Mask on Forehead reliable distress signal?

[scubajcf]

Mask on Forehead is not a rule. It is a safety suggestion from most instructors ...

Like many of you, I have seen the MOFers start their classes off discussing the MOF and how it is all about free beer, free rootbeer, etc. Then they continue with how it could be construed as a diver in panic, etc. I have also heard the value debate on how it could cost you money if a wave kicks up and knocks it off your head, you would be buying a new mask. Walter makes a good case for it around the neck.

I personally, cannot put a mask around my neck. It's pretty uncomfortable for me and I usually have a necklaced regulator there.

However, a couple of years ago, I heard a Course Director talk about safety to his OW class. They were still in the pool. He was teaching them that when they are in water too deep to stand in, they should have their mask on their face and a mouthpiece, albeit a snorkel or regulator, in their mouth. Combined with my number one rule at the surface - positive buoyancy, I thought he made a really good point.

When divers are in water too deep to stand in, regardless of assumed conditions, they should have their mask, where it belongs, on their face. Last year, I was reading about a diver in Life Lessons (Scuba Diving Magazine), who suffered a near drowning. Why? Because when he got to the surface, he put the mask around his neck and took his regulator out of his mouth. He was behind the cover of a boat. But as he was paddling back the ladder, the boat shifted and the waves kicked up, tossing some water in his face and down his throat - aspirating sea water. This led to a divemaster having to rescue him and some sort of CPR once back on board. This article further cemented my thought process.

It's not really about having a mask around your neck or on your forehead. This is about safety. When, at the surface, in water too deep to stand in, your mask should be on your face! A mouthpiece should be on your mouth! You should have positive buoyancy! We as instructor should be teaching this in the pool on Confined Water Dive 1. Not wasting time or emphasis on Free Beer. The whole free beer downplays the safety aspects and turns it into a game. Safety shouldn't be a game.

Once you are on shore, back on the boat or in water shallow enough to stand in, if safe to do so, you should do whatever you are comfortable doing with your mask. If you want to walk around the boat with a mask on your forehead. Go for it. If some idiot tries to save you . Let him.

My two psi.

 

[lamont]

When divers are in water too deep to stand in, regardless of assumed conditions, they should have their mask, where it belongs, on their face. Last year, I was reading about a diver in Life Lessons (Scuba Diving Magazine), who suffered a near drowning. Why? Because when he got to the surface, he put the mask around his neck and took his regulator out of his mouth.

You can drown in water much shallower than water too deep to stand in.

You also don't drown due to not having a mask on your face, you drown due to not having a working regulator in your mouth while having your mouth underwater.

That is one reason why I keep my backup bungeed under my neck where I always know where it is, and why I don't obstruct that backup.

We have also fairly recently had a diver who hadn't been diving recently die due to containership wake while on the surface.

If you can't pay enough attention to conditions to understand when you are safe and when you are not, and if you can't reliably get a regulator in your mouth and a mask on your face if conditions change then you should really always have a mask on and a regulator in your mouth or in a temporary hold while talking to someone.

 

[anth]

uh huh.



okay, this is actual 'vision' (ie. photons hitting the retina).



this is what is called a 'preconceived notion'. i'm sure they help you organize your world, but you can't win an argument just by claiming that they're accurate.

Hey Lamont,

You have attempted to counter my post without addressing its content. Very tactful, but you failed to address the core of my post...

• 
  What harm is done by keeping the mask on?
  
  What are the benefits of having the mask in a non-functional position?

I made an assumption regarding why one would move the mask into a non-functional position - for increased comfort. Would you care to address the more correct reason in another post, as you failed to do in your previous response?

According to your profile, you are a technical diver. I assume you have undertaken numerous dives of extensive length. Your mask is suitably comfortable with sufficient field of view for that extensive period underwater. Why bother repositioning it when bobbing around on the surface?

Cheers,

Anthony

 

[wardric]

What are the benefits of having the mask in a non-functional position?

It makes you look cool?

 

[sweatfrog]

well, generally when i see an instructor lecturing their students about not putting their mask on their forehead, i tend to watch the students more closely because that is indicative of a lack of focus on the part of the instructor on the truly important facets of diving. there's too many instructors out there that are uncomfortable in their supposed leadership roles and who overcompensate by laying down rules like this that don't matter to hide the fact that they've become instructors way too quickly without learning how to dive first.

(anyone out there who is an instructor think there's a problem with how i'm arguing this point?)

I learned how to dive 9 years before you were born and became an Instructor 8 years after you were born. Is 17 years diving in the military, commercially and recreationally enough time to object to this thought process?

That brings me up to 1979, do you want me to keep going? I don't normally toot my own horn, but what you are saying is ridiculous. Putting your MOF is a bad habit and students should be broken of that habit before it becomes ingrained. How it is done is not as important as getting the students to remember that it was harped on.

 

[Nemrod]

To put this to rest...

When I see someone with a mask on their forehead, I see a person who isn't comfortable keeping their mask on for an extra 30 to 60 seconds.

And I ask myself: WHY?!

You are a trained diver. You wear a mask for a long, long time underwater and manage to function just fine. Your mask fits your face well and is comfortable (It is, right? If it isn't, fix that problem first.).

My masks work really well when they're covering my eyes. On my forehead or neck, not so much.

