Contacts or glasses

[DanMo]

I know this subject may come up from time to time, but I am asking anyway.

i am going in to the optometrist soon and was wondering if I should try something different. You see without correction I am blind, and for years I have been wearing contacts.

My beef with contact is that when I get splashed, the contacts can get washed out of place rendering me temporarily befuddled. I can see, just poorly. Also I have been practicing my roll with goggles, and am used to having my eyes open while upside down. In a combat roll situation I think they might wash out completely. I carry a spare set with me, but I am not happy with the situation.

Should I look at a sport type glasses to float with?

How do you deal with fogging?

Will croakies or other straps hold them on while being worked upside down?

I wish lasik was an option but it is not right now.

I really appreciate the help.
Thanks

Dan

[okieboater]

I have a pair of "Silverfish" glasses that I have used for years kayaking and so far they have not come off, mine are the elite whistler version.

You can order them with the sunglass lens and have your local eye shop (I used Pearle Optical, a national chain) to do mine. Silverfish will do your Rx lens, I choose to do it locally.

http://www.silverfish.com/sunglasses/sp ... code=S1001" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Had mine for years and recently had cataract surgery and I opted for a new lens (modern technology) that gets me back to 20/20 distance vision so I took out the Silverfish eye glass lens and replaced them with the original sun glasses (I had stuck them in a drawer and somehow they stayed there).

A kayaker bud of mine has the same glasses and has not lost his kayaking either.

[painterbob]

i use rain x on my glasses

[BEubanks]

My personal preference is contacts. I've been wearing since about 1974: first hard, then gas perm, now soft. Since I need bifocals now I wear glasses except when paddling or playing racquetball. I've worn contacts scuba diving, water skiing, etc. and have never lost one in the water that I can remember. I just close my eyes very tightly when I'm about to go under. Once in a while I'll get splashed and have a little trouble getting back to full vision but a few blinks usually puts me right.

I'd recommend practicing rolling with your eyes closed so you're working with muscle memory instead of depending on vision. But if you need to open your eyes underwater with contacts, squint big time to reduce exposure of lenses to water.

My 2 cents.

[Lupe]

My 2 cents: when I first started ww kayaking, I went with "rec specs" which are sport goggle frames you can get through Wal-mart (or other places). I have extremely poor vision, so the loss of a contact would render me nearly helpless, so I felt glasses were the better way to go.

The last time I wore my rec specs on the river was the first time I ran Richland Creek. The glasses kept fogging up sometimes before I was done running a set of rapids, and after that I decided contacts were the better way to go. I had tried numerous liquids, sprays, and gels to try to fight the fogging, and could find nothing that really worked. I know many good boaters who boat with glasses...but I just couldn't make it work and I don't need the added handicap of running rapids blind from fogged up lenses!

A trick with contacts is that if you reduce their salinity, they get "sticky" and won't slide around. So before I run big rapids where splashing could cause the contacts to slide around, I purposely splash water into my eyes. The contacts might slide around a bit and I have to blink to get them settled, but that water reduces the salinity and then they will stick in place even with further splashing. This doesn't last indefinitely, so I'll re-splash periodically to "re-set" the contacts.

I checked with my eye doctor and although he cannot technically endorse splashing "dirty" water into your eyes (but we're going to get splashed anyway - that's the point), he agrees that the technique makes sense, and it works. I think depending on the shape of your eye, this sliding around is better or worse depending on the person. I have funny shaped eyeballs, so I don't have a great fit and they definitely will slide without this setting. (PS - if you ever shower with your contact in, and then try to take them out right afterward, you've probably experienced this same phenomena - it can be very hard to pop those contacts out after a shower because the water has reduced that salinity).

I still carry a pair of those rec specs in the bottom of my dry bag as emergency back up, but I've never lost a contact. I do keep my eyes closed when rolling, although I've occasionally opened them a tad under water but still have never lost one.

PS - Lasik isn't even an option for me because of the shape of my eyeballs - the results would NOT be good. So that isn't even really an option for everyone.

Good luck making your decision...folks make either way work, but you have to decide what are the better pros or cons for you!

[Cowper]

I'm lucky, my vision only requires about a 1.5 diopter correction, so I'm still "functional" even without glasses. But on unfamiliar water, I need at least one contact to help me read the water farther ahead.

I absolutely can't stand glasses for paddling WW, espectially in cold or rainy weather.

If I have two contacts, I will literally close one eye going into a big wave or rapid; this gives me a "back up" if water floats Contact #1 in the open eye. As said above, even the "floating" contact can typically be blinked back into service in a few seconds (but they do seem like LOOONNNNG seconds if you're running anything that demands your attention!)

[RomanLA]

I'm lucky, my vision only requires about a 1.5 diopter correction, so I'm still "functional" even without glasses. But on unfamiliar water, I need at least one contact to help me read the water farther ahead.

I absolutely can't stand glasses for paddling WW, espectially in cold or rainy weather.

I've never worn my glasses to paddle and other than a few small surprises it's never been a big deal. After paddling on the Middle Fork of the Salmon at high water, I made the decision to get lasik. It's no fun spotting a big hole at the last second!

There's a bunch of threads on boatertalk about glasses/goggles people use and how they keep them from fogging. I'd take a look over there Dan and see what you can find. Good luck!

[DanMo]

Thanks guys

I will try the splashing water to see if it helps. When you explain it that way it makes sense. Maybe I need to get the cheapest box available to practice with so I can carry many spares.

Dan

PS Raining hard at my house 5:30 AM, got about 1/2 inch last night. Looking good!

[ARzach]

Fortunately my vision is fine so I don't actually wear either, BUT as someone who has spent a lot of time paddling with people who require vision assistance I vote glasses - no anti-fogger period! Nothing adds spice to a creeking trip like watching your buddy go paddling over an un-known horizon line with his glasses fogged over like a Friday night Honda with two teenagers inside...

[philllll]

my son loves these for paddling... and fogging (even on nanty) isn't an issue.
prescription swim goggles.
(and he's a -8 so it's a big issue for him)


http://www.aclens.com/Accessories/Presc ... ggles.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Lupe]

I'd love to be -8! I'm -10, -11...they don't even make those goggles in rx that strong! :shock: