[Originally posted on Usenet on rec.scuba but not linking to the original due to a humiliating number of dumb spelling errors. Some minor edits in this version.]
You can check the Google archives for this newsgroup for lots and lots and lots and lots on the subject of whether snorkels are valuable. Since you asked for opinions, but not expert opinions, I thought I would mention that in all my long, er, months of diving, I’ve never needed one. There were a few times early on when I had one and found it was irritating and in the way, but I’ve never actually needed it. If you get used to doing surface swims on your back it may at first seem strange that you have to occasionally turn over and look where you’re going and take a kind of mental bearing on whatever is in the exact opposite direction, but it gets second nature pretty quickly. Or rather, since I shouldn’t try to speak for you, I just mean that’s what I have found.
I would suspect that they are a pretty real entanglement hazard in open water, and I’d never use them in a confined space. Also, the mouthpiece is right there in the same area as your primary regulator. I can’t think off-hand of any good gory scenarios, but on principle I like the idea of keeping that area fairly clear of junk that gets in the way of hoses and regulators when you or your buddy might need one. This is especially true if you already necklace your backup rather than use an octo. In any case, the things definitely get in the way for me.
As a side note, people talk about wings tending to pitch you forward in the water on the surface (as against a jacket-style BC). I wondered if this would make it harder to surface swim on my back. It turns out that the wing made it much easier to lay back completely and minimize drag. Cool. So there’s one more point against the need for a snorkel for me. If you really lay back and relax and zen out you can cover a lot of ground pretty quickly this way. You don’t re-breathe any air, like with a snorkel. That’s if you’re on the move. If you’re just sitting there, waiting for a boat or something, like you mentioned as a possibility, then why do you need or even want your face in the water anyway? I’d be too busy waiving or shouting or whistling or something to want to be looking down in the water. And if you are afraid you can’t get your face out of the water then there are other problems. I personally, between my wing and my drysuit can just about be out of the water to my stomach if I really need to (okay I’m slightly exaggerating). If you’re diving wet and it’s really an emergency, drop some weight.
You could say that if you absolutely have to have a snorkel then get one of those that roll or fold up and carry it in a drysuit pocket. But really that seems like a solution to a non-problem. I know it’s pretty snotty coming from me, but it seems like if one really thinks one needs a snorkel, then it might be worth it to reconsider the dive plan or something.
The bottom line is that although I don’t have the experience to say that snorkels are 100% useless, and certainly someone could contrive some scenario where they could come in handy, I can say that for me so far they have been 100% useless, and that I have thought of enough good reasons why they could be actively bad that I would need a damn good reason to carry one.
Evans Winner
Seattle, Washington
June 8, 2003