Snorkeling

Snorkeling

What’s a great way to introduce someone to the underwater world?  What’s a good way to explore shallow dive sites?  What’s a good way to spend your surface interval?  What’s sometimes the best way to get close to some of the most skittish marine life?  The answer to all these questions is snorkeling!

If you’re visiting a tropical location that has SCUBA diving, there’s a pretty good chance that the same dive operation that you’re using on your vacation, can also take you to a dive site that is also good for snorkeling.  Why would you want to do that, you ask?  If you have a friend, parent, or significant other that has traveled with you that would like to see the underwater world, but doesn’t want to or can’t SCUBA dive.  Snorkeling can be a great way to introduce and to share the underwater experience with your friend.

Additionally

Snorkeling can also be a great way to maximize your time in those tropical waters while on that tropical vacation.  Now don’t start thinking why would I want to snorkel when I can SCUBA dive?  As we all learned in our Open Water class, we can’t stay underwater all the time.  We eventually must exchange tanks, off-gas some nitrogen, have something to drink, and have a snack, right?  If you’re on a liveaboard trip. You discover that there can be a plethora of marine life that hangs out under the vessel. Snorkeling is a great way to observe, get pictures or video of this marine life.  If you’re staying in a hotel, that’s near a swimming beach, you’ve got a great location to snorkel.

If you’ve been around the Extreme Sports SCUBA shop or accompanied us on one of our shop trips, you’ve probably heard something that goes like this, I never use a snorkel when diving, but always have one in my dive bag.  I explain the reason for this in one word, dolphins!  Dolphins can be some of the most skittish, and most sought-after marine life in the world.  One of the best ways to get near dolphins is with a snorkel.  Since dolphin encounters can be notoriously random, so you need to be prepared for when they appear.

A snorkel can be a great piece of equipment to carry in your dive bag.  It can allow you to see some great marine life.