There are two schools of thought when it comes to carrying a snorkel when you dive in the civilian world, and I guess in the military world also. It is to carry or not carry a snorkel. You are taught to have one to save air when you are close to the surface for whatever reason so you can use it and not the air in your tank. When I first started diving in the teams, you had to have a snorkel on us. We would get issues a cheap old school “J” type one with the big orange stickers on it you had to peel off and then you would have to cut a couple of inches off of it and keep with you in case you had to work around piers or whatever so you could save O2. Well, I never used it and stopped carrying it as soon as I could. But that doesn’t mean I would have never used it or could have; I choose not to have it.
Like everything else in the world, technology is growing faster and faster. Once a problem is fixed, companies move onto the next one. So, the issues associated with the old “J” snorkel have been fixed; that is not to say that companies still do not make them have them; they are still around. But now there are all kinds of snorkels out there. There are several different types of snorkels Classic (J type), Simi-dry, Dry, and Flexible, to name a few.
So why carry a snorkel? A snorkel helps on the surface when you are in rough water. You can keep your head in the water and not drink as much seawater when you are just floating waiting to be extracted. It is also useful when you are in the water waiting for a helo pick up, and you are under its rotor wash, or when you are doing a K-duck or a swamp duck. It is also helpful to have when you jumped into the water, and you have to undo some of your parachute lines that might be tanged in your fins or whatever. It makes it easier to breath on the surface without lifting your head out of the water if you have to swim to a boat or shore for some reason.
Diving in the military is different than as a civilian as you would never leave your snorkel hanging on your mask during a dive. This is why we would cut it down a little so that we could tuck it away or you would hang it off the bottom of your LAR V with heavy rubber bands. But with today’s technology, most companies have one that you can roll-up. For SCUBAPRO, it is the Apnea Snorkel, it was launched in 2015 for Apnea divers and won the SCUBALAB’s 2015 best buy.
The SCUBAPRO Apnea Snorkel is a foldable/ rollable freediving snorkel design. Made from a soft and flexible non-toxic silicone, SCUBAPRO Apnea Snorkel easily attaches to your mask strap when being used. When not needed, it can be rolled up and stowed away in a pocket. When it’s time to do some more stuff on the surface, it pops right back into shape. The Apnea’s upper barrel can be removed if you prefer to use a shorter pipe. Without question, this is an easy-to-use and very versatile surface breather. Functional yet straightforward traditional “J” Snorkel design. No valves that can leak. It was designed specifically for spearfishing and free diving. The contoured shape of the silicone mouthpiece and the air tube has been ergonomically designed to follow the profile of the spear fisherman’s face to reduce its visibility significantly during the dive. This flexibility is also advantageous when around piers or rocks and rolling it up for storage.