Scuba Diving club,
Southern California
Mask Clearing & Defogging
A mask will fog in the
water because the difference in temperature of the inside air space of the mask
to the cooler outside water temperature causes condensation. To alleviate this,
there are 2 basic things you can do.
The first would be to buy some commercial mask defogging solutions coat
the lens and resist condensation. The second and most popular would be to just
spit (that’s right spit) into your mask and rub it all around then rinse
it. There is no perfect defogger, but
they all seem to work pretty well. You can reduce mask fogging by not exhaling
through your nose.
Mask clearing
is an essential diving and snorkeling skill.
There
is an occasional need to clear a flooded mask, and it's pretty simple. If your
mask is equiped with a purge valve, all you have to do is exhale through your
nose and all of the water exits through the one-way valve. For non-purge type
masks, the idea is the same. Just place the heel of your palm gently against
the mask frame on the forehead, and exhale through your nose with a steady
effort and the water exits through the mask seal. It'll take you a couple of
times to get used to it, but it works.
I suggest you practice this in a pool first to be sure you have the
motions of this training down pat. No
one wants to have to surface from a dive to clear a mask.
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Posted August 29, 2003