Mantaray95616
Registered
You have had a lot of responses regarding your little panic attack. As a veteran instructor, I suggest that you treat mask clearing as a normal part of your dive. Get used to it. Mostly it will be for clearing water that has leaked into your mask. The same technique is used for a fully flooded mask or replacing a dislodged mask. I have even flooded my mask on purpose to clear the faceplate. You have already discovered that a flooded mask does not affect your ability to breath or see underwater so take it in your stride. A safety stop is optional but it is recommended that you ascend at no more than 60ft per minute. A good guide is to watch your exhaust bubbles and ascend at the same rate.
Mask clearing should be practiced in the pool until you master it. I taught a comprehensive SCUBA course in a diferent era. Students were not taught the basics of snorkeling until they proved they could swim, They were not taught the basics of SCUBA until they proved themselves proficient snorkelers. This incuded the ability to recover their mask and snorkel from the bottom of the pool, put them on and clear the mask before surfacing.
Mask clearing was also an integral part of many scuba drills.
Mask clearing should be practiced in the pool until you master it. I taught a comprehensive SCUBA course in a diferent era. Students were not taught the basics of snorkeling until they proved they could swim, They were not taught the basics of SCUBA until they proved themselves proficient snorkelers. This incuded the ability to recover their mask and snorkel from the bottom of the pool, put them on and clear the mask before surfacing.
Mask clearing was also an integral part of many scuba drills.
