Do you dive with a spare mask?

[FritzCat66]

Yes, I carry a spare mask, in my right BC pocket. Already needed it on one dive, and glad it was there; what would have been a dive-ender (at the very beginning of a drift reef) instead became just a minor hassle as I switched masks.

 

[redacted]

I don't carry a spare mask but I do carry a pair of swim goggles when I dive solo. It takes some practice to learn to clear them well enough to monitor gauges and you do not want to descend while using them, but they will serve adequately in an emergency. I occasionally carry them while buddy diving just to practice using them. They fit quite nicely in a small pouch.

 

[EastTNDiver]

Have you ever tried to ascend at 30 feet per minute without really seeing anything?

You should.

Let your mask fill with water, then try to read your computer.

I had a mask failure on my fifth dive at around 30 feet, and the resulting ~blind ascent wasn't precisely pretty. I was inexperienced and I lost depth display. At times I went too fast up, at times I went down. After some bouncing I reached the surface, but as my ears didn't clear as fast as I was bouncing, some ear pain resulted. It lasted an hour or two. After that incident I have always carried a spare mask.

ps. The mask failure that I experienced was my own fault. I tightened it too much so it started to leak. Then I asked my dive buddy (with some hand signals) to tighten my mask even more (wrong choice), which he misunderstood and loosened it. Too much. As a result I was left with a flooded mask.

Unless you left out some details in your posts, what you experienced was just a simple mask flood, not a mask failure. That situation could have been remedied by simply clearing your mask. Did you not try to clear your mask before your ascent?

As for the OP's question, I have never carried a spare mask for basic OW dives. However, I will carry one when I start my tech/cave training in the near future.

 

[Cave Diver]

I have seen a few people lately discuss having a spare mask in a pocket while diving. Is this the status quo to dive with an extra mask or is this considered overkill to most? And I am not talking about having an extra mask in your gear bag topside.

In non deco, non overhead, direct ascent open water diving - no.

Extended mandatory deco or overhead environment, absolutely!

 

[FuzzyNutz]

Swimming in a pool with no mask on is no problem at all for me, but I can imagine that being in salt water, my eyes would burn like hell! I often leave a tiny amount of water in my mask while I dive to clear the fog, and I've gotten some in my eyes before and it burned so bad I had to keep my eyes shut (like, really squeeze them closed) for a good 30 seconds until I was good enough to continue, but it still stung for a while.

I don't currently carry a spare mask, but I'd like to just for that one future moment I wish I had one. I don't see it as a huge neccessity, but as someone else said, it's too easy to carry one, so why not? I've had my face/mask kicked pretty dang hard once before, and the mask didn't even budge... hurt my face a little, but no problems with the mask.

Also, in regards to calling the dive, going topside to get a new one, and going back down again: Well if I'm on a vacation dive that cost 50-100 bucks and I ended the dive because of a mask failure, it would have been cheaper, easier, and quicker to just carry a cheap spare mask in the first place, so it's somewhat cost efficient and convenient... so again, why not?

 

[Steve50]

OW no spare

 

[Charlie99]

No problem doing no mask ascents. Don't carry a spare.

After a similar thread on Scubaboard a few years ago, I went out and did a few no-mask ascents. No problem in the 77F water I normally dive in.

It's an easy skill to test out. Just warn your buddies that at the end of the next dive you will be doing the ascent with your mask in your hand. Of course, it is very easy if you are using your buddy's body as a guide, so after a while, turn around and face away from him.

Like many things in scuba, having good buoyancy control makes it a lot easier.

 

[Krazytomdiver]

As a dive guide, I do not carry a spare mask with me.I always have a "spare bag" on the dive boat consisting of a mask,fins,regs,BCD,snorkel,tool kit,and spare parts.Also include extra tanks. Most dives are drift dives so re-surfacing for broken equipment is not a issue.

"living life without a hard bottom"
KT

 

[ianr33]

In non deco, non overhead, direct ascent open water diving - no.

Extended mandatory deco or overhead environment, absolutely!

Same here.

While I think (hope!) I could safely spend a couple of hours blindly exiting a cave without a mask, I prefer not to stack the odds against myself in that way.

 

[Charlie99]

.. Well if I'm on a vacation dive that cost 50-100 bucks and I ended the dive because of a mask failure, it would have been cheaper, easier, and quicker to just carry a cheap spare mask in the first place, so it's somewhat cost efficient and convenient... so again, why not?

If I brought with me all of the things that I might like to have, pretty soon I'd look like an underwater dive shop.

I try to bring only those things that are truly essentials. I bring safety gear such as signal tube, dsmb, shears, knife, mirror, paper & pencil, but I draw the line at things like spare masks. If I intended to be deep into decompression, then the importance of a spare mask would be greater, but my dives are within (or nearly so) NDL.