Scuba diving is a fun hobby to take part in but there is the downside of maintaining your diving equipment particularly after your dive. Learning how to maintain your diving equipment is covered when you are getting the scuba diving cert and then it’s just good practice to get into. So how do you clean scuba goggles?
The importance of maintaining your scuba goggles can not be understated as it protects your eyes and also helps to keep water out of your eyes. It highlights the importance to take care of your scuba googles. Also, maintaining your scuba goggles properly helps the goggles to last longer.
In today’s post, we will go through in more detail how to maintain and clean your scuba goggles, so let’s get started!
Read more on common questions asked by divers
Why Does A Diving Mask Fog Up?
The scuba mask fogs up during a dive is simply because of a temperature difference between the inside and outside surfaces of the lens.
As a result, the moisture that forms inside of the mask starts to build up onto the lens. Therefore it starts to affect visibility.
No matter what you do the lens in the mask it will constantly fog up.
How Do You Clean Scuba Goggles?
To maintain your scuba goggles there are many ways that you can clean your scuba goggles which will help to keep it from fogging up when you’re out diving.
These methods don’t require any expensive solutions, you can use your own spit, household toothpaste, baby shampoo, and even baking soda and water all help to prevent your goggles from fogging up.
We will cover three situations to help prevent your mask from fogging up. These are as follows.
- How To Defog Your Diving Mask?
- How To Pre-Treat A New Dive Mask?
- After Diving Maintenance.
How To Defog Your Diving Mask?
There are a number of ways in which you can prevent your mask from fogging up. We’ll cover the simplest way how to defog your diving mask when you’re out on a dive.
Before you go diving with your dive buddy friend, there is a trick that helps prevent your mask from fogging up and affecting what you can see. These steps are as follows.
- Before you go diving.
- Remove your mask and spit on each lens.
- Shake the mask around (without using your finger) ensuring that your spit rubs over the lens.
- Rinse the mask in the surrounding water.
- Place the mask on your face and now you are all set for your dive.
This generally fixes the problem, and though it’s a go-to method for a lot of divers, it is far more practical to properly pre-treat your mask using some of the methods we are going to cover next.
How To Pre-Treat A New Dive Mask?
During the manufacturing of the scuba goggles, a thin film of silicone gathers over the mask lens, which causes it to heavily fog up when a diver first takes their new scuba mask out for the first time.
The problem is that the silicone is resistant to any of the usual de-fogging measures, and requires a slightly different method to properly remove the thin film of silicone and clean it. Here’s how we can do that.
- To remove the film from your glass lenses, you’re going to want a slightly abrasive agent such as toothpaste, ensure that it’s white-based toothpaste.
- Put a decent-sized amount of toothpaste on your finger and rub it into both sides of the dry lens using a circular motion, not forgetting the skirts of the goggles too.
- Rinse the lens whilst you’re rubbing away the toothpaste, ensuring that you are removing all of the toothpaste even in hard to reach areas.
- Once the toothpaste has been removed, you’re going to want to dry the lens with a clean towel.
- Then, repeat these steps 4-6 times to ensure the silicone layering has been removed.
We would also recommend that you pre-treat your mask before diving, whether you use the spitting method which we suggested earlier or another common method you can find below.
It only takes a few minutes to prepare your mask for a dive which can save you the annoyance of not being able to properly see through the goggles.
Here is the number one way other than splitting in your goggles in which you can prepare your mask with baby shampoo before a dive.
- Wet your mask and then rub baby shampoo around the lens and the skirt of the scuba goggles.
- Afterward, you’re going to want to rinse the mask with warm water.
- Then, repeat this between 2 to 3 times to ensure it is squeaky clean.
Another great solution would be to use a mixture of baking soda and water, creating a paste that can be applied to your mask.
After Diving Maintenance
After your dive, it is important that you are properly clean and stored in your diving mask. This will protect your goggles so that the lens does not get damaged.
To clean your mask after a dive, follow these steps.
- Right after you get out of the water, rinse your mask with some freshwater.
- Then use some warm water to rinse your mask, which will help to dissolve salt crystals that may be stuck to your mask.
- Again, rinse your scuba goggles thoroughly with fresh or filtered water, whichever you have handy
- Then, dry the mask with a dry towel, cloth, or clean rag.
Wrapping Up
Finally, scuba diving goggles play an important part in your diving experience. Not only do they protect your eyes and also help to keep water out of your eyes but if the lens gets fogged up you will struggle to see anything clearly.
And that’s it for now! I’d love to know if this guide on how to do you clean scuba goggles has helped you. Let me know if you have any questions and let me know if there is more to add.
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