I do love my diving! So during my recent visit to East Timor, I could not resist the temptation and went for another couple dives. As you may imagine, East Timor is, at this point, doesn’t have a Tourist Industry like here in New Zealand. There are so many other things that take priority at the moment, in particular health care, housing, irrigantion etc.. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Tourism will, at some point, become a major industry in this young country. There are cutrrently 3 diving operators in Dili that offer dive trips in and around the capital. All the dive sites I visited have been exceptional, with easy shore access, great visibility and plenty to see and photgraph.

The diving industry is so new here, that most dive sites don’t even have a name yet! This time for example I dived amongst others K41 and K57. That basically just gives you an indication where to find the dive site, namely 41 and 57 km east of Dili.

When I do go diving, I always carry some daily contact lenses, because I find them the most convenient way to see whats going on under water without having to buy a prescription diving mask. Now, the situation with me is that I have a medium degree of myopia (I am short-sighted) and presbyopia (I require a different power for reading because I have passed the “your still young” stage of my life). In real life (above water), I am using progressive powered lenses to correct both conditions. No problem.Under water, this is a slightly different story.

Up until recently, when I went diving, I just used a contact lens that corrected my myopia. No problem with that, in particular because everything under water looks a bit bigger than it really is. But there came a time, I think it was about 5 years ago or so, when I realised I could not read the instruments on my dive computer anymore. And that was scary, because I couldn’t see how much oxygen I had left in my bottle, how deep I was and how long I had been diving for (all things you must always know when you go under water).

Now there are different ways one can tackle this situation, for example with bifocal (progressive), mono vision or even single vision lenses. Progressive powered lenses you can use similar to progressive powered spectacle lenses; mono vision means that one eye is corrected for near, the other for distance vision (not everybody’s cup of tea, but quite successful with some); single vision just means that there is only one power in the lens.

In my case I found the a reduced distance prescription worked well for all distances, near and far. For that reason I decided that single vision correction was the solution for me. The amount of reduction depends on the actual power on the distance prescription as well as the additional power required for close up. Again, in my case this turned out to be a prescription somewhere in between my normal distance and reading prescription. I chose daily lenses, which means that I use those lenses only on the day that I go diving and dispose of them after the dives have been completed. No cleaning, no storage problems, no worries. I always carry some in my dive bag. You never know when the oportunity will arise to go diving.

For anyone interested in using contact lenses for diving I suggest you discuss it with your eyecare professional. There is no one solution for everybody. I wish you safe diving and great visibility at all times!