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Snorkeling Fins

Snorkeling fins can be very helpful for added mobility while snorkeling. They are fitted to your feet and amplify the thrust created by your kicks. They do this by displacing a larger volume of water than your feet alone can do. This creates more thrust than you would otherwise obtain, because unlike solid ground, the water you move through cannot push back with the force you would exert while running.

To illustrate, imagine that you are walking along the sidewalk next to the beach. To run, you exert more force on the sidewalk, and because the sidewalk doesn’t move in response to your additional force, it pushes you back faster. Now transition from the sidewalk to the sand; as you are running in the sand, it moves slightly under each foot fall. All the energy spent moving sand is lost to you, and it takes more effort to run at the same speed on sand than it does to run on concrete. Still don’t see how this applies to snorkeling fins? Just keep reading…

Now run across the sand into the water. When you push down on the water, it doesn’t provide any purchase at all! It simply swirls around offering no assistance whatsoever. So what do you do? You kick back and forth, while flattening out your feet to act like oars. These small oars displace water, creating a miniature current. When you put snorkeling fins on you are exponentially increasing the amount of water you move with each kick, making the currents more effective.

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