Why not keep it over your eyes till you're back on the boat or shore and doffing your gear?

Nah, step out of your box. I sometimes have been known to swim more than a mile to sea, on my own, alone from a beach entry. I generally do such dives by swimming on my back with my wing partially inflated towing my safety float behind me with flag etc. I like my mask popped on my forehead during such swims. It is comfortable and despite all the BS is very secure there. I can flip it down, roll over, view the underwater terrain and then roll back on to my back and continue my swim. If you were to do this with your mask down you would be uncomfortable quickly. I prefer to breath through my nose as well. You all the time mouth breathers may not understand but the only time I breath through my mouth is underwater or during high physical activity. I have never lost a mask or panicked as a result of having the mask on my forehead. I have never needed rescuing yet as a result of having the mask on my forehead either.

Mask on forehead is comfortable, secure and functional way to store the mask while not in use and is indicative of a comfortable and secure diver who can adapt to the situation--as opposed to my "instructor said" sort of diver who always applies the same "think" to every situation and panics at the first bit of water on their face, help, help, save me, I cannot swim, I got water in my eyes, waaaahhhhh, waaaahhhhh---typical PadI sort ya know.

N

 

[caver]

nah, step out of your box. I sometimes have been known to swim more than a mile to sea, on my own, alone from a beach entry. I generally do such dives by swimming on my back with my wing partially inflated towing my safety float behind me with flag etc. I like my mask popped on my forehead during such swims. It is comfortable and despite all the bs is very secure there. I can flip it down, roll over, view the underwater terrain and then roll back on to my back and continue my swim. If you were to do this with your mask down you would be uncomfortable quickly. I prefer to breath through my nose as well. You all the time mouth breathers may not understand but the only time i breath through my mouth is underwater or during high physical activity. I have never lost a mask or panicked as a result of having the mask on my forehead. I have never needed rescuing yet as a result of having the mask on my forehead either.

Mask on forehead is comfortable, secure and functional way to store the mask while not in use and is indicative of a comfortable and secure diver who can adapt to the situation--as opposed to my "instructor said" sort of diver who always applies the same "think" to every situation and panics at the first bit of water on their face, help, help, save me, i cannot swim, i got water in my eyes, waaaahhhhh, waaaahhhhh---typical padi sort ya know.

N[/quote

ARE YOU OK DIVER ? ARE YOU IN DISTRESS?

 

[freediver]

That brings me up to 1979, do you want me to keep going? I don't normally toot my own horn, but what you are saying is ridiculous. Putting your MOF is a bad habit and students should be broken of that habit before it becomes ingrained. How it is done is not as important as getting the students to remember that it was harped on.

I'm not sure why it is such a bad habit. Contrary to some beliefs, mask on forehead does not lead to drowning, inability in the water leads to drowning. I WILL say with all certainty that if we placed as much emphasis on, as one example, proper kicking as we do on the dangerous and habitual nature of placing the mask on the forehead, we would start putting better more conscientious divers in the water.

 

[Puffer Fish]

I learned how to dive 9 years before you were born and became an Instructor 8 years after you were born. Is 17 years diving in the military, commercially and recreationally enough time to object to this thought process?

That brings me up to 1979, do you want me to keep going? I don't normally toot my own horn, but what you are saying is ridiculous. Putting your MOF is a bad habit and students should be broken of that habit before it becomes ingrained. How it is done is not as important as getting the students to remember that it was harped on.

Hummm... need to be careful, because this is a math test...

Ok I started diving.. ah..5 years before Lamont was born, but got my instructor cert just 3 years after he was born...Which comes out to..... ah... an average of 2 years before Lamont was born... which is clearly better than just one year...I think.

I'm with Lamont on this one..... even if he is just a kid.

And just to make another small point, this is how the original MOF/NMOF got started... Which if it happened again, we will rightfully blame Lamont for.

 

[Nemrod]

nah, step out of your box. I sometimes have been known to swim more than a mile to sea, on my own, alone from a beach entry. I generally do such dives by swimming on my back with my wing partially inflated towing my safety float behind me with flag etc. I like my mask popped on my forehead during such swims. It is comfortable and despite all the bs is very secure there. I can flip it down, roll over, view the underwater terrain and then roll back on to my back and continue my swim. If you were to do this with your mask down you would be uncomfortable quickly. I prefer to breath through my nose as well. You all the time mouth breathers may not understand but the only time i breath through my mouth is underwater or during high physical activity. I have never lost a mask or panicked as a result of having the mask on my forehead. I have never needed rescuing yet as a result of having the mask on my forehead either.

Mask on forehead is comfortable, secure and functional way to store the mask while not in use and is indicative of a comfortable and secure diver who can adapt to the situation--as opposed to my "instructor said" sort of diver who always applies the same "think" to every situation and panics at the first bit of water on their face, help, help, save me, i cannot swim, i got water in my eyes, waaaahhhhh, waaaahhhhh---typical padi sort ya know.

N[/quote

ARE YOU OK DIVER ? ARE YOU IN DISTRESS?

Well, lets see, if you cannot tell from my smile and my winking that I am not in distress, then go ahead and try and rescue me. I can assure you, previous attempts by smart arses have not faired well. Good luck with it though.

N