• It’s not recommended to wear hard and gas permeable contact lenses as they can cause blurry vision due to the increase in pressure when underwater. They can also get a little bit painful.

• If you are wearing soft contact lenses, keep your eyes closed if you take your mask off underwater or if water leaks into your mask. This will make sure you don’t lose your contact lens in the water! It might be a good idea to keep a few extra contact lenses handy just in case that does happen, however, and if you’re going snorkelling with a mate then be sure to let them know you’re wearing contacts.

• If you plan on snorkelling a lot, then you might wanna go for disposable lenses as they’re just as safe and don’t have to be cleaned after each use. Easy peasy!

• Find a prescription snorkel mask

They do exist, and if you have the same prescription in both eyes then it’ll be easy to find a snorkel mask that suits you perfectly. This can be a good investment for those snorkellers who don’t find contact lenses particularly comfortable.

Ring around a few dive shops in your area and see if you can find one that stocks a mask with a similar prescription to yours. Most pre-made prescription snorkel masks will have the same prescription in each eye, so again, this may not be the right option for you if you have a different prescription in each eye or an unusually high prescription.

• Use a removable magnifier

If you only use reading classes, a removable magnifier might be a good option for you. What’s that, you ask? Magnifiers are removable and reusable flexible circles that you can stick on the lens of your snorkel mask.

They’re cheap, easy to use, and super effective. A lot of divers use magnifiers on their masks to help them read video camera screens or dive computers. If it works for those pros, it should definitely work for you.

• Drop in lens

Another fast and cheap option, drop in lenses are great for people with near- or far- sightedness. If you have astigmatism, unfortunately this won’t work for you, so read on. For those of you who may be interested, drop in lenses are diving masks with removable lenses that can easily be replaced with your own prescription lens. You can read more about different corrective lenses for snorkel masks here.

• Have a prescription snorkel mask made

If you’re serious about your snorkelling, then this is the Ultimate Option. Expensive, but worth every single penny if you have a high prescription or just want to invest in a quality piece of snorkelling equipment.

What you can do is buy a snorkelling mask and take it to an optometrist who specialises in prescription masks. You can have them replace the original lenses with prescription lenses, or insert prescription lenses over the top.

This option works for anyone with near- or far- sightedness, astigmatism, bifocal lenses, and reading glasses. You may also be able to find dive shops who perform this service.If you wanna go online, this is a great website for having a snorkel mask customised to your exact prescription.

• DIY option

If you’re wondering whether you can wear glasses in the swimming pool, we’re gonna go into all the details here. What’ll happen if you wear glasses underwater, any tools that make it easy for you to wear glasses underwater, and a whole host of other alternatives so you can leave your glasses in your bag and out of the pool.

Wearing glasses in the pool

OK, look, you’re a free being and you can do what you want. Feel free to wander into a swimming pool with your glasses on. That said, be aware of the dangers. Your glasses could float off your face. They could crack or break. Be aware of the gap that exists between your eyes and the lenses, where water will flow. Also be aware that having excess water in your eyes isn’t good, and can contribute to dry eyes.

Take all this information in mind, and make your decision. If you’ve decided that, yes, you want to wear your glasses in the pool, then good for you! Let us know how it goes. While you’re at it, you might want to consider a piece of equipment like this strap from Oakley that’s been designed to keep your glasses on.

Alternative #1: Contact lenses

If you’re a saner type, you might have decided that wearing glasses in the swimming pool isn’t the best idea for you. Fair enough, we agree. So let’s get into some other options. It’s not advised to wear normal contact lenses in the water, as they can cause irritation, but what you can do is wear your contact lenses underneath a pair of goggles.

Goggles are what two-eyed people use to see underwater, so there’s no reason why four-eyed people shouldn’t use them either. Wearing contact lenses underneath your goggles will help you to enjoy crystal clear vision without getting water into your eyes, reducing your chance of irritation and infection.

