Scuba Diving With Glasses or Contacts: Masks, Lenses and Readers

Can you wear glasses under a dive mask?

No. A mask's silicone skirt has to rest evenly against your face all the way round, which is how PADI tells you to check the fit, and the arms of a pair of glasses would sit exactly where it seals. PADI's answer for glasses wearers is a mask designed to take prescription lenses.

Our guide to choosing a dive mask covers fit, drop-in versus bonded lenses and the basics of contacts. This article goes further: which option suits which eyes, what chamber studies found under rigid lenses, how long to wait after laser eye surgery, and why a dive computer gets harder to read after 40.

Seeing clearly is part of dive safety. The physician guidance that accompanies the diver medical questionnaire lists inadequate vision to function safely underwater as a severe risk condition, alongside recent eye surgery that has not finished its recovery period.

Prescription dive mask, readers or contacts: the options compared

There are seven realistic setups. The table shows what each does and where it stops working. Contacts, eye surgery and reading your computer get their own sections below.

Drop-in lenses are the quickest route for a simple prescription. DAN's Alert Diver article on prescription masks, written by an optical technician who makes them, gives stock powers of 0 to -8.00 and 0 to +4.00, and calls stock-lens masks a good choice for mild astigmatism under 0.75 cylinder. Dive Sight, a UK lab, adds that shop lenses come only in half-diopter steps. Past that point, or if your eyes differ a lot, a lab bonds lenses ground to your exact prescription, including prism for double vision.

Bonding has its own limits. The UK Diving Medical Committee (UKDMC) notes that bonded prescription lenses can be expensive, especially with astigmatism, and that the bonding material can erode or form bubbles. A New Zealand optometrist writing in Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine adds that progressive lenses cannot be satisfactorily bonded to a mask, and describes bifocal designs that try to imitate them. Laser eye surgery removes the need for lenses, though the AAO points out that age-related loss of near focus cannot be stopped or reversed, so readers may come back later.

Diving with contact lenses: what the research shows

Soft lenses are the diving-medicine answer. DAN's ophthalmology guidance, written by Frank K. Butler Jr., MD, tells divers to ask for soft lenses, and the UKDMC says soft lenses are to be preferred.

Rigid lenses are where the problems start. In a 1988 chamber study, bubbles formed under all three rigid gas-permeable lens materials tested across 24 exposures. They appeared even after the mildest profile, 15 minutes at 11.4 m (37.5 ft), and were seen as shallow as 2 m (6.5 ft) on the way up. The authors think the gas comes from the tear layer rather than the eye itself. DAN links bubbles under hard and rigid gas-permeable lenses to eye pain and blurred vision during and after dives. A 1997 review by NYU ophthalmologists is less strict: rigid lens wearers risk more corneal problems than soft lens wearers if ascents are not conservative, but it sees no compelling reason for fully adapted wearers to switch. Scleral lens wearers report few problems: a 2026 survey of 67 of them, covering 26,360 dives, recorded two adverse events, and its authors call scleral lens wear while diving relatively safe.

Eye-health bodies are stricter about water than diving bodies. The American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) says wearing contacts in any water, the ocean and lakes included, puts you at high risk of a corneal infection, and that bacteria can grow on lenses after a single swim. The CDC tells wearers to remove lenses before swimming. DAN's prescription mask article cites a study in which 85% of Acanthamoeba keratitis cases were in lens wearers who had swum or dived in them.

If you dive in soft lenses, the sources agree on the precautions:

• Use daily disposables. The UKDMC suggests one-day lenses plus a spare pair, and the CDC says lenses that touch water should come out as soon as possible and be thrown away or disinfected overnight.
• Get a mask that fits. The UKDMC names lens loss as the most frequent complication and says a well-fitting mask keeps it down.
• Pack spare lenses and a pair of glasses for the boat.
• Wash your hands before handling lenses and use preservative-free lubricating drops, as DAN advises.
• End the dive if your eyes become uncomfortable, red or irritated, and get medical attention. That is DAN's advice for soft lens wearers.

How long after LASIK or PRK can you dive?

Two weeks at the least. The physician guidance that goes with the diver medical form, in an eye section written by Frank Butler, sets 2 weeks for photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) and LASIK. It also says there are no controlled studies on how long to wait, so its figures come from wound-healing data and clinical experience, adapted from recommendations first published in 1995. DAN gives the same two weeks for PRK, and at least three months after radial keratotomy (RK), which cuts incisions into the cornea, with extra care to avoid mask squeeze.

Your surgeon's date comes first. An ophthalmologist answering on the AAO's website advises no swimming for at least two weeks after LASIK and says diving will not affect the result. One small chamber study points the same way: in six patients treated with LASIK or RK, refractive power did not appear to change at 4 atmospheres absolute, the pressure at about 30 m (100 ft).

Why can't you read your dive computer underwater?

Usually it is age plus optics. The AAO says presbyopia, the loss of close-up focus as the eye's lens stiffens, starts to show shortly after 40, and DAN's prescription mask article says almost all divers develop it to some extent. Water then makes near work harder.

A flat mask puts an air gap between your eyes and the water, and light bends where they meet. Ross and Nawaz, writing in a Brazilian ophthalmology journal in 2003, explain that an object in water subtends an angle 4/3 larger, about a third bigger, and its image sits at three quarters of its real distance. The effect is slightly smaller in a mask because of the air space. So a computer held 40 cm (16 in) from your eyes has to be focused as if it were about 30 cm away.

The 1997 NYU review spells out what that means for divers: underwater images appear nearer and larger, which takes more focusing effort. Short-sighted presbyopes corrected with contact lenses need a stronger reading add underwater than for the same object in air. So a reading power that works for a book on land may be too weak underwater. If you are starting later in life, our guide to learning to dive after 50 covers the medical checks.

How to read your dive computer when near vision fades

Fix the eyes first, then the screen. Roughly in order of cost:

• Try stick-on readers in the lower part of the mask you already own. DAN notes that most dive stores sell them. Place them where your eyes land when you glance at your wrist.
• Move to a bifocal or gauge reader mask. Dive Sight says bifocals, with a small reading segment at the base of each lens, make up around half of its orders. DAN describes pre-made gauge reader masks and custom reading lenses for divers who need a particular power or a larger reading area.
• Ask about monovision contact lenses, with one eye set for distance and the other for near. The AAO lists them as a presbyopia option and notes that the brain has to adapt; the NYU review suggests presbyopic divers consider monovision for underwater tasks.
• Make the numbers bigger. Some computers have a setting for it: Garmin's Descent Mk3 manual describes Big Numbers for the dive data screens and Large Fonts for all text.
• Turn the screen up. The same manual lets you set brightness separately for in-dive use.
• Buy for readability next time. Our guide to choosing a first dive computer explains the arm's-length screen test. Do it wearing the mask and correction you will dive with.

What to tell the dive centre and the medical form

Glasses or contacts on their own do not send you to a doctor. Question 4 of the Diver Medical Participant Questionnaire asks about problems with your eyes and points to box C, whose only eye item is surgery within the past 3 months. Question 5 asks about any surgery in the last 12 months. A yes to either means a physician has to approve you before the course, so laser eye surgery in the last 12 months needs a sign-off even after the 2-week minimum has passed. Our guide to the diver medical questionnaire explains how the boxes work.

When you book, tell the dive centre:

• That you need vision correction, if you plan to rent a mask. PADI suggests asking a dive professional for advice on masks that take prescription lenses.
• That you dive in contact lenses, so your buddy knows why you might end a dive early.
• The date of any eye surgery, because the form asks.
• That you have glasses with you. DAN recommends a backup pair for every contact lens wearer.