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Snorkeling vs SCUBA Diving
What if I told you that there is a way to enjoy the reef when SCUBA diving isn't an option or if you're a diver traveling with non-divers?
Snorkeling is an underestimated supplement to SCUBA and unless you've actually taken a class there are skills and techniques that would allow you to get much more out of your snorkeling opportunities.
So rather than snorkeling vs. SCUBA Diving like yet another MCU movie, snorkeling and SCUBA diving are buddies.
Let's dive into reasons snorkeling can be a valuable part of your next diving adventure!
Dive into the full show notes | https://updiveblog.links/updc013
It's time to dive in!
Contact the Show
skubasteve@updiveblog.com
https://underpressurediveblog.com
TW & IG | @skubasteveupdb
The surface interval's over... get out there and dive!
The Under Pressure Divecast is the SCUBA diving podcast dedicated to making SCUBA fun, entertaining and accessible! Join me SKuba Steve as I go over topics related to recreational SCUBA diving, discuss gear and provide easy tips that make your diving more enjoyable, comfortable, safer or more memorable.
SKuba Steve
Hey, under pressure dive buddies. What if I told you there was a way to enjoy the reef when scuba diving is not an option? Were you traveling with non divers, snorkeling is an under underestimated supplement to scuba. And unless you've actually taken a class, there are skills and techniques that would allow you to get much more out of your snorkeling experience and opportunities. So rather than snorkeling versus scuba diving, like yet another Marvel Comics universe movie, snorkeling and scuba diving are buddies. Let's dive into reasons snorkeling can be a valuable part of your next diving adventure. Get your gear on because it's time to descend into another episode of the underpressure dive guest. I'm your host, scuba Steve. Scuba diving is a fun and exciting adventure sport, and you can be a diver. And to help you get there. The underpressure dive cast is here to discuss recreational scuba diving and answer questions. Alright, so sorry about that little pause there before the intro. I put some notes in a really weird spot. And in my in my instead of in the Yeah. Alright, so you don't need to you don't care. All right. Couple of things. We missed a show last week. So we're either six days late or a day early because today is Thursday, not Friday, next week is going to be wacky to probably going to do the show on Thursday again next week as well. And then we'll be back. Knock on semi wood product. We back to a normal schedule on Fridays are a couple of weeks out. So sorry about that. Last week, I just could not get the show off. But try to make up for it this week a little bit and try to keep on the schedule. So I'm in. Alright, so as usual, we're going to have a little bit of news, we're going to talk about snorkeling. I've got a good gear junkies garage for you and a tip of the week. So let's get right into what the the news for scuba is this week.
Okay, so last week I talked a little bit about a tank valve position it may or may not have been last week but in the last couple episodes I talked about not back seating valves. And when you're opening your tank valve, you open it all the way or I'm sorry, not turning them a quarter turn back. So the common process when you're opening a scuba tank is to open it all the way and then turn it one quarter turn back or at least that's that was common for a long time. And more recently, we're talking about going ahead and putting it against the backstop so that you always know the exact position of the valve Well, I talked to a repair repair professional over the last couple weeks and he did point out that if you really torque on it, you can actually damage that the valve in the reverse direction by back seeding it so I think the key there is just like when you when you turn the when you attach the valve to your primary regulator, you're only using two fingers so you don't over tighten that valve or that fastener. We want to use two fingers when we backstop the valve so we're not over tightening it. We're not damaging the materials in there. But we do want to go ahead and backseat it. So that's an update from last week. I also wore my nausea prevention see bands during the last episode and I wanted to report that I did not get seasick. So there's some some data for you. And as we all know, data in scuba is hard to come by. Alright, industry news. Since we're going to talk about snorkeling snorkeling today, I thought we'd talk about a snorkeling website that I found called snorkeling report calm, and it's interesting. It's got gear, techniques, tips, destination information, and I'll put the link in the show notes after the show. It does make an interesting distinction that I thought would be worth pointing out there's a distinction between snorkeling and skin diving according to their website. I don't call that a distinction. That what they're basically saying is that snorkeling is when you're floating on the surface and you're kicking along and you're looking down that snorkeling and that's it. And what skin diving is according to this website, is when you actually dive underwater and swim around and then come back up. It For Me My perspective and the way we teach snorkeling in our organization is that those two are intertwined. And that doesn't mean that if you're snorkeling, you have to go underwater. But it means that we train that. So if you're taking a scuba class, or excuse me a snorkeling class, you're going to find that you're going to be taught how to go underwater with your snorkel gear. Okay. So the other thing that I thought was really interesting, and maybe, let me just pick this up, because this is cool. And I will share this screen real quick here. Yeah, I say that, like I can remember how to do it. Okay, let me go over here and share screen and go here and you should be seeing an article which I will also put in the No thanks. Well also put this in the show notes as well. But it was an interesting thing that I found where hospitals were actually using a snorkel masks as respirators, because they couldn't get enough respirators. So they're doing a lot of advertising on this screen. So I'm going to go ahead and and turn that off.
