Does anybody out there have any good suggestions for keeping my glasses on when I take rolling classes this year? Last year I was practicing wet exits and was wearing a pair of prescription sun glasses that I thought were “tight enough” and down to the bottom of the lake they went. It’s pretty hard to take a class and not be able to see, as I’m blind as a bat without my “eyes”.
Wear a strap?
You need to wear a strap.
A whitewater helmet might also help to keep them on (strange as it sounds, it does appear to help).
a strap with a float attached
Strap
I use a Chums eye glass strap, bought it at Walmart or Dicks.
I use and like these
http://tinyurl.com/2a5f5bg
lots of other places carry them besides the linked store.
Get the straps with the little floats
I used to use “croakies”, but in a tumble surf landing, I had my prescription sun glasses torn off, never to be found again.
Now I use the ones with the little floats attached.
You can get them at most canoe and kayak outfitters.
cheers,
jackL
yeah
Try the “first name” in sun glass staps…they were the first…designed by Jackson Hole white water yakers and boaters…
CROAKIES!! they are tight as you want
Floats
For those of you that use the straps with floats, do they work? As heavy as my glasses are I’m not sure they would do any good.
I prefer EK EKcessories
to Croakies. At least for my glasses, the attachment to the ear-piece is more secure.
http://www.rei.com/product/709557
I recommend the yellow foam version for best visibility. I haven’t had a pair of glasses come off in several years of surfing and rolling practice since switching to these. Very easy to tighten the strap for a very secure hold when you want it.
Yes, the floats float
three choices
1) You go down with them on, and come up with them gone (don’t laugh, I’ve done it).
2) Put them in your pocket
3) Put a leash on them
These are handy
I actually find it helpful to be able to see when setting up a roll - at least early in the learning. The goggles aren’t the best for long range clarity, but are better than nothing. Also, you can use them to swim down to the bottom and find your lost glasses!
http://www.aquagoggles.com/
more durable too?
I would assume, but have you had them knocked around a lot in surf or WW? Normally I buy very cheap glasses ($25 or so) since I figure something will happen to them, but $49 is still a good price and if more durable then worth the cost. No fog would mean I’d use them all the time in surf which is often the one place I go without sunglasses.
When it really counts, I use string.
– Last Updated: Apr-26-10 11:43 PM EST –
There's a trend in modern eyeglasses to have very skinny ear pieces. I sometimes use Croakies, which years ago worked great, but on new-style eyeglass frames they can slide free very easily.
Now, when I might be in a rough-water situation I use thin parachute cord or boot laces. Tie two half hitches and cinch it down tight just in front of the plastic ear piece so it can't possibly slip off. If you make the string exactly the right length, you can put the glasses on with the string up over your head, then pull the string down behind your head, past "the part the sticks out toward the back" so it loosens up just a little, and your glasses can't even slide down your nose much, and they can't be pulled off no matter what happens. It's important to get the length right, which is easy once you have done it once or twice, but your head may vary. Best of all, it's free (assuming you already have such material laying around the house). Oh, one more thing. Once you make the "string strap" the right length, there's no need to re-tie knots or mess with it ever again. Just loosen the "lasso" of each two-half-hitches knot to remove, and cinch them down again to attach.
Oh, regarding those float straps? Take note of what I mentioned about new-style frames and skinny ear pieces. When paddling with Chuck_IL a few years ago, I passed a pair of sunglasses floating in the river by the float strap. I asked Chuck if he was missing his sunglasses, which he was, so I said "wait right there and they will float to you". Sure enough, they were his - they had fallen off his deck when he set them down and forgot them. He grabbed the strap as they floated by and when he lifted, the sunglasses slipped free, never to be seen again.
$25 for glasses?
Tell me where you get your prescription filled. If you are talking about non perscription sunglasses I wouldn’t even bother in the water. It’s too much of a pain wiping all the salt crystals off to make wearing glasses worth it if I could see without them.
eeek, no sunglasses?
A few hours of that would tire my eyes. Years of that will get you blind. Spots sometimes annoy me, but mostly I have no real problem.
lasik
best 2700 bucks i ever spent… and it’s cheaper now
Lost a pair using Croakies
and have sworn off them since.
Original Chums (fabric tube with surgical tubing inside) work great with larger temples, such as Ray-ban Wayfarers.
For temples with smaller ends, like the regular glasses I am now wearing, Chums makes a retainer with silicone rubber “suckers” that hold very well if the temples are cleaned of skin grease. I had these very glasses torn off in an altrication between me, a double-bladed paddle and an overhanging hemlock tree on the Shaver’s Fork. Clarion simply picked them up as they floated by.
You were planning on using a float, weren’t you?
Jim