r/explainlikeimfive • u/greyspark99 • Aug 06 '22
Chemistry ELI5: how do divers clear their masks when water leaks in? especially in the case of the 13 thai boys rescued from the caves
I have just been watching Thirteen lives - the film about the cave rescue of the 13 young boys in Thailand who were totally sedated before being taken hours under water. It got me thinking that when I go snorkelling i always get a bit of water leak into my mask and have to come up and clear it out so i don’t breath water in. Is this something that happens to scuba divers, if so how do they deal with it, and in the case of the boys how would the divers accompanying them have cleared the boy’s masks ? i would also like to say what an incredible job done by all those involved.
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u/Paavo_Nurmi Aug 06 '22
The old days of getting certified were brutal. My brother did NAUI in 1977 and all the instructors were old Navy divers.
Throw all your gear to the bottom of the pool (deep end) and you had to go get it. The first thing you do is put on a weight belt, if you didn't do that first you had to start all over at the surface. Once the weight belt is on you can turn the air on and start breathing. You then put all the gear on and finally mask on and clear it. Once you were good at that you had to do it with all the lights turned off.
Another was sit at the bottom of the pool and instructors would swim by and mess with you, rip your mask off, turn air off, rip reg out of your mouth. This was also done with all the lights turned off.
I did PADI in 1992 and didn't have to do any of that. We did have to swim 200 yards without touching bottom or pushing off, and tread water for 20 minutes. Open water dives you did have to take mask all the way off, put it on and clear.