And, okay, turn it off. Alright. So that was just kind of an interesting thing that I found an interesting way for, or an alternative use for scuba and snorkeling equipment that I thought was pretty fun and interesting. So let's move on to the main topic. Let's talk about snorkeling.
Alright, one thing I did want to talk about, well, I don't want to talk about but I will mention that last week and the week before, and actually before that, I did end up with episodes that were at 50 minutes. And while I could talk all day about snorkeling or scuba diving or whatever, I do want to respect your time. So I am going to try and start bringing kind of reining that in a little bit. actually hired somebody to help me kind of focus next week, learn how to focus my, my activities online or my presentation so we can really get it down to the core. All right. So why a snorkeling episode in a scuba podcast or live stream. And, and I guess there's a couple of reasons for that. One is I want to enjoy the reef as much as possible. Anytime I have that opportunity. I mean, let's face it, we spend a lot of money. I mean, in Colorado, we don't have an ocean. So if I get to an ocean, that represents a certain investment, not only in travel expense, but travel time, and I'm not alone, you know, there are a lot of states that are not oceanfront, and even if you live in an oceanfront area, you may not live right on the beach, you may it's still going to require time and effort for you to get to a place where you can actually enjoy the underwater environment. So it's an investment, and we want to get the most out of it that we can. The other thing is you can snorkel between dives, still a surface interval. Even if you're diving underwater, as long as you're on a snorkel. It's not diving, and you're still off gassing that nitrogen, and it's still part of your surface interval. You can enjoy it with non divers. So if you're traveling with family, and not everybody in your family is a scuba diver, you can still enjoy the reef with them. While while you're on your trip, even if you're doing let's say some days you're diving, and some days you're snorkeling or, you know, maybe your family members or your or your buddies go out on the boat with you and you snorkel and when you get a chance to snorkel with them. And otherwise, you're scuba diving, when you get a chance to do that. It just gives you so much flexibility in enjoying the reef and having a great time every time you get near an ocean or or in a you know, on a boat, whatever. The last thing is up two more things actually. If something stops you from diving, you know, let's say you have a gear malfunction and you're on a boat and you don't have a spare. Maybe a regulator fails and there's no spare regulator on the boat, or your dive computer fails and you don't carry a backup whatever it is, right? If you have an equipment failure that can't be replaced on the boat, then you still have the opportunity. As long as it wasn't your mask, fins or snorkel, you still have the opportunity to enjoy the underwater environment. And I don't know about every diver out there, but a lot of divers myself included are not going to travel 2000 miles without a spare mask. So if I get on a boat and somebody has a broken mask, you know I might be able to loan it to them if it will fit their face. So You know that there's a pretty good chance that either another diver or the operator is going to have snorkel gear, that's a backup, you know, and it's, you know, the more expensive the equipment is, the less likely it is that they're going to have a backup for that, less likely they're going to have a regulator less likely they're going to have a BCD less likely they're going to have a computer, even less less likely that they're going to have something like a rebreather or something like that. So when you when you talk about, you know, what, if you can dive? Well, there are very few barriers to snorkeling. You don't even actually have to have a snorkel. in a pinch, you could dive with a mask and, and fins, right? Or you could snorkel with a mask and fins. So it could even snorkel without fins, I guess if you, I mean, realistically, you could as long as it's calm, and you can get back to the boat or back to the pier. So there's so little barrier to entry that it makes it a really good stop gap. If you have a problem with your diving experience. Next, when you're traveling, and you don't want to take all of your dive gear. In 2015, I traveled to Southeast Asia, I dove in Okinawa and the Philippines at a great time. But traveling with all that gear, let's face it, it is a hassle and that was a business trip primarily. So when you look at that you say okay, I'm going to go on this trip. Do I want to carry all this stuff? Now in that case, I said, Well, I'm going to these great places, I should make the effort, take the stuff and dive
but you don't have to. And there are other alternatives. You can rent gear or something like that. But you can also find snorkeling excursions, and you can really get a lot out of the reef, just by snorkeling. Alright, so there's there's some reasons why snorkeling can can be a valuable part of your your dive experience or your water experience at least. So I wanted to talk a little bit about the equipment. So we have basically the same mask, fins and snorkel that you use for diving that you would for snorkeling. And that's the great thing if you buy good quality mask, fins and snorkel for scuba, you already have a good quality mask, fins and snorkel first snorkeling. The reverse is not true. If you buy a snorkeling mask, fin and snorkel that does not necessarily translate to good quality equipment for scuba. And so it's important to understand as a diver or you know, maybe a future diver. Those things are not equivalent, and is really important, especially when it comes to the mask and fins. We need scuba fins in