Newbie mask questions

I am near sighted and am thinking of taking Scuba lessons. I wear contacts. Is it OK to wear contacts under my mask at depth?

Or should I look at the mask with built in correction?

In class they'll let you close your eyes during mask flooding drills to keep your contacts.

BUT

In the "real" world you probably won't have warning that your mask is about to flood and will, likely, lose a contact when/if it happens. If you need them to find your way back to the boat I'd look into a perscription mask.

I wear contacts diving, never had a problem. This weekend I was trying out a different type of maks that flooded each time I smiled. I just closed my eyes and cleared it no problem.

Do what you think you will be comfortable with.

Better find out from your instructor whether or not you can close your eyes for mask clearing drills. All of our confined water drills are done no mask with eyes open and our students are warned not to wear contacts unless they are willing to lose them. Open water is another story they need to be able to see during the dive so closing their eyes for mask clearing is allowed. As Saying said you never know when you might get your mask kicked off in the real world and have to open your eyes to hunt for it resulting in the possibility of losing a contact (you won't necessarily lose one but there's a chance). The prescription mask is the way to go, my husband has one and says he can see better with it than he can with his glasses.
Ber :lilbunny:

i wear contacts while diving. my max depth is 127 feet, and i have yet to
experience any ill effects.

as for drills, you could just not wear your contacts to do them, or ask your
instructor if it's ok to keep your eyes closed (they let me keep mine closed,
and i did fine).

hope you have a blast! diving is a wonderful (albeit expensive ) way to spend
your time!

I wear contacts, but it's only cause I can't afford laser eye surgery. Prescription mask is a better idea though. I also know a buddy who got an eye infection from diving with his contacts. He can now never wear contacts again.

When I was using contacts, my eyes were getting dry and inflamed.
I went with the corrective lenses in the mask. Nowdays you can get many masks with prescrition lenses directly from the mask manufacturer like Mares, Cressi-Sub, Tusa and other mostlikely too.