Mask Clearing Is the Skill to Overlearn: Why Water in the Eyes Ends More Dives Than Anything Technical

Ask instructors which skill their students hate and the answer is the same everywhere: taking the mask off underwater. Not because it is difficult, since a child can do it in a pool, but because water on the face triggers a reflex older than diving, the one that says you are about to drown. Every diver overrides that reflex on the open-water course, usually kneeling on sand in four metres, and most never do it again. Then a fin catches a strap at eighteen metres, the mask fills, and the reflex is back with three years' interest.

Why it matters

Incident analyses from the British Sub-Aqua Club and Divers Alert Network return year after year to the same pattern: a minor equipment problem, a rapid ascent, and an injury or worse caused by the ascent rather than the problem. A flooded mask features often. Nobody has ever been harmed by water in their eyes. Divers are harmed by bolting for the surface with the breath held because they could not see and could not think. The mask is the trigger; panic is the mechanism; overlearning is the cure.

The technique, briefly

Press the top of the frame to the forehead, tilt the head back slightly, look up, and exhale steadily through the nose. Air rises to the top of the mask and pushes the water out the bottom seal. That is all. If the mask has a purge valve, look down instead and exhale. Common faults: pulling the bottom of the mask out (lets more water in), exhaling through the mouth (does nothing), blowing in one hard burst (clears half). A slow continuous exhale does it every time.

The reflex, and how to retrain it

The part that needs practice is not the clearing. It is breathing normally with a face full of water and no mask at all, for long enough that the body stops treating it as an emergency. That takes repetition, not understanding. The drill: in a pool or shallow calm water, flood the mask a little and clear it. Flood it fully and clear it. Take it off, hold it, breathe from the regulator for a slow count of ten with eyes open, replace and clear. Do that ten times in a session and again the next session. Then do it mid-water, neutrally buoyant, because kneeling on the bottom is a luxury the sea rarely offers. Then have a buddy pull the mask off without warning. When the involuntary breath-hold stops happening, you are done, and you should repeat the whole thing at the start of every trip after a lay-off.

Contact lenses and eyes

Soft lenses survive a flooded mask if you close your eyes; hard lenses can float away. Divers who wear them should practise clearing with eyes shut, which is harder because the mask position must be found by feel. Our guide to prescription masks and lenses covers the alternatives. Salt water stings and chlorine stings more; neither does harm.

The mask itself

A mask that leaks constantly makes the whole problem worse, because the diver stops trusting it. Fit test: hold it to the face without the strap, breathe in through the nose, and let go. A fitting mask stays on. A skirt of soft silicone in a neutral or black colour, a low internal volume so clearing takes one breath, and a strap that is not overtightened, since tension distorts the skirt and causes leaks. Moustaches leak; a little silicone grease on the hair under the nose fixes it. Divers spend on computers and regulators and buy the mask last. The order should be reversed, and the first thing to do with the new one is take it off underwater a hundred times.