As my shadow drifted toward it, the burgundy octopus retreated under a rock, sucking itself into a dark crevasse. While I floated and peered down through my dive mask, a wave splashed over the back of my head and I realized I’d lost track of time once again while communing with the sea life off Maui’s south shore. I turned my face to check my Apple Watch and it told me I’d been in the water for almost 30 minutes without a break.
In the past, I’d have needed an Apple Watch Ultra to make use of the Oceanic Plus app, which was designed for tracking scuba sessions — my colleague Jesse Orrall explored that feature back in 2022. Then this fall the Apple Watch 10 arrived, and with it, compatibility with Oceanic Plus, including an update geared for snorkeling.
Shortly after the Series 10 was released, I was due to head to the snorkeling hotspot of Hawaii, so I knew I had to take it for a spin.
As hobbies go, snorkeling isn’t one I indulge in frequently, because my nearest opportunity is the frigid North Sea. Brushing up against the shorelines of Scotland, Norway and other Northern European countries, the North Sea is neither the most alluring nor the most interesting body of water in which to submerge your face.
But I’ve been fortunate over the years to snorkel in some fantastic locations, making it one of my favorite vacation activities. I’ve swum with turtles in Indonesia and with rays, sharks and dolphins in Australia, and I’ve explored the most dazzling technicolor coral gardens in the Red Sea.
Maui is well known for its sea turtles.
During my trip to Hawaii, snorkeling was pretty much the primary focus of my beach time. As usual I had my mask and snorkel with me, as well as a GoPro for filming the giant green sea turtles that Maui is famous for. I also had a small dry bag to keep my valuables in, which I clipped around my waist, and on my wrist was the Apple Watch Series 10.
Ever since the first Apple Watch launched, 10 years ago, I’ve advocated for the gadget as a travel tool. The ease of glancing down at your travel details when you have your hands full; the ability to keep a close eye on activity and sleep as you shift across time zones; and just remaining connected while you’re on the move mean that it really comes into its own when you’re headed on vacation or a business trip. Along with my phone, headphones, GoPro and Kindle, it’s the one piece of tech I can’t imagine traveling without these days.
The Series 10 has a “swim-proof” design with a water resistance rating of 50 meters. The watch detects when it’s been submerged, which triggers the water lock. When you emerge from the water, you can hold down the digital crown to expel the water from the grilles on either side of the watch.
Also new for this iteration of the Apple Watch is a depth sensor app that tells you the water temperature and times how long you remain underwater. Combined with the Apple Watch tides app, it’s pretty much ready to go snorkeling straight out of the box.
For people who take their snorkeling a little more seriously, the Oceanic Plus app is an additional investment at $2/£2 per month. For that, you get a GPS activity map of every snorkeling session and a log book, which will automatically import any photos or videos from your iPhone, with color correction.
At sea with the Apple Watch
Even before I entered the water, the Oceanic Plus app was helpful in guiding me to popular snorkeling spots with the assistance of its heat map. I also used the built-in tides app on the Apple Watch to understand more about the sea conditions before beginning a snorkeling session.
The Apple Watch can help you understand ocean conditions.
As I submerged the watch, and myself, in the sea, the water lock would activate and I could either start up the Oceanic Plus app, or the free Apple Watch Depth app would pop up on the watch face. Both would start a timer and inform me of how deep I was (not very; I was snorkeling after all), as well as the temperature of the water.
The timer was perhaps the most useful aspect of snorkeling with the Apple Watch. It’s very easy to lose track of time when you’re snorkeling, and the timer let me keep an eye on how long I’d been swimming and helped me stay aware of the sea conditions.
As I swam, the Oceanic Plus app gathered data about my distance and route, in the background. When I got back to shore — after holding down the digital crown to send salty liquid fizzing out of my Apple Watch — I could add to my logbook extra details for future reference, about the visibility, surface condition and current, as well as notes about what fish I’d seen (with a little help from the app’s Ocean ID feature).
Because I had a GoPro with me, I wasn’t using my iPhone to take photos or videos during my snorkeling session. If I had, they would’ve been automatically incorporated into my snorkel log by virtue of their timestamps.
An adept snorkeling companion
I enjoyed and appreciated the added data that I gained from snorkeling with the Apple Watch, but I found the simple built-in Depth app to be the most useful feature. The Oceanic Plus app proved handy when looking back on each swim, and for creating a record of what I’d seen where.
When people asked me where I’d seen the turtles, for instance, I was able not just to describe or vaguely point out the spots in my maps app, but also show them the exact route I swam. If I’m ever fortunate enough to return to Maui, I’ll look forward to revisiting some of the spots where I saw the most exciting sea life and comparing and contrasting the results.
My eight-legged friend.
There’s no doubt I’d get more out of the Oceanic Plus app if I was snorkeling regularly. If I lived near a decent snorkel spot, I’d enjoy tracking the different fish and creatures I saw at different times and using the trend data to learn about their behavior and deepen my connection with my local underwater ecosystem.
For a casual snorkeler on vacation, I wouldn’t declare the Apple Watch an essential accessory. As Jesse pointed out in his diving test with the Apple Watch Ultra, the Oceanic Plus app really shines when you use it for scuba rather than snorkeling — and that remains true even with improvements to the snorkeling features.
That said, it’s great to know that if you do own an Apple Watch Series 10, or an Ultra model, it’s wearable and usable for snorkeling. The Oceanic Plus snorkeling subscription is eminently affordable, but if you’re like most people, the built-in Depth app feature on the Apple Watch will provide the perfect amount of easily accessible, real-time data while you’re cruising the coral in search of fishy friends.