Can you snorkel with contact lenses

Most manufacturers of diving masks have models designed to accommodate prescription lenses, and also supply the corrective lenses in a range of standard minus dioptres for those who do not require astigmatic correction. Dive shops can fit these lenses at the point of sale.

Of course, as soon as you remove your diving facemask, you will need to put on glasses or fit contact lenses to recover normal surface vision. Most leading manufacturers of diving equipment include ready-made corrective lenses and masks to accommodate them in their product ranges. Your local dive shop should be able to help you find a suitable mask. Find your local BSAC club. Find out more about snorkel training. Join online today to support BSAC.

Author: Marg Baldwin Posted 08 Feb Privacy notice This site makes use of cookies. Continue Read our cookie policy. Training Learn to scuba dive New to scuba diving? Learn to snorkel Try snorkelling Find a snorkel club What gear will I need? Beginner courses More Instructor courses. Technical diving courses. Diver grade courses. Snorkeller grade courses.

Find a club or centre Find a dive club Find a centre Find a snorkelling club Find a tech club. Try scuba diving with a club. Already a qualified diver? Your snorkeling experience will be ruined if you lose your contacts and everything is blurry. If a set of contacts happens to be irritating you, then just swap them out for a different set. Also, bring some eye drops to soothe your eyes and to moisten up dried out contacts. Fifth, many people wear contacts in the water all the time already.

There are no official records for how many do so while snorkeling, but approximately half of contact wearers report that they wear contacts while swimming. Lastly, consult your eye care professional about wearing contacts while snorkeling and get the latest guidelines and recommendations on what to do. We are not eye care professionals and we are providing this information based on our own experiences plus some additional research..

They also require a lot of maintenance to remain sterile and safe. Here are some guidelines for how to get your contacts ready before snorkeling. To ensure that your contacts are clean, you must first make sure your hands are clean. We should already be masters of sanitizing and washing our hands thanks to COVID, so this step should not be an issue. Dirty hands and contacts can lead to eye infections.

Washing your hands will also get rid of any sand or debris that may be lingering on your fingers. Additionally, if you are diving from a boat, you should wear your contacts on the shore.

A rocking boat makes it difficult for you to delicately put the lenses on your eyes. Yes, you can snorkel with hard contact lenses. The issue with hard lenses is that they are quite small. What now? Avoid hard and gas permeable lenses , especially if you plan on diving, since these can be painful to the eyes and cause blurry vision due to the increasing water pressure as you go down. Also, there are a few rules of thumb when snorkeling with contact lenses.

Bear in mind that you should always keep your eyes closed if you take off your mask in the water or if your mask gets flooded or else you could lose your lenses.

Disinfection is a must with contact lenses! Everyday more and more options of prescription snorkel masks appear in the market. These could be a godsend for you. However there are two common problems with pre-made prescription diving lenses: they can be quite expensive and most masks with pre-made prescription lenses will have the same prescription in each eye. If you are worried about the salt-water stinging your eyes, then try to adjust and put on your mask before hitting the water.

If water does get into your mask, then just close your eyes, take off your mask, wipe the water off your face, and place the mask back on, before opening your eyes again. If you are on a day trip to the beach, then I would highly recommend you take a spare pair of contact lenses with you. You should also carry a small bottle of contact lenses solution or saline.

This is because there is the chance of some sand or debris getting into your eye. The best way to clean this out straight away is by dropping some contact lenses solution into your eye to wash away the dirt. If it is very irritating, then you can take the lens out, rinse it in the solution and put it back in, or replace it with a new lens. If you are not a contact lens wearer, or you do not want to wear them for snorkeling, then you can look into alternatives to contact lenses.

These include:. PRO: The glass lenses will be made according to your specific prescription and can be adjusted for your Left and Right eye. CON: These can be costly but will be a worthy investment as long as your prescription does not change too much over the years. PRO: You can use your normal eye-glasses, and you can still see when you take off the mask. CON: It can be uncomfortable wearing your glasses and a mask over it. There is a risk you can break your glasses during an activity like snorkeling.

PRO: Water makes objects appear closer and larger in the water. This means if your prescription is not that strong, then the water may actually improve your eyesight. You will also still need glasses when you exit the water.