What will 'they' think of next?!

A short while ago, I was on the dive boat and at Molasses Reef, offshore of Key Largo. I was engaged in an underwater photography course with one of my underwater photography students. It was a perfect day for snorkeling, scuba diving and underwater photography as you can see in the above accompanying photograph.

Also on the boat that day were a couple and they were snorkeling and she had a very interesting mask. I started asking her all about her mask, but, she said she did not know a lot about it as she just purchased it and it was her first time using it. I settled for a yes answer from her to my question as to whether she would mind if I photographed her mask.

I date back to the era when masks were made with black rubber, metal frames, and their face plates made with 'safety' glass. They were ill-fitting, and equalizing often caused minor mask flooding. These masks were the reason why everyone learning to scuba dive also learned mask clearing skills!

The modern day dive masks are a wonder in fit and comfort. They come in many colors and constructed using soft supple form- fitting silicon. Some recent masks are made with optical quality lenses. A few are equipped with jet-fighter-like heads up displays, which give depth, deco status, and remaining air supply. Some are full-faced masks lending the ability for its user to speak to their buddy. Yes, they still leak, but far less, and mask clearing skills are still among skills we teach mastery of.

This mask had all of the features of a modern era dive mask, sans the HUD, with one additional and intriguing feature. It had a digital still camera built into it!

I spoke with its owner between dives and she said she liked it, had fun with it, but, used all the camera's memory on her first snorkel! I was disappointed because I was about to ask her whether she'd mind me trying it out myself.

Without promoting or panning this mask-cam, I thought it was a pretty cool idea and made me wonder: 'what will "they" think of next?!'


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