formernuke]

Call whatever you want. It makes no difference to me. Yeah I said they were fifteen foot but they may have only been fourteen foot. It's hard to tell from that perspective. Try reading the post next time. I never said we got back on the boat during the squall. I said it blew past and the boat came back looking for us blowing the horn. And no, a squall is not a hurricane but you might think it was if you're in one! They can can get pretty violent over open water.

14 or 15 foot. You would not have survived either way.

 

[Waterwulf]

14 or 15 foot. You would not have survived either way.

You are very mistaken. Just research it a little! Sailors have survived much worse with nothing more than their Mae Wests. It's ancient history. Besides, we were wearing our trusty Horse Collar BC's. Those are much more conducive to keeping divers alive on the surface since they tend to tilt your head back and keep you face up. Best of all, we had our snorkels!!!! I credit those two things with our ability to being able to have enjoyed it (After the fact) instead of drowning.

Honestly, fifteen foot swells are no big deal. It's just a thirty foot ride up and down like a roller coaster. What made it bad for us, was the wind. It kept breaking the tops of the swells and turning it into a high speed spray that made it hard to breath.

 

[formernuke]

You are very mistaken. Just research it a little! Sailors have survived much worse with nothing more than their Mae Wests. It's ancient history. Besides, we were wearing our trusty Horse Collar BC's. Those are much more conducive to keeping divers alive on the surface since they tend to tilt your head back and keep you face up. Best of all, we had our snorkels!!!! I credit those two things with our ability to being able to have enjoyed it (After the fact) instead of drowning.

Honestly, fifteen foot swells are no big deal. It's just a thirty foot ride up and down like a roller coaster. What made it bad for us, was the wind. It kept breaking the tops of the swells and turning it into a high speed spray that made it hard to breath.

So you survived a hurricane, again I call BS. The swells were 6 or 7 foot max. I stand by my statement.

 

[Celt]

An intense squall can produce winds of 80 mph. and a very dangerous sea. It isn’t the height that’s dangerous it's the surface conditions. Force 12 ( hurricane) is defined as anything over 74mph. It would take quite a fetch and time for a swell to build to 14 feet. Yesterday we had 4.2m at the Tuscar in a force 9 strong gale. There’s numerous cases of people, in life jackets, drowning on the surface in bad conditions.

 

[Waterwulf]

I will call BS on this story.

Surfacing in swells, yes that is believable, Surfacing in rain storm yup I'll believe that.

Your stating that you had 15 foot swells with white caps, side ways rain and lighting. That is called a hurricane.

In those conditions your dive boat would be a one time submarine/ new wreck. No way you would have survived. Plus getting back on a boat would not have been possible. The only rescue in that situation that is possible is a coast guard rescue and even they would have a hard time of it.

Either don't elaborate so much or make up believable stories.

Also, I wanted to thank you for the chuckles. I always get a laugh when people make blanket statements based on their own experiences. Based on your user name, I would have thought a former Navy person wouldn't have made those mistakes. Maybe you were Air Force.

First, fifteen foot swells offshore aren't really that big of a deal because of the distance between them. The cycles run longer because of the depth of the ocean. Really, it's like riding a gentle roller coaster. You should try it sometime. Like I stated, the wind made it bad because it broke the tops of them off and blew it horizontally. That and the rain.

And, since you don't seem to know about the difference between swells offshore and waves onshore, I'll give you the Internet definition of "Squall" too.
"A squall is a sudden, sharp, and violent increase in wind speed that is commonly associated with torrential rain showers, snow, or thunderstorms.
Squalls are accompanied by drastic and substantial changes in cloud patterns, cold fronts, and severe weather events."

Second, there are boats and there are boats. Isn't there a statement in the Navy manual someplace that says:
"In general, a boat is a watercraft (for want of a better word) that is small enough to be carried on board a larger one, and that larger one is a ship. This is sometimes expressed this way: “A ship can carry a boat, but a boat can never carry a ship.”

Our dive boat was a converted trawler. That's fairly good sized boat but obviously you didn't read the post. I said the boat left the area and then came back for us. You know...that part about hearing them blowing the horn, etc. We knew they had run from the storm and would be back for us.

And, just so we're clear because I've found that people who make blanket statements also jump to conclusions:
I stated in my post that it was 1975. No, we didn't know that storms would be in our area but the weather people back then were barely able to predict the sunrise. However, it was summer on the North Florida Gulf Coast. Storms happen. Regularly. They're called Squalls.

That particular dive location was a nice reef that we had found and marked on our chart. We located it again it by using radar bearings on condo buildings miles away on shore. We knew that they would find us again because of the marked location and also because they had "dumped the buoy".

The buoy was a large 24 inch orange buoy that was attached to the anchor line. That way, no time would be lost if you had to dump the anchor for an emergency. In this case, we were sure they saw the storm coming and dumped it so they could be sure to find the exact area again. It even had handles on it so a diver has something to hang onto it if need be.

We never saw it though and in fact, they found us again before the buoy. My girlfriends and mine only real complaint afterwards, was that we were cold. We were only wearing shorty wet suit tops. We didn't even have to dump any gear, not even weight belts.

