Scuba Diving Masks – The Essential Guide
What Everyone Should Know About Scuba Diving Masks
When it comes to underwater activity scuba diving time is important and limited. Fixing a scuba mask while holding up the entire diving group is quite embarrassing on your part. You must avoid this inconvenience as much as possible so as to prevent wasting valuable time of others and yours.
Investing in scuba diving masks entails a lot of things to consider. First you must understand that each one of us has a distinctive face and head shape. It is crucial that the diving mask be water tight sealed while conforming to your head shape. A loose diving mask, that doesn’t fit properly on one’s face, could let water seeps in and ruin anyone’s scuba trip.
The best way to examine a scuba mask for proper fitting is to take the mask and place it on one face (as you would when diving) and sans the strap expended to bind it. Breathe in slowly and the diving mask should stick around. Most inappropriate scuba diving masks require breathing harder or the mask drops off. Good diving masks have little water seeping in.
Also make ease a goal when choosing scuba equipment. Check that the silicone strap doesn’t pull one’s hair and that it fits comfortably around one’s head. To achieve the most beneficial ease while diving make adjustment on any side of the scuba diving mask.
Another matter to consider is the kind of lenses in the mask. Two popular picks are the flat regular form and the side-view lenses. Side-view lenses has the means to improve your field of vision. Getting scuba masks with optical lenses ordered to your needs is the proper choice if you don eyeglasses.
Meticulously do your homework when procuring scuba diving gears. Find what is needed to assemble your scuba diving activity requirements. Being smart with your choice can prevent difficulty and perhaps hazardous incident before it happens.
Essential Tips on Scuba Diving Masks
Scuba diving masks is an indispensable part of anyone’s scuba equipment. A mask that constantly fogs up can ruin anybody’s whole scuba diving experience. Thus maintaining or taking care of the scuba gear is a requirement for the scuba enthusiasts. Here is a few simple tips to follow, for your defogging or mask care so your scuba diving masks will survives many dives.
Maintaining Scuba Diving Masks
A lot of times new scuba dive masks have an greasy film over the outermost level. Removing this requires just the simple toothpaste. Rub a small drop of toothpaste on the lens and wipe it over the surface that have this oily substance on them. Include the strap and completely wash the dive mask in fresh water and make sure that it is clean. Repeat if needed.
Do not use gel toothpaste for the task, a plain Crest is better suited for this without bad consequence for the gear and for the dive slate. Getting rid of the oily film will put a stop to the diving mask from fogging. Upkeep of your scuba dive masks is easy and simple. Here are additional tips to take note and follow:
* After diving always wash you scuba mask in freshwater. Clear out any grit or sand in and outside the mask and remove any salty remains.
* Regularly clean your scuba dive masks. Always clean your dive mask with a tiny drop of toothpaste every so often. It aids in tidying up the lens and assist to keep it from fogging. Wash thoroughly after employing the toothpaste.
* Put your mask face-up when you are not wearing it. Doing this keeps the lens from getting scratched. A scratched lens can result in uncomfortable dive.
* Keep the mask out of the sun. Do not dry your diving mask in direct sunlight. Direct sunlight has the tendency to reduce and degrade the silicone.
* Before stashing away make sure the mask is totally dry. This is to avoid potential odor and anything springing up on your dive masks.
Scuba Diving Masks Defogging Tips
To keep your scuba diving masks from fogging there are three simple methods. The three listed below are proven and all are effective. Personally it’s the mask defogger solution I use often.
1. Saliva – The good old spit has proven it efficacy again on this one. Place a pinch of saliva on your dry diving mask. Wash out after wiping it on the mask. If you are queasy and easily goes screaming “bacteria!” then this is not for you. Just try the other two effective ways below
2. Prepared Solution – Commercially mask defogger solution is available at any dive shop at a small cost. They do work and last a long time. Place a pair of drops on your lenses and spread it around. Wash it thoroughly to avoid getting the solution in your eyes.
3. Toothpaste – As mentioned before this is highly effective. If the the above failed to work it may perhaps need a thorough cleaning with toothpaste as described above. This will surely answer the problem with the fogging on scuba dive masks.
Following these simple proper care on your scuba diving masks should help make your scuba diving experience a constant joy and make your diving masks lives on for numerous dives.
Opinions / Thoughts on split fins or non split fins for scuba diving?
Comparison based on Personal Experience would be best.
The advantage of split fins (according to the ad-blurb, anyway) is that they allow a much shorter, more streamlined flutter-kick than non-split fins, which reduces swimming effort, and hence air consumption. They are also supposed to be better for surface swimming, since they produce less ‘splash’ (and hence waste less energy) when breaking the surface
As a full-time instructor I used non-split fins (Mares Avanti Quattros) for almost my entire working life (2000-2005) and have since continued to do so on fun-dives. I have only once used split-fins (Scubapro TwinJet, borrowed from a colleague to try them out) and I didn’t get on with them a-tall, likely because I was thoroughly habituated to my own fins.
I found that particular model too floppy, and almost totally ineffective when doing ‘frog-kick’ (like most instructors I know, I hardly ever use the ‘traditional’ flutter-kick). I had no confidence that they could provide me the power and manouevrability that I might require in an emergency–but perhaps if I had taken a little more time to get used to them, I would have got to like them better.
I would however emphasise that I do not have any experience with other models of split-fin, so my comparison is not only extremely limited, but also highly subjective. Someone who buys split-fins early in their diving career, and uses them habitually will likely have a different take on things.
terrible headache after scuba diving HELP?
im in a scuba class through my school so that i can become certified, and today we had to learn a skill involving taking off our masks and swimming back and forth in the shallow end breathing only through our regulators. if youve done this, you know its TERRIFYING, and not only does it feel like youre breathing through a straw, you cant see!
naturally i started to panick and practically hyperventalating underwater, and as i was finishing my last lap i got a TERRIBLE HEADACHE. like unbelieveably painful. it was not gradual at all and it hit me like a wall. i also got a weird uncomofortable feeling in my stomach but that went away after resurfaced.
after finishing that skill we moved to the deep end, and im pretty sure i almost passed out from the pressure of the water on my headache. and now, almost 15 hours later, the headache is STILL there and just as painful.
i didnt think it could be decompression sickness or the bends because i wasnt in deep water or ascending too fast or anything like that. but the headache wont go away and im worried!
HELP! any suggestions would be great!!!
also, the skill doesnt allow you to plug your nose, so you have to concentrate on not sucking water up through it and breathing through your mouth at the same time because your mask isnt covering your nose. i think this was the main source of the panic/ hyperventalation if that means anything!
I don’t agree with a CO2 buildup. You’d be over the headache by now. This is almost certainly sinus related, especially since you state it worsened when moving to the deep end. I’m betting you dropped below the depth that your sinus cavities were equalized at and you got a squeeze. It can happen in 3 feet of water. Been there dunnit and have the T shirt. Once you took a sinus squeeze that would have made any further dives VERY uncomfortable.
You’d have been forgiven for pinching your nose to equalize on this skill demonstration.
Lay off the diving for a bit. You can give an over the counter sinus pain medication a shot as the tissues heal or see an ENT ( Ears Nose Throat) Doc. I highly doubt you’ve done any serious damage but if the pain persists more than a couple days…it’s ENT time.
This has happened to me and it usually requires about 2 weeks before resuming diving with no complications. My sinus’s are lousy and I never, even for a moment, push past an equalization problem anymore since it leads to dive downtime with exactly what you’re describing.