Snorkelling is a fun activity that can really make a holiday come alive. It's a catch all term that encompasses many different activities when you become more involved, but at its most basic and often most rewarding, its as simple as donning mask, fins and snorkel and escaping into the shallows. It's here the magic begins.

If you are new to snorkelling, perhaps planning to try it for the first time on your next holiday, you'll find equipment information together with stories of snorkelling experiences and adventures on our website. This article simply presents a few ideas and tips on keeping safe and having fun.

It's important that your snorkelling equipment is built to a safe standard, fits properly and is comfortable. Safety is assured by purchasing equipment from a reputable manufacturer. Within the EC it is unlikely you would be able to buy a mask that used ordinary glass instead of safety glass, or a snorkel with poorly designed valves that might impair breathing for example. Fit and comfort are achieved by working with a specialist dive shop whose staff understand the equipment. As with most things, it's when you are getting started that you are most vulnerable to being sold a pup.

A little knowledge won't hurt. A basic manual is a good idea (you can kill time on the plane reading it). It will speed up your learning and you'll swallow less water. You can also sign up for a pool session in the UK or join a class overseas to learn a few basic techniques that will stand you in good stead. You should be a reasonable swimmer and able to support yourself comfortably in the water without swim aids, which is what masks, fins and snorkels really are.

It's good practice not to use snorkelling equipment to go beyond your normal swimming range - if you lose a fin you may have to swim back. Snorkelling in pairs is recommended by most diving organisations. If one person gets into difficulties the other may be able to help or at least call for assistance. You might think about tying a whistle to your snorkel. This can be easier to hear over a long distance than a voice and may be more likely to attract attention over all the normal shouting that goes on around beaches. When enjoying snorkelling with others, the pace and range of the dive should be geared to the person whose likely to get tired or cold first. Be especially conservative with children who tend to chill faster and have much less muscle for finning that adults. They also often have problems equalising their ears when diving below the surface. Diving's medical experts regard children as children - not just small adults. Their physiology is different and that can have an impact on their comfort in the water.

A manual will also familiarise you with a few useful hand signals that can be used to let others know that everything is fine or to summon aid if you do have a problem. Occasional signals from the water can be reassuring for friends and family left on shore.

As with other water sports, telling someone responsible where you are going and when you expect to be back adds a safety margin. Snorkelling is usually a very safe activity - adding in a few sensible safeguards keeps it so.

Snorkelling often takes place in sunny locations. This makes sunburn a very real hazard. You can get burned through water. Your neck and shoulders are especially vulnerable. As is the back of your head if you don't have much hair. To avoid getting burned think about wearing a shirt or a dive skin. Dive skins are usually a one piece suit made from lightweight acrylics. They were invented in Australia to protect people from box jellyfish stings, so along with helping you avoid sunburn, they'll also prevent injury from most stingers. Even in tropical waters you can eventually start to feel chilled. Water is always colder than humans need to remain comfortable indefinitely. It's a question of your own physiology, water temperature, your activity level and time. The number of times you get in and out of the water each day also comes into the equation.

You can stay warmer for longer by using some form of wetsuit. A lightweight wetsuit vest, which is inexpensive is a good starting point for warm water. You can also buy dive skins that offer similar insulation values to a thin one piece wetsuit but without adding any extra buoyancy that you might need to offset with a weight belt. They are also lighter and easier to pack for travelling. If you feel the cold or are snorkelling in colder climes (Norway, for example, with Orcas), you'll need to use progressively more efficient wetsuits. These are quite buoyant and you'll probably need three or more kilos of lead to compensate so that you can freedive. At this level of commitment it makes sense to seek out some formal training for safety's sake.

Swimming along any reef will usually reveal a myriad of colourful fish, beautifully textured corals and sponges and creatively shaped invertebrates like sea stars and shellfish. Knowing what they are can make the whole experience much more intriguing. To help you identify what you are seeing, you can get guide books and also waterproof ID cards that can go on the dive with you. Underwater cameras are great for recording your snorkelling experiences. Single-use film cameras are low cost and work well in clear, shallow water. The rule is to get close. Even clear water will filter out colour and soften your images - so try to stay between one and two metres from your subject. Increasingly, snappers are placing their digital cameras inside inexpensive all-weather housings. These can be used not just for snorkelling and, usually diving, but also on the ski slopes and around boats allowing you to take pictures with impact in conditions that might ruin an unprotected camera.

You can buy buoyancy aids for snorkelling. These have a simple mouth inflation tube for inflating them. You can deflate them through the oral inflator or sometimes through a special dump valve. They can be useful for resting at the surface with your head held clear of the water, which otherwise takes a lot of effort as you have to keep kicking. Most jackets can only be inflated by mouth. If you get into difficulties you may not be able to do this. So some jackets have a small carbon dioxide cylinder attached. Pulling the rip-cord in an emergency (or by accident) will inflate your jacket in a couple of seconds. The cylinder and it's fittings need to be looked after properly to ensure they will work if ever you really need them.

This is probably a good point to underscore that if you are not comfortable in water, don't depend upon equipment as a crutch! Take swimming lessons, get comfortable and then take up snorkelling.

A snorkeler, even at the surface, is often very hard to see. Only the top of the head shows. Water plays all sorts of tricks with vision creating glare and reflections. This can make it difficult for boaters to see you. Take local advice on whether boats are likely to be a problem and keep to demarcated safe areas. Piers are built for boats to draw alongside. These are a danger area. You can hear motor boats underwater. But it's hard to tell their direction. They can be moving at high speed, so even hearing one can mean it is too late for you or the driver to take avoiding action. When surfacing from a dive keep one hand overhead and rotate and look up as you surface. I did not do this and head butted the hull of a boat once. It was inside the power boat exclusion zone. Which was fair enough as it hadn't got an engine - it had oars and so I didn't hear it move in. But I sure felt it.

If you will be exploring in areas that boats share, consider using a marker buoy and divers-down safety flag. They cost little, weigh next to nothing and blow up like a beach ball. You can tow it around and anchor it when you find an interesting spot. Boats should avoid the immediate area around the flag. Snorkelling is a great activity in its own right. Many people enjoy snorkelling and leave it at that. Others go on to become more serious, joining the ranks of the freedivers or underwater hockey players. Through snorkelling I became a scuba diver. But I'm still an enthusiastic breatholder. My encounters with great whites and whale sharks all took place on snorkel and the manta image that became our logo was taken holding my breath.

Welcome to the adventure...