Snorkeling technique

naughtysmurf

Howdy, the family & I are going to be snorkelling in October, we can all swim but have never snorkelled, obviously don't want mouthfuls of salty water so can anyone give a basic guide on how to do it properly / best, I appreciate this is a very basic question for this forum

Thanks

jimbev

http://www.wikihow.com/Snorkel

follow the link fella its easy reading

naughtysmurf

This is the bit that confuses me, from the link

Once you get adept at clearing your airway, you can consider diving below the surface of the water to get a better look at something nifty. Take a deep breath and swim down. When you need a breath, surface, keeping your face underwater

I assumed there was some thing in the snorkel that allowed you to store a small amount of air to be used for a short time while under the water, if you need to surface to breath all the time, I don't see the huge advantage of the snorkel? Is it mainly only used while you are floating on the surface? If it is then I misunderstood how snorkelling worked

locum-motion

naughtysmurf wrote: »

...
I assumed there was some thing in the snorkel that allowed you to store a small amount of air to be used for a short time while under the water, if you need to surface to breath all the time, I don't see the huge advantage of the snorkel? Is it mainly only used while you are floating on the surface? If it is then I misunderstood how snorkelling worked

Nope, just hold your breath. That's all the 'storage' of air you can do.
The snorkel allows you to breath at the surface without having to lift your face (and, more importantly, your eyes) out of the water.

Gav104

There's a good chance you might be swimming along on the surface scanning for more interesting sights when suddenly you make out something in the distance that catches your eye and makes you want to take a closer look.Maybe the fish or something has swam under a rock.

Remember as well that you'll be swimming so your going to using up energy and breathing heavier than usual.It's no fun if you don't have a snorkel and you keep needing to take your face out of the water every 5 seconds to catch your breath

This is where taking a breath and diving down is an advantage.Many times the most interesting fish are hiding on the bottom.

spaceHopper

You take a breath hold it, dive down look around the head back up. When you surface, you keep your head in the water and give one very hard breath out, almost a chough, that blows the water out of the snorkel so you can now breath normally again. Takes a bit of practice but once you get it you’ll see much more, you’ll also get water in from splashes and wave or if you turn your head and accidently sink the snorkel so you will need be able to clear it.

Worst case you surface, take out the snorkel and empty it…. But it’s much slower.

Freedive Ireland

Sorry guys but to wade in here, breathe through the snorkel on the surface as soon as you dive under spit it out of your mouth. When you surface breathe out a little and a big breath back in, recover fully then clear the snorkel and start again. Never dive with a snorkel in your mouth.

locum-motion

Freedive Ireland wrote: »

... Never dive with a snorkel in your mouth.

Why not?

Freedive Ireland

When you resurface and probably low on air the last thing you want to do is forcefully push what little you have out as it increases the risk of a BO. Small exhale out and as much as you can in. In the event of an issue underwater a snorkel in the mouth is an open airway to the lungs, recovering someone who has blacked out is dramatic but relatively easy recovering someone with water in their lungs is hard, and requires medical intervention due to secondary drowning etc. Afaik PADI are the only agency in the world advocating keeping the snorkel in and mastering the technique of pushing water out of it as you surface, its still part of their skindive speciality.

Gav104

There's more than one way to skin a cat.

If you're snorkeling and ascending from a dive you don't always need to breath forcefully to remove the water from your snorkel, all you need to do is put your head back and chin up ,which you should be doing anyways to make sure the area you are going to break the surface is clear, at this point the top of the snorkel is now significantly lower than your mouth so the water drains out of the hole as soon as you break the surface.

I think there is a significant difference between a Padi skin diver course and free diving.

Can people black out on the surface from a shallow water blackout ? I would have thought they would black out between 5 meters and the surface instead of on the surface.

locum-motion

Gav104 wrote: »

... at this point the top of the snorkel is now significantly lower than your mouth so the water drains out of the hole as soon as you break the surface...

Not only that, but if you gently breathe out as you rise, the water in the snorkel is displaced downwards out of the snorkel, so as you bend forward upon reaching the surface (ie keeping the face in the water and lifting the tip of the snorkel out of the water) your snorkel is (almost) empty. If your first new breath in is then taken carefully, you can easily 'breathe past' the small amount of water in the U of the snorkel and then exhale forcefully to eject that bit of water (or most of it, anyway)

Freedive Ireland

Ok you guys and Padi must be right and every other freedive/snorkel agency in the world is doing it wrong. I make no distinction between snorkelling and freeediving other than if you put your head under water you are now a freediver. Most BOs happen on the surface because people don't start breathing correctly. On average about 40 people die a year either freedivers (rare) or spearfishermen (common) from shallow water blackout. Don't breathe out on the way up.

Gav104

To me it always seemed a case of people pushing themselves too far rather than a case of not breathing correctly. I would have thought you can breathe the right way all you want but if you push your limits that will be the deciding factor in the black out.