order to propel us through the water. When we have a bunch of gear on and snorkeling fins that are designed and sold specifically for snorkeling oftentimes don't have the propulsion power for a comfortable dive. And the masks that are sold with snorkeling kits if you buy your mask, fins and snorkel in a in a pre packaged, you know, package at a department store. They might work okay on the surface, but whether or not that mask is really going to fit your face underwater and be comfortable for 45 minutes, you know, beneath the waves. That's a different story. And that's why I always advocate when you buy gear, whether it's your mask, fins and snorkel or anything else. Do it in a local dive shop where you can try it on and if you're really you know, I was gonna say if you're really lucky, but really, if you get any chance at all, try it on in the water. Hopefully your dive shop has a pool if they don't, maybe you have a local pool that you can go to and try it on and and get used to what that gear feels like in the water. So when it comes to mask, fins and snorkel, what we use for scuba we can use for snorkeling. The What about these full face snorkeling mask so if you've been looking up snorkeling and mask on the internet or whatever, you're going to see some pretty interesting looking, in fact that the mask I showed on that website was a full face snorkeling mask and you know, is that a good option for you? Or not in? What's the difference? And so I talked to our local dive shop about that specifically this week. And the response I got was, you know, if you're if you feel confined in a traditional scuba mask, you know, first of all I would try on a fair number of them before you kind of make that blind spot. Man, no, I can't use this scuba mask because they feel too confining because there are a lot of designs that can really help. But if at the end of the day, a regular scuba diving mask is too confining for you, or feels too confining for you, a full face mask can be a great option to help you get in the water get used to having the mask on your face, and enjoy the underwater environment. That's great. The downside and the reason that I don't personally own a full face snorkeling mask other than the fact that I have the scuba equipment is that you can't equalize those masks when you go underwater. So if you do, what that website referred to as skin diving, or what we refer to as just snorkeling, or snorkel dives, once you go a few feet underwater, that mask is going to start to compress to your face. And that will get uncomfortable pretty quick. And, and so that's one reason that you might want to look at getting a regular scuba mask, because you can equalize those very easily with a tiny amount of air. So you go under water, you breathe a tiny bit of air out of your nose, it matches the pressure the water around you and that mask will will, will become comfortable again if it was squeezing. So the other thing I wanted to touch on is the snorkel vest versus life and life jacket. I'll share a story about that i
there are those inflatable ones, which if you're if the operator requires you to wear one, which very likely in this day and age, they will, I would certainly OPT if you're a competent swimmer and you're comfortable in the water, I would opt for the kind that you have to inflate yourself. Or that has, you know, a pole and then a cartridge to inflate it, you know, whatever. But the point is, when you're in the water, it's deflated. And so that allows you to do those snorkel dives or skin diving that I was describing earlier, get down on the reef, really see things and then come back up. Whereas a traditional life vest with the foam inserts or whatever the ones that are made out of foam, you can't dive with those. And some operators prefer those because they can keep very close track of their, their customers which has value right. But I part of the experience for me is really wanting to get down on the reef. So I like the ones that you can blow up yourself or that you can keep deflated if you want to when I was in the Virgin Islands A long time ago now probably 2001. Prior to my actually that was just before I started diving, and that was that trip that drove me into the dive shop. And that's a story for another time, actually, I think Episode One of this podcast talks about that. But we went on a snorkeling excursion on a boat, and we had to wear those foam life fests and it was the most frustrating experience because we couldn't, you couldn't go down, you just swim around. And it was just, it was great being in the water, it was great seeing the environment, it was so frustrating not being able to swim down. So that's what I'll say about that. So some of the skills that you might want to use or that you're going to use when you're snorkeling and you're going to get this information in a class if you take one. The first one is one that is actually something that you're going to get from me certainly if I if you take scuba diving for me, a lot of other instructors to one of the first things we're going to say is relax. Really try to calm down and relax and enjoy the environment. From a relaxed point of view. If you're scuba diving, you're going to use less air and you're going to be more comfortable in the water, you're going to improve your buoyancy. If you're snorkeling, you're still going to have a better experience. If you just calm down. You don't want to hyperventilate, some people breathing through it through a snorkel even though it's a very short distance. That can feel a little bit confining as well. Not for your eyes, but for your lungs. A lot of that will resolve itself if you calm down, and if you remain calm. So that's the first thing is relax and enjoy the beauty of the reef. Right. The next thing is the kinds of cakes you're going to use. And this is going to be similar to diving as well. And you may be familiar with some