A few years back, a friend of mine who has shortsighted problem asked me if he could become a diver like me and a bunch of friends. He was so keen to dive even before knowing me but was stopped as he is wearing a prescription glasses. Some of his friends who are not even a diver, told him that those with vision problem cannot go below the water with a tank at their back because they can’t wear the eyeglasses in the facemask.

I was laughing when he told me that. Pity him, but luckily he checked with me and my fellow divers on this. For those who may not notice, facemasks that are used in Scuba diving can sharpen your vision and protect your eyes while exploring the underwater world.

If you wear eyeglasses or contact lenses, you actually have a better time in the water if you have the same vision correction. It is like having a lens prescription embedded into your eyewear, designed specifically for this watersports activity.

Light behaves differently in the water compared in the air by distorting your vision, especially when you are doing underwater activities such as diving or swimming, objects appear closer and bigger than they actually are. This will limit the coordination between your eye and hand.

Diving facemasks correct what you see by creating an air pocket in front of you that allows light rays to travel to and through your eyes, giving you eyes the ability to do a better focusing. Without that layer of air, your eyes would contact the water directly and cause a vision problem.

And for people like my friend, worry not as there are prescription lenses to see clearly underwater. However, you may need to change your prescription as the distance between your facemask lens and your eyes is different from the distance between your eyes and a normal eyeglasses lenses.

There are facemasks that come with a fixed prescription (meaning you need to know what’s yours), but some has an interchangeable lens, so you could swap the lens if it does not fit you. Make sure you check with the diving shop to find out more about the prescription lenses before buying.