Recreational divers, do you carry a spare mask?

[foxe]

I neither have nor carry a spare, but then I don't even have all my own kit yet! Reading this thread I can see many good reasons to keep a spare on-shore, at least; and some reasons to carry one underwater if you can do so easily enough. Something I'll keep in mind once I've got all the basics and am wondering 'what to get next'...

 

[Firefyter]

I already get funny looks when I pull out a backplate...

Me too, but when I'm the last one back in the boat, I just wink and tell them it's all in the gear

 

[diving_emtp]

I have a spare mask, it has prescription lenses, but it stays in my dive bag. My primary mask has regular lenses and I wear contacts. Should my mask flood and/or I loose my mask and thus my contacts I'll switch to my prescription mask and wear glasses topside.

 

[DandyDon]

One every dive. Haven't needed it yet, but haven't need my home fire extinguishers or smoke alarms and I'm keeping them too.

 

[alijtaylor]

I carry it with me underwater when diving solo-I wouldn't like to do a maskless ascent without buddy assistance.

I once dropped 8m without realising it, in the process of trying to sort out a very badly flooding mask. I was slightly overweighted and it was slow, so I didn't notice the pressure on my ears.

Alison

 

[sambolino44]

I bought a Dive Rite spare mask pocket with the intention of using it as a utility pocket instead. Very soon I learned that about the only thing it's good for holding securely is a mask. Who'da thunk? So I started putting our humongous old three-window spare in there (it fits!), and found that it fits on my waist belt with no problems. I've decided, though, to just bring it on deep (like over 80 fsw) and night dives. We dive in cold water, and regardless of seeing, from my experience with mask drills I know that I don't want to go without a mask any longer than I have to.

 

[diver 85]

Not here & have never needed an extra---it's going to be all fogged up anyway if you need it..

 

[DandyDon]

Not here & have never needed an extra---it's going to be all fogged up anyway if you need it..

Hehe, fogged mask or no mask: Which would you dive?

I applied defog to my mask stuck it in my pocket, put the other one on my head, rolled in, and WTH? :shocked2: I finally switched masks to see if that's what I had done? Yep. I may start defogging both?

 

[burna]

Until recently I didn't have a spare mask, but I found one under a pier a month or so ago and intend to carry it in my drysuit pocket on deeper dives.

So far I've only been doing shallow shore dives so haven't bothered.

 

[BDSC]

For years I never carried one with me but a few years back I was doing a boat dive and a guy on the boat had his mask strap to break and no one had an extra mask on the boat so he had to sit out the second dive. I got to thinking about it and so I now carry a back-up mask in my gear bag on the boat or in my gear bag if shore diving. (I never carry it during a dive)

So now not only do I have myself covered in case I need it but I don't mind at all lending it to someone else if they were to need it in cases like this. I find most divers I meet are really great folks and I hate to see someone miss a dive.

It's a great back-up mask too. It's an Atomics and I bought it to be my primary but for some reason I can't give up my old Scubapro Trivent. It's looks old fashioned but what a great mask!