Surface Dive Deck Snorkel

For underwater maintenance and shallow-water sightseeing around the boat, the 12-volt battery-powered Deck Snorkel is a handy and compact alternative to scuba gear.

The simple chest harness keeps the regulator connection behind the diver, as on a standard tank, and protects the connection from bumping and jerking.

For Practical Sailor's last anchor test, reported in the December, 2003 issue, we had a diver/observer sitting comfortably on the bottom, 10 feet down, in a wetsuit top, for the better part of six hours. He was breathing compressed air, but not from a scuba tank. He was using a Deck Snorkel from a company called Surface Dive (it's an Australian product, via U.S. representatives in Ohio). The Deck Snorkel isn't new, but it was new to us, and we were very impressed by it, both in the clear Florida waters where we did the anchoring tests, and the colder, murkier waters of Long Island Sound. In fact we bought…