Many swimmers and scuba divers who use corrective lenses on land find that swimming underwater or scuba diving is greatly enhanced by wearing a scuba diving mask. Since water is a magnifier which means that things appear somewhat larger than they actually are, most prescriptions result in either magnifying or minifying what the wearer observes.
The use of a scuba diving mask results in actual visual acuity being somewhat more complicated due to the magnification of the water.
What is a Scuba Diving Mask?
A scuba diving mask is designed for scuba dives and they tend to be quite large and square shaped, and they come up high on the face. They also go across the forehead reaching as low as the nose and the rubber that surrounds the areas of the mask in order to help to fit tightly against the face thereby providing a seal that is watertight.
On the other hand, a prescription scuba diving mask works by either having the entire lens area as being a prescription lens, or having the Rx lens to be inserted separately between the mask and the eyes of the wearer. Moreover, the lens in the diving mask is usually made out of glass, acrylic, regular ophthalmic plastic or polycarbonate.
However, it may be noted that all contact lenses are not ideal for use in scuba diving and lenses made of RGPs and the old hard lenses may dig in to the eyes at certain depths due to the increased water pressure. In addition, soft lenses may gather waterborne organisms and thus be contaminated and result in causing disease. It may occur even in pools as well as fresh and saltwater bodies.
Besides picking the scuba diving mask that is most suitable, there is also the need to maintain it properly because it may become damaged because it has not been soaked in fresh water after a dive. Therefore, after every dive, one should thoroughly soak the scuba diving mask in fresh water.
This will prevent salt crystals from drying which would thus cause the metal parts to become weak and would also possibly cause rusting and the straps and fabrics could become rigid as well as split. These crystals combined with sand together act as an abrasive that causes the lens to be scratched as well as dig holes in the equipment.
Therefore, one needs to check the straps by stretching them and seeking out any cracks that may exist and inspect purge valve to see if there are any bits of sand or salt, that exist even after washing. One should repair all damaged parts as well as store the scuba diving mask away from light, heat and fumes and never pile any significant weight on top as well as try to avoid bending fins which should lie flat and not on their tips and also, not let silicone rest against neoprene since that would result in the silicone becoming discolored.
