Make a fist, orient fingers toward face, note that thumb and first finger's knuckle align, push up on the mask skirt with the thumb and knuckle of the first finger to plug the nose and clear the ears.
John Photos003 by
John Ratliff, on Flickr
Photo taken of me in Alexander Springs State Park, Florida in 1970, with one of my favorite oval masks, the U.S. Divers Company Champion Deluxe.
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Okay, I just got out of the pool. My pool is a competitive diving pool (platform diving) and so is 14 feet deep. I also took my Champion Deluxe mask to the water, and found that the above technique, with the thumb and knuckle of the first finger, doesn't really work with this particular mask. I think I was using that technique when I was diving a full wetsuit and three-finger mitts in Clear Lake (see the photo below).
The technique that worked today was to place my first finger on the mask's glass plate, just above the metal rim. Then with the thumb under the skirt and the second finger also up the skirt (of the mask, of the mask), press up and block the nose. I made two dives to the 14 foot level, and that did work well; I had to clear my ears twice each dive on the way down.
Clear Lake Research Dive--Equilizing by
John Ratliff, on Flickr
Me using my Champion Deluxe mask on a research dive for University of Oregon researchers into underwater physiology, in June of 1971. Here I had to swim at a defined depth (73 feet in this case) along a horizontal line, while my electrocardiogram was being taken, my exhalation breath analyzed (taken in a vacuum cylinder), and the amount of air used was determined from a calibrated cylinder.
SeaRat