Recreational divers, do you carry a spare mask?

[Damselfish]

I usually have one in my bag, but I don't dive with it because I don't have anyplace to put it. Have never needed one so far, fortunately.

 

[Jupiter31]

I carry one in my dive bag; don't dive w/ it

Only once, when my mask cracked at 70' fsw, did I wish it was w/ me vs in my bag on the boat!

 

[H2Andy]

i carry a spare on cave dives (on my dry suit pocket)

when i do rec dives, no spare mask (no place to put it)

 

[Blackwood]

When diving recreationally, I am usually in a nice, warm location with sunny skies and a wet suit with no pockets. If I were to somehow lose a mask permanently, which is highly unlikely (more on that later), I would follow Howard's lead and abort the dive.

If I'm in a nice, warm location, I likely paid to be there (you too, being from Colorado?), and I certainly don't want to abort any dives for a stupid reason like a broken or lost mask.

I try to have somewhere to put one, be it in a pocket or simply clipping it off to my butt d-ring.

 

[boulderjohn]

If I'm in a nice, warm location, I likely paid to be there (you too, being from Colorado?), and I certainly don't want to abort any dives for a stupid reason like a broken or lost mask.

I try to have somewhere to put one, be it in a pocket or simply clipping it off to my butt d-ring.

Absolutely! Colorado's official state motto is "We are just a plane light away from great diving."

There is nothing inherently wrong with what you are saying, and I see your point perfectly. You do indeed describe a safer alternative. As I said earlier, though, I think the chances of a problem in those circumstances are so remote that I am not worried about it. It's like what the official books say about diving nitrox on an air profile. Since the likelihood of of getting DCS while diving within recreational limits rounds off to 0%, you are statistically not getting much of a safety benefit from the nitrox.

I am going to Hawaii in a couple of weeks. If I lose a portion of a dive due to a mask loss, I will proclaim it in public and humbly accept virtual flagellation.

 

[Teamcasa]

If I'm in a nice, warm location, I likely paid to be there (you too, being from Colorado?), and I certainly don't want to abort any dives for a stupid reason like a broken or lost mask.

I try to have somewhere to put one, be it in a pocket or simply clipping it off to my butt d-ring.

For me, having a spare mask clipped off somewhere?
I'd suspect that when diving in some remote dive location the clipped off mask stands a greater chance of being lost or broken long before I would ever need it to salvage a tropical dive where my main mask failed or got knocked off to the point that I or my buddy could not recover it.

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

We keep a spare mask or two in our gear bags, but we've only put them in spare mask pockets and slip the spare mask pockets on our webbing when we did our training tech dives.

Heck, I've never lost a mask or had a strap break (yet) and it's good to see the experience base of those with way more dives than I have post on tis topic.

How many of us haven't found a lonely mask in the shallows at shore dive locations though? Seems like most such losses I've come across are likely to have occured on shore entries or exits, and I found a few keeper straps to help me greatly on taking care of that task loading while wading in the uneven and maybe slippery footing in warm water dive destination shallows.

 

[OceansBlue]

Yup, I always carry a spare mask in my dive bag. You never know when you might need it, or if a buddy might need one.

There was a non-diver on a trip I was on, and she wanted to try snorkling, so I lent it to her for the day.

 

[Sas]

I carry one on some deeper dives or on boat dives. As they are expensive I don't want to have to end it early because I have no mask. Sometimes I take it underwater or other times I leave it on the boat (there's always a spare mask in my car at the very least).

I have needed a spare mask once on a dive after I had a buddy land on my head and break my mask, but I was not carrying it as it was only an 11m dive. I spent the last ten minutes of the dive maskless and my eyeballs froze, really wished I'd brought my spare mask...

 

[vladimir]

I actually tend to carry a spare for me and a spare for my girlfriend(different face shapes).

Is that your girlfriend's picture in your avatar? Yes, she definitely has a different face shape, but it looks like that mask fits her well.