Snorkeling Fin Advice

We snorkel a couple days a year during Caribbean trips. We have diving fins
which we wear over short booties or Nike Aqua socks, as we go from shore in
places where it is rocky - so we need to wear some sort of shoes as we enter
the water.

However the dive fins we use (Tusa Liberator) seem large and difficult to
use, given our purpose, which is just surface snorkeling, and the
infrequency of our snorkeling.

Are there any fins you can recommend which would be shorter and easier to
use, which are sized for fitting over tropical booties or Nike Aqua Socks?

Larry

Reef Fish <Large_Nassau_Grouperm> wrote:

>I can last longer underwater with my long fins than most scuba
>divers with the same size tanks of air. It's as relaxing and
>propelling as fins of other lengths -- just more efficient.

Probably the biggest factor in improving one's use of air is
learning proper bouyancy control. If you can stay where you
want to be without burning energy, you don't burn air either.
[And you don't trash the world around you either, which without
bouyancy control your average diver -will do- with bigger fins].

>I always thought, and still think, that's the SILLEST requirement
>for scuba divers who ALWAYS dive with fins! If the initial
>qualifying "test" had been to swim 800 yards WITH fins, I would
>have done it in 8 minutes, have lunch, and come back to see the
>rest of the trainees finish the same distance. :-))

Never lost a fin in rough sea then? It can happen, and it would
be a shame to drown just because of it.

--
Ken Tough

Reef Fish <Large_Nassau_Grouperm> wrote:

>Lee is known to take some GOOD advice (on diving techniques) by
>others and turn them into ridiculous statements by himself because
>he didn't understand them.
>
>Here's an example about small up-and-down movements during a dive
>by BREATH control (rather than by kicking or adjusting air in the
>BCD). Lee turned that into HIS claim that because he is such a
>good diver, he can use breath control to adjust his buoyancy
>during the ENTIRE DIVE without adding or releasing air from his
>BCD ...

I won't discuss the quality of his posts or the fact that I disagree
with his response to me, but I do in fact agree that (in warm water
with just a 'shorty wetsuit') it is very possible to do an entire
dive without any air in the BCD. I used to do it all the time, and
dive with 5 pounds or 2 kg of weight. You need to modify your
breathing style to normally carry the "Functional Residual Capacity"
(just relaxed expiration). If you breathe in and then out at a
moderate rate, it doesn't actually help you to retain air in your
lungs anyway. It's far more relaxing not to have to worry about
altering your BCD through the dive.


--
Ken Tough

>>Lee is known to take some GOOD advice (on diving techniques) by
>>others and turn them into ridiculous statements by himself because
>>he didn't understand them.

Bob is so unaware of what he's doing that the one time he dove with my wife,
he kicked her mask off.

>>Here's an example about small up-and-down movements during a dive
>>by BREATH control (rather than by kicking or adjusting air in the
>>BCD). Lee turned that into HIS claim that because he is such a
>>good diver, he can use breath control to adjust his buoyancy
>>during the ENTIRE DIVE without adding or releasing air from his
>>BCD ...

I don't know what Bob find rediculous about this. He's seen me do it.

> I won't discuss the quality of his posts or the fact that I disagree
> with his response to me, but I do in fact agree that (in warm water
> with just a 'shorty wetsuit') it is very possible to do an entire
> dive without any air in the BCD. I used to do it all the time, and
> dive with 5 pounds or 2 kg of weight. You need to modify your
> breathing style to normally carry the "Functional Residual Capacity"
> (just relaxed expiration). If you breathe in and then out at a
> moderate rate, it doesn't actually help you to retain air in your
> lungs anyway. It's far more relaxing not to have to worry about
> altering your BCD through the dive.

If I'm wearing a wetsuit, the weight shift due to compression forces me to
add weight to compensate which, in turn, forces me to add gas to my wing
which has to be adjusted later. Because my HP 100s are somewhat less
buoyant than my normal Compact 80s (neutral buoyant Catalinas), I generally
add gas to my wing at the beginning of a dive when I use them. About a
third of the way through the dive, I've normally exhausted the gas and
adjust buoyancy for the remainder of the dive by altering breathing
patterns. When I use my neutral buoyant Catalinas, with no wetsuit, the way
I dive most often, I don't add gas to my wing and, therefore, don't have to
adjust for anything except the gas I use. That's easy enough to do by
adjusting breathing patterns.

Bob's reference to this skill is kind of funny. It's no big deal.
Thousands of divers did it for many years. I, along with everybody else,
did it for the first thirty years of my diving. I started in 1962 and I got
my first BCD of any kind so that I could go on commercial dive boats with my
newly certified wife. The wouldn't let me on without one. I guess Bob's
just jealous that he can't do it himself. Such is life.

Lee

"Ken Tough" wrote

> I won't discuss the quality of his posts or the fact that I disagree
> with his response to me . . .

What do you disagree with?

Lee

Reef Fish <Large_Nassau_Grouperm> wrote:

>You missed the point entirely that neutral buoyancy throughout a dive
>is NOT about how much lead you use or how much air you have (or don't
>have in your BCD).
>It's about the difference of 5 lbs in the AIR in an AL80 tank at the
>beginning of a dive (near full) and at the end of a dive (near empty).
>
>You CANNOT remain neutrally buoyant throughout the dive by breathing
>pattern alone! That's matter of PHYSICS and PHYSIOLOGY. That's why
>he was laughed at by a tech-diver discussant that he would need a
>lung volume of 15 litres which of course Lee doesn't have.

