I was talking with my good friend Mark the other day. We were discussing scuba diving and snorkeling and the merits of each. I love diving but I must admit, it’s a lot of work!

All the gear that is necessary to dive must be loaded up, carried to and from the dive site, put on and taken off. Tanks weigh a ton, weights weigh a lot, add a wetsuit and you’ve got more weight and more gear to carry. Diving requires at least a Buoyancy Control Device (BCD), a regulator setup, weights, fins, and mask. Often, many more components are necessary including booties, a wetsuit, a snorkel and a computer. Compare this to snorkeling which requires a mask, and snorkel at the least; a mask, snorkel, fins and booties at most!

Imagine your next trip to Belize requiring only a small webbed bag with a couple of items instead of your massive dive bag! That would sure make packing that much easier. Lets also not forget about the easy cleanup! A snorkel the day before your flight home is no problem – neither for your body or your gear. BCs take a while to dry and must be thoroughly rinsed after saltwater dives.

So yes, snorkeling is awesome, right? Well, I’ve left out the key advantages of diving, haven’t I. There is no way one can possibly enjoy the true sites of the ocean from the surface. Coral is rarely within a foot or two of the surface and even at five or six feet down it’s not as good of a view, is it? Diving presents you with a truly intimate encounter with the ocean’s offerings. Tiny fish encounters just don’t happen without the safe proximity to the protective coral habitats. I don’t know many people who can hold their breath for three or four minutes at depth.

I’ve explored wrecks like the Dunderberg in Lake Huron at 140 ft. That’s an experience I’ll never forget, and it is just one of many I couldn’t have without diving. I’ve never been more frustrated then when my lungs failed me while swimming with Tangs in Barbados. Staying down at just 15 feet with them was only possible for only a few precious seconds before I had to surface. My pictures weren’t as good either.

What Mark and I concluded during our talk is that diving is a necessity to truly enjoy life below the surface. But for environments 20 feet and shallower, snorkeling is pretty great. Diving might get you right up close to the action, but the convenience of grabbing just a couple of items and hopping in the water makes it pretty compelling. I want to do lots of snorkeling and a little bit of all day diving in Belize next month. I think that is about the perfect combination of watery exploration for a few days of vacation.