I'll tell my story and take it for what it's worth.
I wear glasses with progressive lenses and when I was skin-diving last year (the first year I did it a lot, 91 logged dives) I thought I had good vision in the water and life was good. I did find that when I got out of the water my eyes soon felt strained and I couldn't get to my eye glasses fast enough at times.
When I started scuba classes this winter it took aboiut 2 minutes to see that I'd need correction just to read my gauges up close!
I took a stab at contacts hoping for topside and U/W correection but it turned out that my eye's just weren't meant for contacts.... long story.
I took my prescription to a LDS, bought a new mask just like the one I had been using and they sent it to an optician specializing in dive masks. Bifocal overlays were ground and bonded and WOW. Even though they look chunky in there when wiping the anti-fog on I can't even see the edges when wearing them U/W. I'm much less prone to sea sickeness especially when skin-diving and when I get out of the water my eyes are truly at ease and I'm in no particular hurry to get to my eye glasses. Oh and my u/w vision is awesome.
I'm not sure if the prescription was modified from topside. After picking the mask up I did put it on and read a magazine article and my vision was better than with my existing glasses!
Some of the best money I've spent. I keep my old mask as a back-up.
Pete
I wear glasses with progressive lenses and when I was skin-diving last year (the first year I did it a lot, 91 logged dives) I thought I had good vision in the water and life was good. I did find that when I got out of the water my eyes soon felt strained and I couldn't get to my eye glasses fast enough at times.
When I started scuba classes this winter it took aboiut 2 minutes to see that I'd need correction just to read my gauges up close!
I took a stab at contacts hoping for topside and U/W correection but it turned out that my eye's just weren't meant for contacts.... long story.
I took my prescription to a LDS, bought a new mask just like the one I had been using and they sent it to an optician specializing in dive masks. Bifocal overlays were ground and bonded and WOW. Even though they look chunky in there when wiping the anti-fog on I can't even see the edges when wearing them U/W. I'm much less prone to sea sickeness especially when skin-diving and when I get out of the water my eyes are truly at ease and I'm in no particular hurry to get to my eye glasses. Oh and my u/w vision is awesome.
I'm not sure if the prescription was modified from topside. After picking the mask up I did put it on and read a magazine article and my vision was better than with my existing glasses!
Some of the best money I've spent. I keep my old mask as a back-up.
Pete
