Full face snorkels

[popgun pete]

When in the interests of science I ordered one of these full face masks with a “reverse unicorn” snorkel I ordered a black one, but it never showed up, so I ordered the green and white one from another supplier and another brand name. That is the mask which I reported on earlier.

Well today completely out of the blue the black one arrived after spending some time orbiting the planet, so now I can compare the two of them.

At a quick glance they look like two peas in a pod, but they are different plastic moldings as the reinforcing struts on the rear of the mask frames and the rubber face sealing flanges are similar, but different in each case. The clear lenses on the front of the masks are virtually identical as are the protective stickers which you peel off before use. On this black version I can stick my little finger into the clear tube that runs between your eyes and forms the front snorkel, but only just as the entry clip holding their respective frames together is different and the black one does not have that minor extra restriction to its airflow. This black one also has a different shape to its snorkel, but they both use a ball valve to cut the airflow. Performance-wise there will not be much difference as the dimensions that count are much the same in both of them and the other differences are mainly stylistic.

Just found the web page that it came from, there are many different versions of them, but this one had a deeper front to rear top on its snorkel instead of being wider at the top from side to side as many others are.
http://diveswim.com/en/product/Lates...gn-MC6108.html

Some have a colored top on their snorkels, not necessarily a high viz color, but this one is just jet black.
Now I see the advert again I cannot think why it slipped my mind!

[popgun pete]

I guess this image sums up the full face snorkel mask phenomena. Note the pink ear plugs dangling on either side of the mask on their pink monofilaments, that tells you that this mask is not a serious dive mask as ear plugs are a big no-no in diving.