I did not want to post a negative reply before you had an opportunity to confront this challenge. I am glad that you succeded in your pool sessions. Now that you know that you are capable of doing this safety task in controled conditions I ask you to honestly consider your abilities with respect to your spouse's safety. I can gaurantee you that the day will come when you or your spouse will loose your mask. However, it will not be in 10 ft. in a fresh water pool. It will be at 70 fsw, you will be at or near your no decompression limit, and it will be in salt water, not pool water. It will not be your fault. It will get knocked off by someone else's fin, a mask strap will break, or your hair will be too long, a strap fitting will loosen and off it will go. You will not be able to recover your mask because it will be on its way to Davy Jone's locker. Neither you nor your buddy (your wife?) will have a spare mask on you. It will be a few moments before your buddy even notices that you have a problem if you can't get her attention right away. It will be necessary for you to breath off your regulator for more than a few minutes without the mask. You will need to keep your eyes open at least sporadically and make a controled ascent with your buddy's assistance. You will need to spend at least three minutes at the safety stop without your mask and do so without panicking. Preferably you will be able to make it back to the ascent line or the entry before you ascend so you will not expose youself and your buddy to boat traffic at the surface. If you are confident you can do all that great! If you are not please consider the burden and the risks you are placing on your buddy.
I speak from some experience as my daughter was a "nose breather" and worse had problems keeping her eyes open in salt water. I would not let her start the certification process until she could take her mask off, open her eyes and tell me a sequence of finger numbers while snorkling in salt water. Anything short of that was too much of a risk to her and to me. She actually did loose her mask at a safety stop (hair band came out, strap was loose, mask floated up and off). Falling into an old habit she did not keep her eyes open, couldn't see her SPG and lost her bouyancy control. I held on to her and tried to keep her from going into an uncontroled assent. I did not entirely suceed and we did ascend slowly but prematurely. This could have been much more serious if this had happened at depth. We are going to have to do some more practice, particularly on non-visual communications. Without going on and on I can't tell you how many mistakes, partial equipment failures, etc. I have made/has happened to me or my buddy (mostly me) over just a few short years of diving. It has shown me that none of the OW safety skill we learned are superfluous. If there are any you are not completely comfortable with do not dive until you are confident you can: i) remember them, ii) not panic, and iii) perform them in real world conditions without loosing bouyancy control, etc.
OK, time for me to get off my high horse. Let the flaming begin!