I certainly believe its something people should be more aware of.Most of the padi skin diver course relates to diving down shallow .What is technically shallow water ? I don't know the answer to that question but I would hazard a guess at less than 3 meters. Most beginners would be unable to hold their breath for that long and are more concerned about seeing Nemo as opposed to setting a new depth record.

I understand the reasoning in not using a snorkel for your application but I believe it is adding a reduction in risk to a problem where you are increasing risk by exceeding your limits.A bit like wearing a helmet and pads when riding a motorbike.

yankinlk

This is a good healthy debate. I wanted to ask opinions on Underwater Hockey and SBO. We train every week and many of the team are totally new to the concept of getting down to the bottom at 2.8 meters and defending or attacking a puck. All would keep snorkel in and tbh, in a game situation the thoughts of applying the apnea skills i have acquired is just comical. Are we at risk?

Gav104

A quick search from google returned this Royal Life Saving

If something bad were to happen it usually just gets reported in the papers as a "drowning". The events leading up to the drowning rarely get reported and I think this is where the problem lies.The real reason for the drowning is not known and people are not given the opportunity to learn from mistakes.

Like many things in life..... never push your luck.

Freedive Ireland

yank cant see it being an issue in the uwh as there are plenty of people to sort you out if you did overstep the mark thats presuming they know what to do. Padi afaik are/were still advocating hyperventilation as well which is the same as recommending bounce dives to 20 odd m and you should be fine as well. SWB usually occurs on a deeper dive as the partial pressure of O2 changes dramticly in the last 10m so you feel cool for cats at 20m on the return and then "oh dear" in the last 10 hence why your buddy should be coming down to shadow you up in the last 10 and continue to watch you on the surface for 30 secs or so or until you have started breathing correctly again. BO can occur at any depth due to exhaustion, too short recovery time between dives, hyperventialtion, etc. Two different things imho.
great to see a debate lads the threads here had been dead a while.

Gav104

During underwater hockey is there people on the surface life guarding or whats the deal ?

What Padi say is "Proper hyperventilation" ,I think the proper relates to not doing more than 3 breaths . What is your take on any hyperventilation ? It would seem that they do need to review this. I'll write an email to Padi later... see what they say on this.

yankinlk

Yes, uwh is pretty well supervised, we always have two extra lifeguards watching when we practice. In a game situation there is even more watching of course.

I did some research on deeper blue.co.uk and found UWH was widely seen as not having any issue, that the SBO was more for free divers coming up from deeper dives (20m). If i had the link i would post it...but im on the ipad, and lazy.

Freedive Ireland

Gav Padi are well aware of it afaik and have been caught on the hop by SSI I think. Hyperventialtion is a no no plain and simple, three purge breaths still has the same result. If we do that we blow off CO2, raise the heartbeat and contract some of the muscles groups which is the opposite of what we want. the body monitors high CO2 levels much more closely than low O2 levels, so if we start off with them lower we may get no warning of an impending BO, ie urge to breathe, contractions of the diaphgram etc, so much better albeit a bit slower to practice training the body to accept higher levels of CO2.
Yes SWB is a technichal term for when you return from a deeper dive and BO on ascent in the last 10m or more common on the surface but you can BO on a 5m dive as well for the same reason listed above, too short recovery etc.
In 8 years of freediving I have never had a BO (touchwood) just a couple of sambas but they are common at comps etc while unpleasant as long as you have assistance its not a major issue, without assistance you most likely die.

spaceHopper

Guy’s
I snorkel for fun, to see fish and interesting “stuff” under the water my max bottom time is about 40 seconds, max depth 10 meters or so, I prefer to keep the snorkel in as when I surface from a short dive I can just keep going, on the rare occasion that I “push” it I’ll take the snorkel out so that as soon as I surface I can bread. Normal relaxed breathing works best.

I see what FreediveIreland is saying but we are at the other end of the sport.

Best advice I can give is, start small, take your time and make small mistakes that you live to learn from. Don’t rush it as you’ll make big mistakes end up a statistic. No harm in doing a course.

Freedive Ireland

Space i know what you are saying and at the end of the day do what you want to do and what feels best. As an analogy I started scuba diving with no training whatsoever, myself and a friend also untrained borrowed some gear and went diving. We kept it shallow and relatively short dives, we even did a few night dives still untrained but all shallow, less than 10m, I can hear the scubies recoil in horror from here. I did get trained in the end on scuba and while I still maintain it was relatively safe its not best practice.

Gav104

The keyword being relatively safe.

That's the problem with these sort of activities, just because a mistake hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't happen the next time you dive and/or freedive.

The problem isn't so much people such as yourself Freedive Ireland, you and your friend were prudent in staying shallow and doing short dives but for every prudent person there is a risk taker.

Sometimes certain sports attract risk takers and make that sport seem overly dangerous in that way.

Gav104

New course changes from Padi

Deep-stomach breathing – used for skin diving instead of
hyperventilation, which is no longer preferred as a
breath hold technique