You can, and it is entirely about air and lead. The air in your
functional residual lung volume gives anywhere from 1 to 3 kg of
bouyancy, and that's the primary reason for the lead you wear.
In fact, if you wear slightly more lead then you can alter your
breathing pattern to compensate for the extra bouyancy of the air
mass lost from your tank through the dive. Using steel or compact
tanks helps by dropping the bouyancy of the tank (I prefer that).

You're mistaken to think physics and physiology say you can't
stay neutrally bouyant. If you start a dive with, say 1.5 kg
of average bouyancy in your lungs, then through the dive move
that bouyancy from your lungs to your tank, the physics and
physiology work together.


--
Ken Tough

Lee Bell <leebell@ix.remove.netcom.com> wrote:

>"Ken Tough" wrote
>> I won't discuss the quality of his posts or the fact that I disagree
>> with his response to me . . .
>
>What do you disagree with?

- - - - - - -
"Ken Tough" wrote
>> Probably the biggest factor in improving one's use of air is
>> learning proper bouyancy control.

>Most divers with low gas consumption don't agree. Buoyancy control
>certainly is a factor, but most, including me, believe that being
>relaxed and comfortable during the dive is the number one factor.
>Nervous divers simply don't do as well as calm ones.
- - - - - - - -

Those divers with low gas consumption might not agree, but only
because they don't really understand. Being nervous causes you
to burn more air largely because the immediate reaction is to raise
your shoulders, breathe faster, and hold more air in your lungs.
As you get worked up, your bouyancy swings wildly and you have to
swim like mad to keep in the same place. I've seen people desperately
thrashing to get down. They won't! If they stopped moving,
exhaled quietly and dropped their shoulders, they'd sink nicely.
Being able to "zen out" and float neutrally in one spot goes hand-
in-hand with being relaxed and comfortable , and they help reinforce
each other. Similarly being nervous, working hard and breathing hard
is an unstable feedback loop that feeds off itself.

--
Ken Tough

Dan Bracuk <NOTbracuk@pathcom.com> wrote:

>Ken Tough <ken@objectech.co.uk> pounded away at his keyboard resulting
>in:
>:Never lost a fin in rough sea then? It can happen, and it would
>:be a shame to drown just because of it.

>If the sea was rough enough to rip a fin off your foot, swimming
>ability probably just doesn't matter - yer toast.

Having the sea rip the fin off isn't the only way. People get
bumped, people fumble taking them off or adjusting them, people
do beach entries and lose them while walking in through the
surf, (people who know how to do a proper beach entry and not
wear their fins that is), and accidents do sometimes happen.
I mention the rough sea because that's the time when a poor
swimmer will find himself in the muck.

[I've never lost a fin either, but have seen it happen. I've
also seen poor swimmers dive, and think it's a bad idea.]

--
Ken Tough

"Lou Vallone" <vallone@smomp.org> wrote in message
news:113emd9mb7t397f@corp.supernews.com...
> > (just relaxed expiration). If you breathe in and then out at a
> > moderate rate, it doesn't actually help you to retain air in your
> > lungs anyway. It's far more relaxing not to have to worry about
> > altering your BCD through the dive.
>
>
> I can add two thoughts from personal experience. I have only put air in BC
> underwater when I have recovered lead weights dropped by someone else and
> had to swim with them back and up to the boat. Other than that, I have
NEVER
> put air in my BC underwater. I originally learned to dive without a BC
(warm
> water) and consider it a surface assist device.
>
> Secondly, I have dived with Lee. He does not put air in his BC, or at
least
> didn't when I dove with him.

I rarely add any air to my BC either. The exception to this "rule" is when
I'm getting deep on a deep dive.

Ken Tough wrote

>>Most divers with low gas consumption don't agree. Buoyancy control
>>certainly is a factor, but most, including me, believe that being
>>relaxed and comfortable during the dive is the number one factor.
>>Nervous divers simply don't do as well as calm ones.

Ask for a poll. I think you might be surprised.

> Those divers with low gas consumption might not agree, but only
> because they don't really understand. Being nervous causes you
> to burn more air largely because the immediate reaction is to raise
> your shoulders, breathe faster, and hold more air in your lungs.

.. . . and increases the heartbeat, elevates body temperature and has other
physiological effects that increase energy and gas use.

> As you get worked up, your bouyancy swings wildly and you have to
> swim like mad to keep in the same place.

I've not noticed this effect. As I said, buoyancy control certainly is a
factor, but there are lots of divers wtih good buoyancy skills that have not
achieved low consumption rates.

> I've seen people desperately thrashing to get down.

We all have, but there's a big difference between good buyoyancy control and
no buoyancy control at all.

> Being able to "zen out" and float neutrally in one spot goes hand-
> in-hand with being relaxed and comfortable . . .

Most people who are that comfortable in the water, also have good buoyancy
control, but the reverse is often not true. There are lots of people with
excellent buoyancy skills who are not comfortable in the water and, to the
best of my knowledge, virtually none that are not comfortable in the water,
that have low consumption, including those with excellent buoyancy control.

> . . . and they help reinforce each other. Similarly being nervous,
> working hard and breathing hard
> is an unstable feedback loop that feeds off itself.

True.

I acknowledged that buoyancy control is a factor and still do. This
discussion, however, has occurred more than once in every scuba forum I am
aware of. The concensus has always been and, I suspect still is, that the
primary factor is still comfort in the water. Unfortunately, it's the one
characteristic that can't be learned. It has to be developed, usually by a
lot of dives. Come to think of it, maybe it's not unfortunate. There's
certainly nothing wrong with a lot of dives.

Lee