And in case you're wondering, we absolutely knew they had dumped the buoy as soon as we surfaced. They were nowhere around and the masts on a trawler are pretty tall so we knew they had taken off to beat the storm. It would have been standard procedure to dump the buoy and come back later because that's the way we trained.

Nothing that I have recounted is extraordinary. It's not even a "story of survival at sea" because we were never really in any danger except of getting run over by some other boat or stung by jelly fish. It was actually kind of fun afterwards.

In closing, I'll say that it doesn't matter to me if you call BS or anything else. As far as I'm concerned, you lost any standing when you claimed that fifteen swells are not survivable for person or boat. That's just silly! I used to surf my little twenty footer in thru the Pass on bigger swells than that! Here's a hint. They're called "Rollers" for a reason.

 

[formernuke]

Also, I wanted to thank you for the chuckles. I always get a laugh when people make blanket statements based on their own experiences. Based on your user name, I would have thought a former Navy person wouldn't have made those mistakes. Maybe you were Air Force.

First, fifteen foot swells offshore aren't really that big of a deal because of the distance between them. The cycles run longer because of the depth of the ocean. Really, it's like riding a gentle roller coaster. You should try it sometime. Like I stated, the wind made it bad because it broke the tops of them off and blew it horizontally. That and the rain.

And, since you don't seem to know about the difference between swells offshore and waves onshore, I'll give you the Internet definition of "Squall" too.
"A squall is a sudden, sharp, and violent increase in wind speed that is commonly associated with torrential rain showers, snow, or thunderstorms.
Squalls are accompanied by drastic and substantial changes in cloud patterns, cold fronts, and severe weather events."

Second, there are boats and there are boats. Isn't there a statement in the Navy manual someplace that says:
"In general, a boat is a watercraft (for want of a better word) that is small enough to be carried on board a larger one, and that larger one is a ship. This is sometimes expressed this way: “A ship can carry a boat, but a boat can never carry a ship.”

Our dive boat was a converted trawler. That's fairly good sized boat but obviously you didn't read the post. I said the boat left the area and then came back for us. You know...that part about hearing them blowing the horn, etc. We knew they had run from the storm and would be back for us.

And, just so we're clear because I've found that people who make blanket statements also jump to conclusions:
I stated in my post that it was 1975. No, we didn't know that storms would be in our area but the weather people back then were barely able to predict the sunrise. However, it was summer on the North Florida Gulf Coast. Storms happen. Regularly. They're called Squalls.

That particular dive location was a nice reef that we had found and marked on our chart. We located it again it by using radar bearings on condo buildings miles away on shore. We knew that they would find us again because of the marked location and also because they had "dumped the buoy".

The buoy was a large 24 inch orange buoy that was attached to the anchor line. That way, no time would be lost if you had to dump the anchor for an emergency. In this case, we were sure they saw the storm coming and dumped it so they could be sure to find the exact area again. It even had handles on it so a diver has something to hang onto it if need be.

We never saw it though and in fact, they found us again before the buoy. My girlfriends and mine only real complaint afterwards, was that we were cold. We were only wearing shorty wet suit tops. We didn't even have to dump any gear, not even weight belts.

And in case you're wondering, we absolutely knew they had dumped the buoy as soon as we surfaced. They were nowhere around and the masts on a trawler are pretty tall so we knew they had taken off to beat the storm. It would have been standard procedure to dump the buoy and come back later because that's the way we trained.

Nothing that I have recounted is extraordinary. It's not even a "story of survival at sea" because we were never really in any danger except of getting run over by some other boat or stung by jelly fish. It was actually kind of fun afterwards.

In closing, I'll say that it doesn't matter to me if you call BS or anything else. As far as I'm concerned, you lost any standing when you claimed that fifteen swells are not survivable for person or boat. That's just silly! I used to surf my little twenty footer in thru the Pass on bigger swells than that! Here's a hint. They're called "Rollers" for a reason.

Thank you for the laugh, I love some good BS and fairy tales.

 

[Dan Diego]

I've been diving for fifty five years and…

Sadly, all 6k comments boil down to that right there…

 

[berndo]

It's usually only older guys that bring a snorkel. The same guys that have a large dull knife strapped to their lower leg.

If you have a longer surface swim with stuff to see below you, you might wanna bring one. Other than that, they're pretty much useless.

 

[b1gcountry]

Snorkel threads on scubaboard...

Yep, they haven't changed

 

[EFX]

First, fifteen foot swells offshore aren't really that big of a deal because of the distance between them. The cycles run longer because of the depth of the ocean. Really, it's like riding a gentle roller coaster.

I read in a book about the dangers of storms at sea. The research said that non-breaking waves (swells) can never capsize a boat no matter how large. However, waves that break will always capsize a boat if the wave height is as high or higher than the boat is long.

Also mentioned were three things that influence wave height: wind speed, wind duration, and fetch. That last term needs explaining. Fetch is the area of water that the wind blows over. Fetch limits the height of waves. For example, lake Michigan is a fairly large body of water, but waves can never be greater than about 12 ft. no matter how strong the wind is or how long it blows.