If you don’t want to wear goggles, then we advise that you go for disposable contact lenses, as they’re designed for one-time use and therefore less likely to carry bacteria from the swimming pool back into your eyes.

Alternative #2: Prescription goggles

If you’re more than just a casual swimmer, then you might want to invest in a pair of prescription goggles that’ll save you money on disposable contact lenses in the long run. There are many different types of prefabricated prescription goggles that could easily correct your underwater vision, and you can easily find them at optometrists and some dive stores.

If your prescription is extra strong, or different in each eye, then you might want to approach a specialist who deals with creating customised prescription goggles.

The verdict

Look, if you’re only planning on having a little splash here and there, you might be able to get by without needing glasses at all. As water is a magnifier, it can correct a lot of nearsightedness, and you may be surprised at how well you can see underwater.

If you are a water baby, however, and want to have a good look at what’s going on underwater, or make funny faces at your friends while in the pool, then we reckon it’s a good idea to invest in a pair of goggles. Whether they’re normal goggles that you wear contact lenses under or special prescription goggles is up to you.

Can You Swim With Your Glasses On?

If you’re wearing glasses and want to know if you can take those bad boys out into the ocean or pool, we’ll let you know now that it’s not the best idea. You can do it, sure, but it’s very likely that your glasses will float away. If not that, they’ll definitely end up scratched. Not to mention the fact that you’ll still have water in between your eyes and the lenses.

Does that mean you can’t go underwater if you wear glasses? Not at all. There are a number of saner options out there for you bespectacled water babies that don’t involve the possibility of losing or damaging your spectacles. Glasses wearers can enjoy all the same underwater activities as non-glasses wearers, from snorkelling to diving and just plain old swimming. We’ll go through you different options here in this article.

Option 1: Contact lenses

This is a debated topic, but the Diver’s Alert Network thinks that it’s okay to wear contact lenses underwater as long as they’re the soft type. Hard or permeable contact lenses can cause issues, as it’s easy for them to absorb water and other bacterias from the ocean or swimming pool, causing irritation or infection.

That said, if you only have hard or permeable contact lenses, you can try wearing them underneath a pair of goggles or a snorkel mask. Just try to avoid getting water in there as much as you can and you should be good to go. To be on the even safer side, go for disposable or soft contact lenses. Since they’re designed for one-time use, then you can just chuck ’em out afterwards to reduce your chance of infection.

Wearing contact lenses comes with the chance of the lenses becoming stuck to your eyes due to the changes in water pressure. If that does happen, we recommend carrying around some lens rewetting drops to help release them from your eyes. Gross!

Option 2: Prescription goggles or snorkel masks

If you’re more serious about your underwater sports, then you’ll want to go for this option. Maybe a little more expensive and requires a bit of patience, but well worth it in the long run. Just like your glasses, you can have a pair of prescription goggles or snorkel masks to help correct your vision underwater.

If your prescription is quite common – and more importantly, the same in both eyes – then you might be able to find a premade snorkel mask or pair of goggles that matches your prescription. Have a look around specialist diving stores in your area, or take a look online, and you might have your prescription snorkel mask on its way to you in no time!

If your prescription is less common, or different in both eyes, then you still have the option of having a snorkel mask or pair of goggles customised to your prescription. There are optometrists out there that offer this service, and we reckon it’s the best way to enjoy crystal clear views underwater if you’re a bespectacled snorkeller.

Option 3: Bifocals

Not a lot of people know these things exist, but they can be great for those who usually wear reading glasses or want things to be magnified (so you can see all the tiny fishies!) Bifocals are basically small stick-on lenses that work similarly to reading glasses, magnifying things like small print and patterns on fishes bodies. All you need to do is stick the bifocals on your snorkel mask or goggles, and you can enjoy clearer underwater vision!

So there you have it. Three different options for you four-eyed friends to enjoy snorkelling, scuba diving, freediving, or just plain swimming – without having to put your glasses at risk. If you still want to wear your glasses underwater and find that none of these options appeal to you, then we advise you at least try to strap them on somehow… and then let us know how it goes!