the.com/snorkeling
swimming with your face in the water and somehow calling it a vacation activity.
means Swimming at the water's surface while breathing through a tube so you can keep your face submerged and watch the fish without lifting your head.
from From the German 'Schnorchel,' the air-intake tube that let WWII submarines run their diesels just below the surface. English borrowed the word, sanded off the menace, and handed it to tourists in rubber masks — the same breathing-pipe principle, now aimed at coral instead of war.
- ancient gear
- Aristotle described divers using breathing tubes in 350 BC
- sponge origins
- early snorkels came from hollow reeds for harvesting sponges
- tube limit
- snorkels stay short because long ones cause suffocation
- fish blindness
- fish often ignore floating humans as harmless drifting objects
- breath physics
- exhaled air pools in the tube, raising carbon dioxide risk
great barrier reef — 2,300 km coral reef system off queensland, australia with 1,500+ fish species
molokini crater — submerged volcanic crater off maui, hawaii with 250+ fish species and sea turtles
palau blue corner — diving and snorkeling site in palau with wall drops to 40m and sharks, rays, groupers