Mask clearing-finding out the hard way

[Digger54]

I think Mattboy's suggestion is a very good one. It really puts a load on an already anxious diver/student to know that they will have to remove the mask AND breath through a regulator with their nose uncovered. Entering the water with snorkel or reg and no mask on in water shallow enough to stand in builds confidence that they can, indeed, breathe underwater. Then swimming and descending to deeper water as the confidence and proficiency builds. Some instructors lack tact and patience, for sure.

There are lots of folks that don't mind removal of the mask, but I don't know anyone that outright likes it -- especially if the water is really chilly.

What concerns me the most about OP's remarks is the tendency to bolt for the surface, not that they were slow to learn the mask removal. They got to the surface unharmed from 12 and 20 feet, fortunately. But what happens when they are at 60 feet after 45 minutes underwater and their buddy kicks their mask off? Those things that make us most anxious are the things that we need to practice the most till we get comfortable.

Congratulations on making good progress on a difficult skill. I have found that the snorkel/no mask exercise is very helpful. You should also try some pool work with a regulator and no mask. Starting a session with no mask, then descending, is often easier than being underwater and taking your mask off.

It's very easy to blame an instructor when you have a problem. Although your first instructor may not have been as nice as you would have liked, it sounds like she made an effort to help you. The mask removal issue is a very common source of anxiety for many OW students.

 

[superwormy]

Well on my 2nd dive, we had to remove our mask for 1 minute, then replace it...WHAT? take my mask off, swim across the pool, then replace it? YIKES!!

I'm just finishing my open-water PADI course, and this was the one thing in the entire course that I felt was taught and organized really poorly.

Now, I totally understand the need to do be able to remove your mask and keep breathing, my beef is not with that, but instead I don't agree with the way it was taught.

Everything else in the course was simple "watch me do this one simple thing underwater, and then do the same thing I did" type exercises, and then all of the sudden they throw you this multi-step nightmare (if you're not used to it) exercise: go under, remove your mask and hold it a certain way, swim across the pool with no mask, sit on the bottom, put it on a certain way, swim back.

It took me *the entire length of the pool* just to figure out how to breath without the mask on. Never mind remembering how to hold the mask, and how to put it back on, and swim basically blind, and all that. The end result was that I just felt completely confused and not confident at all in doing this exercise.

The next day I practiced on my own just the breathing with no mask, and that made it easy, because it gave me a chance *to just practice the breathing* without having to concentrate on everything else going on too. Now, I feel confident in doing the entire exercise. Why didn't we do just the mask removal without all the other stuff as practice in the first place?

PADI should revise this into two separate exercises, both to make it consistent with everything else you're doing (the one-thing-at-a-time philosophy) and to get people confident in this exercise and give them a chance to figure it out.

Part 1: Just go under, take your mask off, breath for a while underwater.

Part 2: Once you're comfy with part 1, go under, take your mask off, breath and swim, put the mask back on.

 

[fjpatrum]

superwormy... interesting. Our instructors gave us the option of doing it that way or making a game out of it. They pulled all of our masks and then threw them in the water and we had to find our masks with just us and our buddy (both unmasked). They snuck in a trick though as the instructor had two dive masters and one was wearing one of our masks and the rest of the masks were on the bottom of the pool. I recognized my dive buddie's mask and swam to it immediately, but gave it to him instead of wearing it myself to look for another to grab. I swam around for a good two or three minutes looking but unable to see well because of chlorine in the pool and my buddy finally came up to me with my mask and told me the DM had been wearing it.

It made the whole experience a lot more interesting and fun, and gave each team a good amount of time to swim sans mask to get a real feel for not having it available if you start to freak out.

The one thing I think the exercise really lacked was the sudden loss of a mask when you're already underwater. I happened to get that and my reg pulled from my mouth in my OW dives, though, so I didn't lose out too much.

 

[Peter Guy]

A poster wrote the following about losing a mask during a dive:

I started swimming up and for a few seconds, I don't think anyone noticed my problem: until they saw me ascending. But I was fine swimming up by myself. I had to surface without my mask since I couldn't see anyone and didn't know how close they were ( a spare mask in a pocket would have been great! Or someone grabbing me... )

I'm sorry to perhaps hijack this thread but I believe a comment is necessary. THIS IS THE WRONG THING TO DO. This is WHY we are taught the buddy system -- AND this is why the Mask Off Swim that is the subject of this thread is taught and demonstrated.

IF you happen to lose your mask, GO TO YOUR BUDDY or STOP, HOVER and WAIT for your buddy. Now if you are one who closes your eyes when the mask comes off, it could be hard to find your buddy or stop and hover which is why opening the eyes is encouraged. BUT doing a blind ascent can lead to some significant issues.

You have a buddy (well, don't you?) so use her when needed.

 

[scottsax]

A poster wrote the following about losing a mask during a dive:

I'm sorry to perhaps hijack this thread but I believe a comment is necessary. THIS IS THE WRONG THING TO DO. This is WHY we are taught the buddy system -- AND this is why the Mask Off Swim that is the subject of this thread is taught and demonstrated.

IF you happen to lose your mask, GO TO YOUR BUDDY or STOP, HOVER and WAIT for your buddy. Now if you are one who closes your eyes when the mask comes off, it could be hard to find your buddy or stop and hover which is why opening the eyes is encouraged. BUT doing a blind ascent can lead to some significant issues.

