Practice at home by filling your sink or bathtub with water, plugging your nose, submerging your face, and then opening your eyes. Starting with water sources free of chlorine or debris will help you get use to the feeling of water on your eye, without additional discomfort. Chlorinated pools are generally kept at a safe-for-swimming pH level of 7. 0 to 7. 6. This effectively kills bacteria, but not the various fats and oils we bring into the pool; these accumulated bodily byproducts are common eye irritants. While exposure to normal amounts of chlorine is irritating, it will not cause permanent damage. It will, however, wash the protective tear film away from your cornea, actually making the eye more vulnerable to any bacteria which has survived the chlorinated pool. [1] X Research source If your eyes become irritated, flush them with cool, fresh water, or utilize saline drops to ease the pain. [2] X Research source
Careful about opening that mouth, too—while they’re not all as strictly harmful as they may sound, one gulp of seawater can contain millions of bacterial cells, tens of thousands of zooplankton, and hundreds of thousands of phytoplankton. [3] X Research source
Acanthamoeba is one particular nasty amoeba that can be found in fresh water (including, rarely, tap water). Infection can necessitate a cornea transplant. [4] X Research source Lakes do provide a more comfortable experience for opening your eyes than a chlorinated pool, though, or the turbulent shoreline of beach. If you’re willing to risk it, you can probably keep your eyes open longer here than in any other body of water! The dismal visibility in a lake, however, might not provide too much to see.
If you wear glasses or contact, you can have your prescription put into a dive mask. Wearing a dive mask is a much safer alternative for seeing what’s underwater than opening one’s eyes, and is optimal for anyone who would be unable to see very well without their glasses.
A pair of goggles is only as good as its seal, so if water’s getting into your lenses you might want to try a different pair. The strap and lens shape should do all the work necessary for a good seal; you shouldn’t have to repeatedly fix the suction by pressing them against your eye sockets. Goggles are uniformly used by competitive swimmers, who can’t have their vision compromised by going without, or their speed compromised by using the less aerodynamic dive mask. First realized in the polished tortoiseshells that fourteenth-century Persians used to protect their eyes while diving for pearls, goggles have gone through some significant improvements since then. Modern swim goggles provide excellent visibility and use plastic, silicone, and polycarbonate blends.
Dive masks work because their flat surface and the space between their window and your eyes allow your eyes to focus underwater. Light bends differently underwater than in air, and the mask’s design corrects this for you. [6] X Research source Snorkels can be attached to the straps of diving masks, allowing you to float along the surface of the water with unlimited access to good, old-fashioned air. If you wear glasses, you can have your prescription put into your mask! Diving with contact lenses is also possible, though you should stick to soft lenses if you head into the open ocean. Hard lenses can suction painfully to your eyes at greater depths.
Wetsuits absorb and retain a layer of water which your body will warm, in turn keeping you warmer. It gets cold down there! Fins provide divers with faster propulsion, which is quite necessary considering the other gear they’re saddled with. Buoyancy compensation works by inflating and deflating a special vest with air, in order to control the depth at which you float in the water. [7] X Research source Weights are also used to aid in descent. Reefs can be both natural, such as those involving large networks of coral, or artificial, when they’re structures which have been created or deliberately sunk by man.
When discussing submersible platforms, HOVs are human operated vehicles, and ROVs are remotely operated vehicles. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s website contains information detailing multiple submersibles researchers use today (both HOV and ROV), including a model named “Alvin” that’s been in use since 1964! [9] X Research source
A living, adult giant squid wasn’t even able to be photographed until 2012. We only knew of its existence by pieces of the squid that became stranded on the beach, or by finding them in the bellies of sperm whales that themselves had washed ashore. [10] X Research source (As stirring as it may be, anecdotal evidence presented by ancient mariners is, unfortunately, not considered proof. ) Strolls along the beach anywhere can yield once-in-a-lifetime encounters with the unfamiliar. Residents of Oxnard, California, along with other cities along North America’s pacific coast were acquainted with a sea creature entirely unknown to them (and to most people) when mass quantities of by-the-wind sailors (scientific name: Velella velella) were deposited on their beaches. [11] X Research source
