Contacts for me... Seavision soon.

[Brandon]

I currently wear contacts while diving, but have been looking into purchasing a prescription mask. Just checked out the SeaVision website, and that seems to be the way to go. After I get off the phone with my optimitrist, I'm placing a order for one.

My primary concern with diving with contacts would be what to do should I lose one or both while underwater. I normally don't have a problem with this, and have swam, waterski'd, etc, with my contacts in for years. However, my vision is bad enough that I would effectively be blind should I lose both lenses while underwater. This, to me, is unacceptable, and I've been looking for some sort of solution.

In the meantime, the solution for me has been to have a quick chat with my buddy while gearing up about what to do if I lose my vision underwater.


Brandon.

(buggered up his post.. this was supposed to be a response to the dive optics / stick on lenses thread.. dammit =p)

 

[MechDiver]

Ahh. If you take off your mask underwater you can't see squat anyway. I really fail to see your problem, and I also wear contacts. I also always have spares with me and have never had to use them.

IMO you're making a mountain out of nothing.

Phil

 

[Brandon]

Can't say that I've ever tried to see underwater without my mask on. Good point.



Brandon.

 

[Padipro]

I dove with contacts for years before finally having LASIK surgery last year. In more then 400 dives I only lost a single contact one time and it wasn't even during the dive but during a surf exit. I took my mask off to soon and was hit by a wave which washed it out of my eye. I always carried a spare set of lenses with me just in case this happened so I was ok for the drive home.

During my Instructor training class we had to take our masks off underwater to deminstrate our mastery of the skill, I was afraid that I would loose my contacts during this part of the training but had no choice but to do it and believe it or not I didn't loose a single lens. Of course I didn't open my eyes fully but instead only enough to see what I was doing.

As far as seeing underwater goes, water magnifies every thing enough that, although nothing is clear, you can actually see better underwater without your contacts then you can on land without them. I know several people with very minor perscriptions that don't need any correction underwater because of this and leave their glasses on the boat and dive without a perscription mask. So if for some reason you would loose your mask and both contacts you may still beable to see well enough to function and at least get to your buddy or the surface without much trouble.

 

[Goeduck]

I also wear contacts and, like you, am virtually blind without them. But I have gone diving with them in and the only problem I have is, because of my strong prescription, I need reading glasses to see up close now.

I was really worried about losing one or both of them during our last confined class because our instructor took all of our masks and had us swim to the other end of the pool and then he dropped all of them in a pile. We then had to swim underwater to the pile of mask, find ours, put it on and clear it. I felt my way along the bottom with my eyes closed until I thought I was close enough. I then opened my eyes very carefully and not all the way. I was able to find my mask and complete the excercise with no problems.

To conteract the other problem, about needing reading glasses to see up close, I found and bought those stick-on magnifiers that are sold for turning sunglasses into reading glasses. They seemed to work really well on the inside of my mask, but because the mask is so far from the eyes, it doesn't really work for me to put both of them in. So I just put one in on my dominant eye side and that seemed to work pretty well, with a little practice. I did lose that one just before my last dive and didn't realize it until after I was under. So I guess I will have to double check that from now on.

I hope that this helps

 

[ERP]

I have pretty passable eyesight without my correction, but I generally wear contacts to dive.

I've taken my mask off on a number of occasions, and even with my eyes open never lost a contact.

However in my open water class one of the students managed to loose both of his while doing mask replacement.

Talking to him afterwards it seemed that the contacts he wore were just not a good fit, he'd lost lens on dryland before. My feeling is, if your contacts fit well, your unlikely to loose one, and even more unlikely to loose both. And even if you do, as pointed out above you no worse off than a diver loosing his mask.