of these from swimming and what are or another resource. scissor kicks, the one that you always see divers doing. You know that that one's pretty common. Sometimes, you're going to see people using either either both legs at the same time or one leg or they'll wrap their legs like this and use them in one fluid motion instead of using a scissor kick and murder. Made kick, if you will. And then there's frog kicking, which is what you'll see. If you actually watch cave divers. A lot of times they frog kick. And that is because if you imagine your bodies here, and your feet are up, so you're kind of they're kind of up behind you. And then you you, you don't do a scissor kick, you do kind of a sideways motion, it's kind of hard to describe with your fingers and hands. But a frog kick is used for to prevent stirring up the silt in the bottom of a of a diving environment. So if you're close to the reef, or close to a diving the the floor of a diving environment, and you want to maintain visibility, or you don't want to kick the reef, but you want to be really close, maybe you're a photographer, you use a frog kick instead of a scissor kick. Okay, so why do snorkellers care, snorkelers care, because of cramping. So if you're swimming around, if you're snorkeling, you don't have an air supply problem, right. So you don't have a 40 minute window on your dive or you know, whatever your your dive plan might have been. So you could end up going for a long time, you can cramp up, but if you know, a variety of kicks, especially if you're going underwater, that allows you to use different muscle groups, enjoy the dives or the snorkel events and,
and get the most out of your out of your trip. The kinds of dives are going to do again, you'll learn this in your class, you take one, there are feet first dives and headfirst dives when you're snorkeling. And those just depend on which on the environment that you're in, why would you use one versus another and you can determine that yourself in the moment. But understanding how to do one so that you have the option in the moment makes makes your diving or yours snorkeling experience just a little more fluid, a little more comfortable, which means your attention is focused on getting the most out of the reef getting the most out of the snorkeling experience. And not Oh, how do I do this? Oh, how do I do that? Oh, I'm frustrated because I don't know that I even need to ask the question about this because I didn't know it was an option. So getting into if you haven't taken a snorkeling class, and you're maybe if you're a diver, you've probably covered some of snorkeling in your school class. In which case, you can probably leverage some of that, you may be able to do all of those things. Without an additional class, it might be good to take one. And if you've got a partner who who doesn't dive, but wants to be involved in the reef with you take the snorkeling class with them. You know, that gives you a chance to bond it gives you a chance to understand both of you will understand the same skill set at the same time. And you'll get used to each other's comfort level in the water, which is really important when you get out to the reef. All right, let's move on to the gear junkies garage.
So this week, last week, actually, we talked about a piece of gear that I don't own. This week, we're going to do the same thing. We're going to talk about the full face mask. And like I kind of alluded to earlier, the reason that I well the first reason I don't own one is that they're kind of new, relatively speaking. And they're although they're increasing in popularity, there are a lot of companies trying to trying to innovate and create more and more comfortable, effective full face snorkeling masks. And, quite frankly, I have scuba gear. So I don't I've never really looked at them until recently. And so that's reason number one, why don't own one, when I asked our shop about it, and, you know, because I was actually thinking about, you know, maybe I should get one and at least have the experience of using it so that I can talk to students and and, and and have some kind of perspective Well, when he told me that they weren't good for going under water. It kind of said to me, you know that that takes such a huge piece out of it. And I don't want to discourage people who are not wanting to go under water from snorkeling. If If a full face mask and I've said this before, if it makes you more comfortable in the water and gets you into the sport, whether that sport is snorkeling or scuba diving, that I'm 100% behind But if you want to get the full experience or the most you can and you're comfortable going underwater, then there's a limitation that's placed on you by using these full face face masks. And so I think there's, like I said, I think there's opportunity there for people who really are concerned about, you know, the confining nature, or what they perceive as a confining nature of a scuba mask, versus the comfort and the wide field of view that you're going to get with a full face mask. One thing I will say about that, though, is don't give yourself the illusion that it's going to change the core focus of your experience, because what it will change is how much extra environment you can perceive. But it doesn't change how much your eyes can really focus on and how much you can pay attention to. And my experience has been that a scuba mask, once you're underwater and you're enjoying the environment, the focus range of a scuba mask or though field of view of a scuba mask is every bit as much as I can pay attention to at any given time. So I think it's worth keeping, you know, just keep that in mind. Again, if it gets you in the sport, by all means, get a full face mask, get out there and snorkel, enjoy the reef, learn about the environment. And come join us as a diver when you're ready. Okay, let's talk about the tip of the week.
