Ever "lost" your mask?

[drbill]

In nearly 50 years of diving I only remember one incident where I nearly lost my mask. I was diving during our annual Harbor Cleanup when my mask strap broke.

However, I dive with my mask strap inside my hood rather than on the outside. That caused the mask to be retained, although of course it "flooded." As a solo diver who carries a camera in my right hand, I don't have a lot of options to recover a mask drifting down into the deep. With the mask strap under my hood, I was able to simply hold the mask up against my face with my camcorder housing and continue to film until I finished the dive 10-15 min later.

 

[lmorin]

On a boat entry at the beginning of a drift dive in Cozumel, I thought I was holding my mask firmly in place, but for some reason, it was ripped right from under my fingers and disappeared. Luckily, I found it quickly by patting my hands around my head. The mask was perched right on top and I was able to put it back on and clear it in a few seconds, avoiding a real bummer of a two tank morning.

 

[tarponchik]

Looks like plenty of people lose their masks. This is why me and my wife have been diving in masks that we've found.

While diving in Bonaire in 2007, I found a mask (neon-green BodyGlove) that fit my face better than the mask I had, so I used it until last year in Belize my wife found a black mask for me that fit even better. She also found a good mask for herself while diving in Curacao.

We made an interesting observation that whenever we find masks they are intact but if we find fins these are always torn. It is possible that divers/snorkelers lose there fins while diving/snorkeling as result of fins being worn down and torn, but masks are lost when dropped from the boats.

 

[adurso]

Aside from training harrassment, and the occassional dislodge due to stray fin, I dropped down one time to find someone had sat on my mask on the boat, as the frame was cracked and allowed the water to flood in.

Made it easier to look for teeth due to the magnifying qualities of the flooded mask.

I used it for a week until it broke in half

 

[Tortuga68]

On a boat entry at the beginning of a drift dive in Cozumel, I thought I was holding my mask firmly in place, but for some reason, it was ripped right from under my fingers and disappeared. Luckily, I found it quickly by patting my hands around my head. The mask was perched right on top and I was able to put it back on and clear it in a few seconds, avoiding a real bummer of a two tank morning.

MOF? You're lucky someone didn't try to rescue you

 

[carlcz]

Only time I lost it was "over the side" of a dive boat here on LI.
No, it was NOT on my head at the time...
As it gently sunk to 130fsw in the current, I DID feel quite foolish, but also had a spare with me, so the day was not lost.

 

[kw_wilson]

If you are loosing your mask due to other people's fins - it might be time to solo dive.

 

[pafindr]

I lost mine the first time I wore a hooded vest.
I did a giant stride off the boat and when I took my hand off my second stage/mask the mask floated off my face and disappeared. I didn't realize that the mask strap would slide off the hood so easily. After that my mask strap was always under my hood.
I was lucky that the DM on the boat had an extra mask and handed it to me while I was still in the water so I didn't miss out on that dive.

 

[LakeCountyDiver]

Yes at Weeki Wachie springs. We started heading down the cave (thats straight down) and I made it to 95 feet then turned my head a little and bam my mask flew off. The flow coming out of that spring is crazy hard.

Fun fact that cave is the deepest in North America. I have never been down in it thou just the 95ft and that was enough for me.

 

[Thiad]

Very first back roll from a boat. Managed to grab it before it was lost to the deep and didn't manage to lose a contact which would have destroyed the whole day.

As the DM said "that's the last time you'll make that mistake". He's been right so far.