You can't really surface swim through thick kelp on your front with a snorkel either. Most of us just descend a few feet and swim under the surface kelp while breathing off a regulator.
Should I wear a snorkel or not
- Thread starter Happyladydiver
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Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
I don’t, I like to save my air for the dive. Surface swimming in your belly using a snorkel allows you to pick your path and maneuver around the kelp or push it aside. You can also kelp crawl while using a snorkel. It’s a very valuable tool, and I don’t want new diver people reading a bunch of anti snorkel rhetoric then feel silly, stupid, or amateurish for using one. Do what works for you, I’ll do what works for me, and we’ll leave it at that.
I’d actually say most of us here just don’t dive where there is kelp - I’ve never seen the stuff (and never wear a snorkel when diving)
That might work in sparse kelp. But it doesn't work at all when the kelp gets thick, like we had at Point Lobos yesterday. If you tried to push the kelp aside or crawl over it you would just exhaust yourself without making much progress. Totally pointless and counterproductive. If breathing gas is an issue, then just bring more.
Waterwulf
Contributor
Well, I don't know anything about Kelp but I do know that sometimes unplanned stuff happens. My girlfriend and I surfaced one time in a squall with no boat in sight. Swells were about twenty feet with white caps, lightning, wind and we were both low on air. It was just a squall, a little localized storm but inside of it, it was wild! We floated on our backs part of the time but ran out of canned air so we switched to snorkels and floated on our chests. The waves kept breaking over us and I honestly think that had we not had snorkels, it might have ended badly instead of having a neat little adventure. We floated for over an hour before we heard the boats horn and I popped a flare. Stuff happens when it happens!
I'd avoid any recreational dive operator who takes his boat out in a storm or doesn't know how to read a weather forecast.
Carry a snorkel or not, you’re choice. I have one attached to my mask with over 2k dives. It doesn’t get in the way, but the very few times I’ve needed one it was there.
AJ
Contributor
Blackcrusader
Contributor
Does that include liveaboards... lost on in Philippines recently with 4 or 5 dead
Belzelbub
Contributor
Weather forecasting is not that exact. A strong front rolling through, or a tropical storm are different of course. If the boats stayed at the dock if a possibility of a thunderstorm existed, there would be no dive boats going out in the summer around here.
Isolated storms can pop up in a short time, and literally right on top of you. Sunny and nice everywhere else, but inside the storm is a different story.
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