Vim - select text highlighted by search?

Problem

In vim, I often perform searches to hop to a word or phrase instead of navigating there with . Then I hit to hop between occurrences. Say I've got this text: I type and hit enter. That phrase is highlighted, and I jump to it with . Now I want to visually select that text, maybe to change it or delete it. (Yes, I'm aware of the substitution command.) Since my cursor is at the letter "a" at the beginning of "an arrow," I can hit , then press a couple of times to highlight the entire phrase. But I have a feeling there's a shorter and more semantic way. After all, I've already specified the text I'm interested in. How might I compose a command to say "visually select the current search selection?"