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Spearing masks - protection against UV rays?

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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Mr. X

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Do any(/all) of the popular diving masks provide protection against UV rays? Or does sea water absorb most of them? I believe you can get sun burn swimming at the surface - & uv would have better penetration & more energy than visible light.
 
I use SeaDive TruVu RayBlockers. Not low volume, but great for surface swims where I use to use cheap sunglasses to protect my eyes. Great underwater clarity and discrimination of game. Prices vary greatly. Fair price would be about $45-65US.
http://www.seadiveinc.com/X-FreePS.htm
 
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How can you get such a sunburn though? Isn't your face down in water all the time? I spent up to 4 hours spearfishing in Cyprus in afternoon and I cannot remember ever getting a sunburn.
 
Northern California freedivers may use a kayak or boogie board for abalone and spearfishing. Kicking out along the cliffs in the bright California sun can leave a ski like sunburn.
 

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almost all glass prevents approx 96% uv a passing through it and a variety of percentages uv b.... or something like that if I remember right. This is why it is difficult/near impossible to get sunburn through most glass. In water light is dissapated so much that it is not so much a problem even to view an arc with naked eye ... though I sure as hell wouldn`t advise it.... or something like that....
 
That's interesting Omega3. That was what I was taught as school but a girl in my class insisted it wasn't true as her mother got a sunburnt arm from driving.

My reason for asking, Hyeparis, is that I seem to catch a lot of sun while diving, despite spending most of my time face down in a full wetsuit - as you describe, and despite seeing not seeing the sun v. much in the UK. Also my eye sight, for reading, has deteriorated considerably & suddenly in the last 2 years -- probably just normal ageing but I knew old folks with cataracts and figure it's worth taking a few precautions.

I like the look of those RayBlockers. I discovered "driving sunglasses" in the US, usually a similar brown tint. It really does make driving easier by improving contrast (probably by removing greying blue-light, like yellow shooting glasses).
 
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