simonv

I'd say flying Singapore Airlines is safer than flying any American carriers. For one thing, Singapore is not a third world country like Burma. It's a very highly developed, economically and technologically, country, more advanced than our good-old USA in many ways. If US is half as efficient and clean as Singapore, we would be in great shape. The efficiency, cleanliness, honesty, what-have-you of Singapore is mind blowing, and the same goes with her airlines. If I'm flying in southeast Asia, I'll try to see if there's anyway I can use Singapore or Silk Air(short distance carrier of Singapore Air), because I try to avoid flying Indonesian or other local airlines as much as possible. I avoid China Air, too. But Singapore Air, anytime.

I saw an episode of the Crocodile Hunter where they were off the coast of Asia, I believe, picking up sea snakes to milk them for their venom. Very danagerous snake and it seems the were out at night only.

I've seen a few while snorkeling in Komodo, Indonesia, in broad daylight. The ones I saw were white with black stripes - beautiful. I mentioned seeing one to an Indonesian crew who was snorkeling with me. He said sea snakes are deadly, and he got the hell out of the area, never saw anyone swim so fast. It must be really dangerous. However, later I was told that sea snakes venom takes long to produce, therefore snakes don't bite unless they really need to. Hope it's correct.

But I have never seen a sea snake in Mexico. Water is too cold for them there.

You wear swim trunk under the suit. Other way can't be done. Shorties are just a wet suit with short pants. Or there're wet suit tops. Won't keep your tighes warm but for tropican water snorkeling it works just fine.

Thanks for the information. Before reading the responses on this thread, I hadn't realized that shorties provided buoyancy -- I always thought they were solely for protection against sun and coral, so I never understood why someone would use them instead of a full wetsuit that would cover their full arms and legs. Makes sense now.

Shorties is cooler than full wetsuit. A 3mm full wetsuit is warm - gets quite hot snorkeling in the sun in warm surface water. But watch out for the back of your leg for sunburn while snorkeling with shorties.

Take an organized snorkel boat. They'll show you the area you should stay in. They'll take you to a protected area and you don't have to fight waves to get to clear water. They usually have crew patrolling the area on a surf board. Tell them you don't know how to swim and ask them to keep an eye on you.

It goes without saying that you should NEVER snorkel alone. If you are on your own snorkeling from shore, then non-swimmer shouldn't go beyond where you can stand. Remember any distance you go out, you have to come back again. If the tide is going out, you need to swim against it and it's usually quite difficult. I personally think snorkeling from shore is more difficult than from a boat.

I don't like wearing vests. I think it slows me down. But I usually wear body suite or shortie which gives me not only warmth but extra buoyancy.

Latitude 20 is right. I snap my fingers and quite a few come to me. Try it.

Hawaii used to be full of butterfly and angel fish, those colorful beautiful ones. I wish you could have seen Hawaiian and Carribean waters 30 years ago before snorkeling became popular and humans started feeding them. It was paradise on earth. Now instead of red, yellow, orange fish, it's dominanted by those dull black fellows. Because they could digest and thrive on human food, so they crowded out the beautiful delicate ones. Reef fish that ingested bread, crackers, peas, etc., developed cancer, and are dangerous to eat. You have to go to Indonasia and Papau New Genea to see what Hawaii and Carribean was like before the snorkelers. So please please, don't feed them. If you have to, then at least buy special fish food from dive shop, but don't give human food.