Okay, this week, I wanted to, I actually probably have one across the room, I'm not going to take your time to go grab it. But what I will say is that if you're a diver and you've got to dive computer, and you've this isn't the tip I was gonna give this week. Okay, well, we're gonna get two tips this week. So you're getting two for the price of one. If you have cameras and camera, those little camera patches from the 90s, when people bought pocket cameras, as opposed to now when everybody just uses their mobile phone, if you still have one of those cases around, they make great cases for dive computers, because you can just wrap up your computer, put it in the in the in the camera case, nice little pouch and stick it in your rag bag, you've got something you've had in your basement for 20 years, you couldn't figure out what to do with it. But it was too expensive when you bought it to throw it away. But nobody uses them anymore. Now you've got to use for it. So you can get find it in the basement maybe dusted off, drop your drop your iPad in No, put your computer in it and keep your dive computer a little safer. The tip I was actually going to talk about is taking your cameras snorkeling, if you're not ready to take a diving and this is something that actually I think you should really think about if you're a new diver, cameras add a whole lot of two things. One is just another piece of gear to think about. And most cameras have more than one setting some Well, I can't even think of a camera that doesn't do video anymore. So you have to choose between video Am I in video mode or my in Picture Mode? Am I in auto mode? Am I in manual mode? If I'm in manual mode, now changing depth in the lighting changes? How am I messing with that, unless you're an experienced diver, that becomes a lot of extra stuff to think about. So on top of being an experienced diver and really an experienced photographer, if you're doing that, it's there are a lot of moving parts. And it can reduce the the enjoyment that you have of the dive because you're spending the dive looking through the screen of your computer, which is this big, right? Instead of looking at the wider environment and so you lose a lot of the experience. That's not to say you're not going to get great shots. But it's something to think about. And the but the other thing is, if you take a snorkeling, you're right there on the surface. No stress, you don't have to worry about scuba gear. Even if you're going to dive down and go around on the bottom or get closer to the reef, take a snapshot of something, come back or do video whatever it is, you can get to the top. You can roll over on your back and adjust the settings or actually you can face down and do the settings if you're if you know if you know how to work your camera and you And it works out should work underwater, right because that's what we're doing. So I think there's, there are a lot of advantages if you're just starting out as a diver or you're just starting out as a as a photographer in the water, take your camera snorkeling, get used to it doing that. And then as you get better and better at it, and learn how to use the camera and learn more about your dives, get your buoyancy not dialed in, then take your camera underwater. A couple of things, make sure you take it, put a lanyard on it, because if it gets away from you, you know you don't want to two things you don't want to lose your gear and you don't want to litter the reef. Okay, and, and I already talked a little bit about buoyancy. So those are reasons to that you can really just if you want to get used to taking a camera in the water, start with snorkeling, and then gradually bring it into your dives. You know, maybe take it on an easy dive first and then move on from there. But snorkeling provides a great opportunity to get used to a camera in the water. Alright, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today whether that's on the podcast or on the on the video itself. On the screen or in the description below in the show notes, you'll see how to contact the show I'm not going to try to do that email addresses and whatever verbally in the podcast episode if you're listening to the audio version, you're going to find these these contact information in the show notes. You can find the audio version on your favorite pod catcher. And you can find me on social social media at the link that you're going to find in the show notes or at the end of our on the screen if you're watching the video now.
With that, thank you for diving in with me today on YouTube if you're here or on the audio program. On the left, you'll see a playlist with other episodes of the underpressure dive cast. If you've enjoyed this video or podcast Don't forget to subscribe with the button in the middle or on the left of the screen. You're going to yeah and or on your podcatcher the service intervals over get out there and dive
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