So, I have been having this discussion with different people in different forums, whether or not to spearfish with a snorkel and what happen when you have shallow water black out with a snorkel in your mouth.
When I dive deep +5 meters, I take the snorkel out of my mouth on my way up, ascending form a dive, either I am only free diving or if I am spear fishing. Before I reach the surface I level out vertically with my face upwards, so that in case of a black out, I will end up on the surface with my face up off the water.
I usually pack my lungs (force extra air into them) before a deep dive, and because of that I exhale at a natural pace about 1 meter before my face/mouth breaks the surface. This has become a habit of mine since I once read that there can become complications when returning to the surface with packed lungs.
On debts of 1 – 5 meters I have the habit of keeping my snorkel in my mouth and blow it when I break the surface, or just before breaking the surface if I have been packing my lungs for longer bottom time.
With my lungs full of air on a single breath I am buoyant up to about the debt of 10 meters. So when I stop moving at 10 meters I will automatically ascend! I have very big lungs because I have been free diving as a child and a teenager. I had my lungs measured at the hospital last year and my numbers were supranormal: FEV1 4,46 – 117% FVC 6.80 – 145%
I have never experienced a shallow water black out and I never used to worry about it until people in the deeper blue forum started warning me when the saw my diving videos. Lately the discussion has been about diving with or without a snorkel, and how to take a correct first breath once back on the surface of the water.
One thing I have noticed is that no one, nobody have been able to give me a clear no-bullshit answer to how a first breath should be after a dive, long or short, deep or shallow. I therefore still follow my natural instincts and take a deep breath; sometime I hold it for a couple of seconds.
This weekend I have been experimenting with shallow water black outs (which according to what I have read occur from the debt of 5 meters). My experiments took place from the debt of about 2-3 meters.
I filled my lungs, one single deep breath, no packing, dive down and pretended to have shallow water black out with the snorkel in my mouth, by relaxing all the muscles in my body and stop moving. Every time my lungs would slowly empty themselves from air as my body ascended to the surface in an oblique vertical position with my head to be the first part of my body to break the surface.
Some of the air escaping my lungs would escape through my snorkel and some through my mouth. The snorkel stayed in my mouth on each attempt, however loosely, and when I broke the surface the snorkel was almost empty from water and I was able to breathe air again through my snorkel despite the water in my snorkel.
On this my personal experiment on shallow water black out on 2-3 meters I see no reason to follow you guys advice to dive without the snorkel in my mouth, since I believe I will have a grater chance of surviving a shallow water blackout with the snorkel in my mouth, rather than without.
This is a strictly a personal experiment only based on shallow dives (1-5 meters) and I guess you have to take my personal physics into consideration, my huge lung capacity, how much weight I am wearing etc. hence how buoyant I am.
I learned one important thing about myself yesterday when doing these experiments: ALWAYS FILL MY LUNGS MAXIMUM when diving in shallow waters. Why? Because I sometimes used to only fill my lungs 50% on dives up to 3 meters in order not to be very buoyant and therefore I didn’t have to work very hard to keep myself down at the bottom. With my lungs only filled 50% there will not be enough air to both bring me back to the surface and almost blow my snorkel free of water, as it did in these experiments.
I don’t encourage anybody to dive the way I do, but at the age of 49 (began diving when I was 8) I more and more believe that, as much as we human are design alike from Mother Nature, we are still very different in the details. And what works for me might not work for anybody else in the same situation and environment.
I will later make and post a video about my personal diving techniques where I will add some visual aids (got to buy myself an action man diving figurine) Ha ha Ha…
And remember: Life is Beautiful <3
Yours, Heini Grünbaum
When I dive deep +5 meters, I take the snorkel out of my mouth on my way up, ascending form a dive, either I am only free diving or if I am spear fishing. Before I reach the surface I level out vertically with my face upwards, so that in case of a black out, I will end up on the surface with my face up off the water.
I usually pack my lungs (force extra air into them) before a deep dive, and because of that I exhale at a natural pace about 1 meter before my face/mouth breaks the surface. This has become a habit of mine since I once read that there can become complications when returning to the surface with packed lungs.
On debts of 1 – 5 meters I have the habit of keeping my snorkel in my mouth and blow it when I break the surface, or just before breaking the surface if I have been packing my lungs for longer bottom time.
With my lungs full of air on a single breath I am buoyant up to about the debt of 10 meters. So when I stop moving at 10 meters I will automatically ascend! I have very big lungs because I have been free diving as a child and a teenager. I had my lungs measured at the hospital last year and my numbers were supranormal: FEV1 4,46 – 117% FVC 6.80 – 145%
I have never experienced a shallow water black out and I never used to worry about it until people in the deeper blue forum started warning me when the saw my diving videos. Lately the discussion has been about diving with or without a snorkel, and how to take a correct first breath once back on the surface of the water.
One thing I have noticed is that no one, nobody have been able to give me a clear no-bullshit answer to how a first breath should be after a dive, long or short, deep or shallow. I therefore still follow my natural instincts and take a deep breath; sometime I hold it for a couple of seconds.
This weekend I have been experimenting with shallow water black outs (which according to what I have read occur from the debt of 5 meters). My experiments took place from the debt of about 2-3 meters.
I filled my lungs, one single deep breath, no packing, dive down and pretended to have shallow water black out with the snorkel in my mouth, by relaxing all the muscles in my body and stop moving. Every time my lungs would slowly empty themselves from air as my body ascended to the surface in an oblique vertical position with my head to be the first part of my body to break the surface.
Some of the air escaping my lungs would escape through my snorkel and some through my mouth. The snorkel stayed in my mouth on each attempt, however loosely, and when I broke the surface the snorkel was almost empty from water and I was able to breathe air again through my snorkel despite the water in my snorkel.
On this my personal experiment on shallow water black out on 2-3 meters I see no reason to follow you guys advice to dive without the snorkel in my mouth, since I believe I will have a grater chance of surviving a shallow water blackout with the snorkel in my mouth, rather than without.
This is a strictly a personal experiment only based on shallow dives (1-5 meters) and I guess you have to take my personal physics into consideration, my huge lung capacity, how much weight I am wearing etc. hence how buoyant I am.
I learned one important thing about myself yesterday when doing these experiments: ALWAYS FILL MY LUNGS MAXIMUM when diving in shallow waters. Why? Because I sometimes used to only fill my lungs 50% on dives up to 3 meters in order not to be very buoyant and therefore I didn’t have to work very hard to keep myself down at the bottom. With my lungs only filled 50% there will not be enough air to both bring me back to the surface and almost blow my snorkel free of water, as it did in these experiments.
I don’t encourage anybody to dive the way I do, but at the age of 49 (began diving when I was 8) I more and more believe that, as much as we human are design alike from Mother Nature, we are still very different in the details. And what works for me might not work for anybody else in the same situation and environment.
I will later make and post a video about my personal diving techniques where I will add some visual aids (got to buy myself an action man diving figurine) Ha ha Ha…
And remember: Life is Beautiful <3
Yours, Heini Grünbaum
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