Lost my new mask and didn't get to use it once

[Colliam7]

I really don't understand all of this. . . . When I reach shore / climb aboard the boat, I push it up. Around my neck is uncomfortable, and I have no desire to "get used to it". The whole MOF thing is a crock IMO. Instructors who are teaching this should be instead telling their students to just keep their masks on in the water.

Perhaps I have misunderstood some of the comments. But, I don't think many instructors are 'teaching' students to put their mask on their forehead to indicate distress. Rather, many actively discourage students from putting their mask on their forehead, EVER - not on the surface, not on the pool deck, not on land. If you don't want it on you face on land, drop it around your neck, or put it on backwards.

As for dropping it down around the neck, that is a developed skill, and a useful one. You are free to use it or not, as you choose. I teach that, actively. The mask is far more secure down around the neck than on the forehead. However, that is not being taught as the primary mask action on the surface. Instead, I teach divers to keep their mask on their face in the water, and drop it when they exit the water.

I was shore diving in Bonaire last week and routinely kept my mask on until I had walked out of the water, at which time I dropped my mask, so I could better see to navigate the coral on the way back to the truck. Much more secure there than on my forehead. Different strokes.

 

[Peter69_56]

I would suggest that when an instructor tells a student it a panic signal, the instructor is giving the student bad information. My instrctor gave me factual information.

Taking out your reg is a panic signal too - except for all those times when it isn't.

I am not a fan of spreading FUD, particularly when it results from an instructor not understanding the importance of context - and making it an INTEGRAL part of the explanation - or from being too lazy to take the time to explain it properly, or from being too condescending to believe that their students are capable of understanding, or worst of all, from simply regurgitating what they were told to teach without ever having understood it themselves at all.

The only credible posts in this thread that advocate MOF as a panic signal, IMO, are the ones that also acknowledge that it is a panic signal when taken in the context of a number of other indicators while also acknowledging that in most cases it is indicitive of nothing other than the fact that the diver is more comfortable with the mask on their forehead than around their neck.

I can only comment on my original training and also comment's made to me when in the water by a captain who told me off for having mask on forehead saying it was a panic indicator. In relation to the training I was told its a panic signal (by the instructor), checking on the SSI Rescue course text it states "mask off" which instructors may be interpreting as mask on forehead (rather than mask off face). I have been instructed by a number of instructors all over OZ and always had the same comment. This has also applied in other countries (not US) I have visited.

On that basis I would have to suggest that it appears a fairly common world wide opinion (in my experience) that mask on the forehead is a perceived indicator of panic (in hindsight I personally think, mask off the face, thus in any position other than on face is an indicator of potential panic rather than just on the forehead). I agree that in most cases its nothing more than someone wanting their mask off and its the easiest position to push it to and have it very available to put back on, however (in my opinion) its probably not the best and safest place to put it.

All I can say is if you come to OZ and to most countries I have dived to date, most probably someone will comment on it suggesting you don't do it. I personally try not to be arrogant by telling them to #%^& off, and try and follow country customs to fit in unless I think they are causing me risk. What others do is entirely up to them. The captain who commented on me would probably tell you to get on the boat and no more diving if you argued with him about the issue, that's just his style.

My experience and thoughts anyway.