You have a buddy (well, don't you?) so use her when needed.

I wear contacts. In a real, emergency mask-loss situation underwater, I'd probably open my eyes to maintain my depth while getting my backup out. But in a pool, or an open water training/practice situation, I'm perfectly happy letting my buddy manage me while I'm maskless, and not risk floating my lenses out of my eyes.

In my PADI OWC, my instructor had us swim 2 lengths of the pool maskless while he guided us, and I never took my mask off underwater again until I realized it was a skill I needed to practice. I started practicing breathing off my primary and secondary without a mask at the start of every dive before putting my fins on, then graduated to mask removal and replacement at depth. It's a good skill to maintain!

 

[Booyakasha]

Personally, like some of the PP posters I don't think that being able to slowly fill your mask and then clear it is good enough. You dive enough your mask is going to get knocked off, it may happen in a swim through where you are too close to the person in front of you or they stop and you don't notice. It may happen when you least expect it. You may lose your mask and have to ascend including a saftey stop. You may have to swim with your eyes open in salt water. (which is no big deal). All of these things should be 2nd nature.

B.

 

[halocline]

I wear contacts. In a real, emergency mask-loss situation underwater, I'd probably open my eyes to maintain my depth while getting my backup out. But in a pool, or an open water training/practice situation, I'm perfectly happy letting my buddy manage me while I'm maskless, and not risk floating my lenses out of my eyes.

I wear contacts too. I got tired of squinting during the endless mask-off sessions during my DM course, so one day I wore an old set that I was ready to toss anyway. I found that I could swim around for several minutes with my eyes open and not lose a lens. I was pretty surprised by it. I have read though that it's pretty important to disinfect your lenses after exposure to sea water.

 

[Guy Alcala]

I wear contacts too. I got tired of squinting during the endless mask-off sessions during my DM course, so one day I wore an old set that I was ready to toss anyway. I found that I could swim around for several minutes with my eyes open and not lose a lens. I was pretty surprised by it. I have read though that it's pretty important to disinfect your lenses after exposure to sea water.

I've been told by several people that they can swim mask/goggleless with their contacts and not lose them. The only time I tried it (inadvertently) I lost one of mine. I was swimming fast freestyle, so there was a lot more turbulence than would typically be the case while scuba diving.

Normally I just shut my eyes for flood and clear/mask remove and replace drills, but for a class this weekend I plan to take an old pair I set aside for just this purpose, and give it a try. If it ever happens for real, I'll try to keep one eye open and one closed, so that I'll still have some decent vision once I get a mask back on (or on the surface, for that matter), if I lose one.

Guy

 

[cdolphin]

A poster wrote the following about losing a mask during a dive:

I'm sorry to perhaps hijack this thread but I believe a comment is necessary. THIS IS THE WRONG THING TO DO. This is WHY we are taught the buddy system -- AND this is why the Mask Off Swim that is the subject of this thread is taught and demonstrated.

IF you happen to lose your mask, GO TO YOUR BUDDY or STOP, HOVER and WAIT for your buddy. Now if you are one who closes your eyes when the mask comes off, it could be hard to find your buddy or stop and hover which is why opening the eyes is encouraged. BUT doing a blind ascent can lead to some significant issues.

You have a buddy (well, don't you?) so use her when needed.

Gosh, Peter, I must be the only person in Puget Sound with ten dives who lost a mask and wasn't holding onto her buddy, c'mon it was AOW, I had a nightmare instructor, who WAS my buddy, and he was bolting to shore at Edmonds Underwater Park ten feet ahead of me at full tilt and had no idea what happened. I figured, I'm going to the surface and he can find me. I couldn't keep up with him with a mask. Do we need to go there again? And no one made contact with me for a few seconds, I didn't know where they were. I didn't bolt for the surface, I began to swim up. Your Stop-Hover-Wait is great advice.

Your point is well taken, and I respect your advice, but I wasn't going into the entire dive sequence here to basically say, "Hey, you're gonna lose a mask someday - don't panic." It was a shallow dive. My buddy, AKA my instructor? Should have been with me, not racing to shore. No deco obligation/need for safety stop. No boat traffic. I was new and stupid.

But I didn't panic because I was uncomfortable with no mask: which was the point of this thread. I appreciate you yelling at me.

 

[kaerius]

I was taught that the first thing you teach in the pool on an OW class is breathing through the regulator, and here's the kicker: we did this by having the student stand up at the shallow end of the pool with regulator in their mouth, but no mask on, and just put their face in the water.

This way when we reach the nomask stuff later on, breathing with no mask on is a skill they've already done, making them more comfortable and comfident.

It's also a good idea to take it a step at a time, first doing slow flood and remove, then quick flood and remove, and then eventually just pulling it off. Getting them more and more used to it.

Another trick is teaching them to breath out of their nose while taking it off, this stops water coming in, but again, just as an intermediate step.

I might also steal fjpatrum's instructor's trick, assuming time pressure permitting. Then again there's a lot of things I'd like to throw in if time pressure permitted, possibly up to something resembling the DM stress test.

And +1 for stop, hover and wait. Or go ahead and open your eyes and try to find the mask yourself if you're comfortable enough with that(and it's not a wall dive).