What this entire discussion is missing is a sense of history and where the whole mask on forehead thing came from. The problem here is that diving grew out first from California. On the west coast we have big surf, almost all the time. It is a rare day that you can wade out on a beach dive with your mask on your forehead and still have it to make the dive (never such a day at Monastery!). The same hold true for exiting the water. So folks learned rather fast to not put their mask on their forehead. This became a cultural thing, was taught in all the west coast courses and as diving spread from L.A. County to YMCA to NAUI to PADI it was carried forward. As long as there was community consensus (which there was for many decades, it became the first every kool-aid thing) that you did not put your mask on your forehead all was fine. When you saw someone push their mask up, the only reasonable explanation was that they were in trouble and you rushed to help.
A separate line of diving evolution came out of the Florida caves. There was little crossover between “open water” divers and cave divers and many things evolved separately. The mask on forehead was one of them, always having a snorkel was another, not entering the water with the regulator in your mouth is a third, etc. When you’re sitting by the side of a Florida sinkhole getting ready to dive there is no reason not to put your mask on your forehead (what … is a ‘gator gonna eat it?). So all was fine, as long as the two communities stayed basically separate. But, as first Nitrox, and then Tech created areas of common interest and concern, one of the most noticeable differences in practice between divers whose tradition came out of the rough Pacific Ocean and divers who’s challenges were less driven by environmental perturbation and more by lack of direct access to air was the whole mask thing.
So were do we stand today? Clearly, without a community-wide agreement that we do not put our masks on our foreheads the whole thing is meaningless. As long as a sizeable segment of the diving community does not want to sign on to this compact, it doesn’t work. Yes, almost every diver who is in trouble has their mask on their forehead, but we can no longer say any diver who has a mask on his or her forehead is in trouble.
I am very uncomfortable with a mask on my forehead and now, as I try adjusting to a neck-strap auxiliary second stage, I’m a bit uncomfortable with my mask around my neck. We are treating this question as a bit of a joke, and I understand why, but it is an issue that could do with some quiet reasoning and the development of a consensus opinion.
Well... I *did* make the distinction "unless its in the appropriate "in use" position"...
... but perhaps we should call it MOFH (Mask on Fore Head) v MOF (Mask on Face)
