If you use glasses or contact lenses and are interested in diving, when you are diving wearing contact lenses you may wonder if your dream is even a possibility. Lucky for you, it is! If you are visually impaired and have to use contact lenses or glasses, you can still dive, so contact lens users need not worry or you could use a prescription mask. Our focus in this article will mainly when you are diving wearing contact lenses.
Which Type Can I Use?
Contacts come as either soft or hard lenses and you are able to use either one for diving. Soft lenses though, are more advantageous.
Soft Lenses
- These ensure that your eyes do not dry out during a dive
- Air can easily pass through them keeping your vision clear after the dive
- You will descend without the bubbly experience that people using hard lenses go through
- Since they are slightly bigger than hard lenses, you can hold them in by simply slightly closing your eyelids should you find that you have floated the mask.
Hard Lenses
- Air does not penetrate through these, which can leave your vision blurry once the dive is over. This occurs because eyes tend to absorb nitrogen and as you descend, the nitrogen begins to escape the eye. Since the lenses do not allow it to pass through, tiny bubbles are formed causing your vision to become blurry.
- Eyes dry out leading to more blinking
- If you float the dive mask, the chances of your contacts falling out is higher because they tend to be smaller in size.
Speak Up About Your Eyesight
Before going into the water, you want to ensure that your dive buddy knows that you are visually impaired just in case you get water into your mask or you lose the mask in the water. If you do not speak up about it, your buddy may not understand what the problem is should anything go wrong and will be unable to help. It is also important to ensure that you have a plan of what to do should this happen.
Available Alternatives
If you do not like the idea of diving with your contacts on, there are several different things that you can opt for:
- Get a prescription mask custom made for you
- Have corrective lenses made that will fit most standard masks
- Use correction stickers. These are stuck on the inner side of the mask.
Bad eyesight when you are diving wearing contact lenses is not a problem, when diving you just need to get yourself prescription mask diving mask. With careful selection of the best corrective solution for you, there are nothing to make you stopping from seeing what the underwater world has to offer. Abyss would you love to share your stories and insight on diving wearing contact lenses.
