snorkeling for a 3 and a half yr old?

[schnake]

hello,
any ideas about suitable masks/snorkels? i have seen these floating devices, are they any good?
thanks
schnake

serious?

I personally think three and a half is far to young to be sticking even part of your head underwater and having to cope with an artificialy breathing system. And a faff for you in terms of the constant supervision the child will need.

However, I am fully prepared to be corrected

DSs swimming lessons always used these which say from age 5 but DS s used them from 4, maybe slightly earlier. The masks are fab - we use the swimming goggle version for DS2 - and they adjust soooo easily with a single pull (or 2 - one on each side!)

Agreed. PADI snorkelling courses for kids start at age 5. Better to wait until they are older and more confident.

@ Suzywong. Snorkelling is DS2s dream activity as he doesn't have to come up to breathe. I think he started between 3.5 and 4

Get them used to the mask first - it's an odd feeling because it blocks their nose. Obviously you have to walk alongside them all the time as they do tend to dip the end of the snorkel under occasionally but it never freaked either DS out. This assumes they are used to swimming underwater in the first place though.

Don't dragonlets have gills?

Hmmmm.... clearly you are water dragons. Or a family of freaks

thanks

she is quite confident in the water it has to be added, and it won't be on some shark infested reef of course.

it s true that the main goal in her swimming course was to get the heads under water as much as possible, which freaked me out in the bginning, but they seemed to know what they were doing.
so we will give it a go and see.
thanks again