Half blind divers, how do you do it?
- Thread starter Degenerate
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Rocketman3
Registered
Both my wife and I use SeaVision.
It is really nice to see underwater! Best single piece of dive equipment we have. (Cause if you can’t see - what’s the point???)
It is really nice to see underwater! Best single piece of dive equipment we have. (Cause if you can’t see - what’s the point???)
OP
Degenerate
Contributor
Appreciate all the responses a lot.
As I am Sweden I won't opt for anything outside of EU because it just adds a lot of extra on shipping and customs etc.
My LDS can offer me Cressi masks with corrective lenses which is most likely the path I will go down, it'll end up at about 100 euro which seems fair to me.
I really don't wan't to dive with contacts even though I know lots of people do that and have been doing that for years, and I would never ever go for lasik (scared of it going south I suppose).
Hearing from people who have been diving masks with corrective lenses with good results makes me feel very good about this, as it will be one less bother on my mind while diving.
Once again, thanks a lot!
As I am Sweden I won't opt for anything outside of EU because it just adds a lot of extra on shipping and customs etc.
My LDS can offer me Cressi masks with corrective lenses which is most likely the path I will go down, it'll end up at about 100 euro which seems fair to me.
I really don't wan't to dive with contacts even though I know lots of people do that and have been doing that for years, and I would never ever go for lasik (scared of it going south I suppose).
Hearing from people who have been diving masks with corrective lenses with good results makes me feel very good about this, as it will be one less bother on my mind while diving.
Once again, thanks a lot!
I use contacts. (Also scared of Lasik.)
Bought my son an “off the shelf” corrective mask from houseofscuba.com. He told me on his first dive with the new mask that it was the best thing that I had ever bought him.
Bought my son an “off the shelf” corrective mask from houseofscuba.com. He told me on his first dive with the new mask that it was the best thing that I had ever bought him.
I use contact lenses. However ...
For a mild correction of -2.5 to -2.75 as you have, a prescription dive mask would probably work well. My correction is -8.00, and when I tried a prescription dive mask from a company recommended here on SB what I received had lenses the thickness of Coke bottles. I tried using the mask once and gave up because the image was distorted everywhere but the middle of the lens--no peripheral vision at all.
Lasik or an implanted lens or something along those lines is surely in my future. I have been holding off for the past 20 years watching as the procedures improve and waiting to see if they are sure there are no long-term adverse effects. I'm beginning to feel more confident in the procedures.
For a mild correction of -2.5 to -2.75 as you have, a prescription dive mask would probably work well. My correction is -8.00, and when I tried a prescription dive mask from a company recommended here on SB what I received had lenses the thickness of Coke bottles. I tried using the mask once and gave up because the image was distorted everywhere but the middle of the lens--no peripheral vision at all.
Lasik or an implanted lens or something along those lines is surely in my future. I have been holding off for the past 20 years watching as the procedures improve and waiting to see if they are sure there are no long-term adverse effects. I'm beginning to feel more confident in the procedures.
I had Lasik during the early years; lasted for, I guess, fifteen years, and then I started needing readers for work and computer stuff. Those were good for about another five to seven, and then I just decided it wasn't worth the straining, and went back to full glasses.
Funny thing about my first Seavision mask. My wife bought me the reader-only lenses for a birthday, and I loved them (distance vision was still working underwater at that time). Found that as my vision continued to deteriorate, I could see better through the reader part for all ranges; that's when I decided to go full prescription.
I quit keeping up with the surgical improvements once I went back to the doctor that did my initial procedure, and he couldn't guarantee that my vision actually might be worse after a second procedure (this was at least a decade ago, things may have changed, but at 68, it don't matter anymore).
divinh
Contributor
Rred
Contributor
Degenrate-
If you have to ask about vision here online, and your instructors weren't able to give you advice on this (for your area and local sources) and they weren't even aware that you had a vision issue...I'd really question those instructors, that's a half-assed job to skip such a simple thing.
Unless you are still using hard contact lenses for some special reason, there's really no way that water can get between your (soft) contacts and your eyes. The contacts ride on a film of moisture if they have been properly fitted, and if water gets in your mask, either nothing happens, ot the lens floats off. If you're getting pain--there's a bigger problem, you may need a better fitting and a better ophthamologist.
Yes, I have had a lens fall out of my eye and sit there, taunting me, in the bottom of the mask. My buddy was baffled when I signed to surface, from about 60' and maybe two hundred yards out in the middle of nowhere. But the water was calm, and putting the lens back in my eye was actually quite easy. (Just don't drop it in the ocean in the process, right?)
And yes, seawater marinating in your lenses is not a good thing, but for 1/2 hour or so it won't make any difference. After a dive, either flush your eyes, or change and clean the contacts reasonably soon.
There's really nothing big or exceptional about this and a 2.5 diopter is nowhere near "half blind". But your "pain" issue says there's another problem that must be dealt with.
If you have to ask about vision here online, and your instructors weren't able to give you advice on this (for your area and local sources) and they weren't even aware that you had a vision issue...I'd really question those instructors, that's a half-assed job to skip such a simple thing.
Unless you are still using hard contact lenses for some special reason, there's really no way that water can get between your (soft) contacts and your eyes. The contacts ride on a film of moisture if they have been properly fitted, and if water gets in your mask, either nothing happens, ot the lens floats off. If you're getting pain--there's a bigger problem, you may need a better fitting and a better ophthamologist.
Yes, I have had a lens fall out of my eye and sit there, taunting me, in the bottom of the mask. My buddy was baffled when I signed to surface, from about 60' and maybe two hundred yards out in the middle of nowhere. But the water was calm, and putting the lens back in my eye was actually quite easy. (Just don't drop it in the ocean in the process, right?)
And yes, seawater marinating in your lenses is not a good thing, but for 1/2 hour or so it won't make any difference. After a dive, either flush your eyes, or change and clean the contacts reasonably soon.
There's really nothing big or exceptional about this and a 2.5 diopter is nowhere near "half blind". But your "pain" issue says there's another problem that must be dealt with.
It depends on how much astigmatism (cylinder) you have in your prescription. Are your contact lenses toric or not? If you don't have much astigmatism, you will be absolutely fine with off the shelf corrective lenses to your mask. If you are not happy with your LDS offerings, Scubastore.com carries corrective lenses to many masks. Their delivery to Nordic countries is fast and inexpensive.
For someone like me with closer to -6 and a lot of astigmatism off the shelf lenses are not sufficient.
Seavision masks are optically perfect. They are also competitively priced (despite shipping, duty and taxes when I ordered from EU). I had Seavision install their lenses into a Tusa freedom ceos mask and it turned out perfect.
A skilled optmetrist (usually one of the few private shops remaining) can order glass lenses and glue them onto your mask. This way it is possible to make even very complex prescriptions.
I mostly dive with contact lenses.
I too wear a hood,but unlike you,my mask goes on my head underneath the hood. This way you will never lose a mask...just an idea.
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