Prescription glasses and whitewater

Do you just use a strap to keep them on? What about the difficulty seeing through all the water droplets that are on your lenses? Im just getting to the point where im comfortable in water that could cause me to do some rolling. I have no issues rolling without my glasses, but im a little nervous about going out on rivers with them. Anyone have any suggestions or advice? Thanks

Droplets? What droplets? :wink:
I wear contacts. But often times I had to use sunglasses. Yes, water got on it, not so much from rolling but from crashing waves.



I can see through them, even though it isn’t ideal. I’m not sure if there’s actually a solution besides just getting used to seeing through the droplets.

I agree
I agree. Droplets are o an issue for me either. I wear prescription glasses when paddling. I do more slat water than fresh, and the salt can dry on the lenses causing spots, but a quick dunk of the glasses (or roll) clears that off.



More of a worry for me is losing glasses. I do wear straps, but have lost a pair when I was surfing and got extra worked - the water yanked my head gear off and stripped the glasses out from under. Thankfully it was an older pair, not the brand new prescription sunglasses I had just bought.

Glasses and splashes

– Last Updated: Dec-16-11 11:33 AM EST –

Rain-X is awesome - use it religiously on lenses

I wear glasses, a floating Croakie strap, AND a tether
velcro strap which wraps around the croakies and goes
down to my pfd and attaches to it.

I lost glasses once when I flipped and the current
took them off my head, lost forever to the river gods.
It was a long ride home, in bad weather to boot, but I
had no choice in the matter and nearly crashed my car.

I like glasses that change tint. Many pictures of
me have 2 black ovals on my face
showing the protection of my eyes from harsh UV rays.

Backup glasses are mandatory, everytime, anytime.
I'll never go thru that scenario again in my lifetime.

This isn’t hard
People have been paddling with glasses forever.



Use a good retainer to prevent losing the glasses.



Wipe off the glasses on a cloth, which you can carry, if they get foggy or splashed or rained on.



There have always been antifogging chemicals around. A popular one was Cat Crap. Never used them myself, and I have always paddled with glasses.

sports prescription specs
http://www.sporteyes.com/recspecs.htm



I’d recommend the ones with hard linked straps

Retainer not enough
Current ripped it off my head - need a leash or tether

seaspecs.com
Not used one myself but heard good thing from others

Current and Tethers

– Last Updated: Dec-16-11 4:20 PM EST –

I use "Croakes" for a lot of boating. However, where I think I might get "ferociously dunked", Croakes would never work and I use shoe laces or paracord. I wear wire-rims, and I tie the cord right in front of the plastic for the earpieces. I tie each side with two half-hitches, cinched down tight. I make the length of cord between the two knots just long enough that I can put the glasses on with the loop of cord on top my head, and then I slide it behind my head. For me, that results in an adjustment that won't allow the glasses to slide more than about 3/4-inch forward, and proper knots grip so strongly that the glasses, if tugged hard enough, would come apart before the cord would slip or break.

I would NOT trust any method that uses slip-on grips or that has any stretch, except for casual dunking. If you can pull the slip-fit grippers of your glasses strap off with your hands, so can the current. If your glasses are going to get yanked, you need something with zero stretch, no slack, and a gripping method that cinches down tight. I've never seen a commercial brand that meets these criteria, but any decent kind of string sure works great!

Links
http://www.altrec.com/nrs/floating-eyeglass-retainer



http://www.austinkayak.com/products/1749/Chums-Neoprene-Floating-Eyeglass-Retainer.html



http://www.waterskiworld.com/activewear/SunglassFloats/sunglassfloats.html



http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002C7YURS/ref=asc_df_B002C7YURS1820749/?tag=shopzilla_rev_10-20&creative=395021&creativeASIN=B002C7YURS&linkCode=asn



etc.

Fogging is a problem
Splash isn’t so much of a problem. Fogging is.



Learn to appreciate the challenge of running a class three rapid while you can’t see.



Use a retainer that is really difficult to get off the ear pieces. My paddling glasses are usually and old pair of glasses, so the retainer never comes off.



If you are wearing a helmet then glasses first, then helmet with the chin strap over the ear piece/retainer.



Not coming off. No need of a tether.

I hate glasses
but I’m stuck with them. Contacts don’t work well for me. Lately I have been buying glasses with a coating on both surfaces that makes a huge difference in glare AND in resisting spotting. The water shakes off them very quickly - it beads up. I think its called Cryzal or something like that. I lost a pair of $350 glasses once canoeing in flatwater of all places. Somehow managed to knock them off my face and over they went. Still - I don’t feel nearly so bad as my buddy did when his Orvis Bamboo fly rod with lead core on the fly reel (he’s not exactly a purist) went to the bottom of the lake.

Glasses
I’ve left 2 or 3 pairs of prescription sunglasses on the bottom of various rivers over the years. My solution was one that nobody might choose, but might like to hear about. I started having new prescriptions go bad after a few months and found out that I had cataracts. One bad and the other minor. Had a 15 min. operation, went home with plastic in my eye, got up the NEXT morning and could see the craters on a full moon without glasses. Threw my glasses in the trash and haven’t worn them since. I had glasses since I was 12. Not worying abut them in a boat is great!

Good retainer
I’ve tried a bunch of retainers and I think the best are

http://www.nrsweb.com/shop/product.asp?pfid=2493

They are very easy to quickly tighten up when about to roll or about to get hit by surf and hold very tight (at least on my earpieces).

As for water drops,spotting, dried salt, etc - I found that after 2-3 trips I just adapted to it. For a few years I would take along a small squeeze bottle of fresh water with very dilute detergent to clean my glasses occasionally if there was a lot of salt dried on them during ocean trips but after a while I just never bothered. Now it just seems like part of being on the ocean and rarely bothers me - if it does, a quick dunk in the ocean will get it back to an acceptable level.

Agree. Fogging is biggest problem.
Keeping them on your head is not usually a problem if you have a good retainer and wear a helmet. I’ve read some folks duct tape the retainer to the temple.



Donated my river glasses this fall side-surfing on easy creek that didn’t warrent a helmet. Flip, hat and glasses gone. I worried more about the loss of my favoite hat (which was found down-stream) than the glasses.



I need a new Rx and are in search of ones that minimize fogging. Glasses that fit close to the face are prone to fogging. I’ve found there needs to be space from the face to allow air circulation. Still searching.



Cat Crap and Sea Drops work, but spit is the best. I’ver heard about using a thin layer of soap, but haven’t tried it.

When I was a diver
There were two classic tricks to keep a mask from fogging: you got the spit one, the other was to rub a freshly cut slice of potato on the glass.

fog
try parkers perfect i have used it for yesrs parbur labs inc 153 lakeview st hollister mo 65672 8008848005