Mask Clearing

The skill of removing water from a flooded dive mask underwater by exhaling through the nose while holding the top edge and looking slightly up.

Mask clearing is the technique for getting water out of your mask without surfacing. Press the top edge of the mask frame gently against your forehead, look slightly upward, and exhale steadily through your nose. The exhaled air rises, fills the mask from the top, and pushes the water out under the loosened bottom skirt. A small trickle clears with one short puff; a fully flooded mask may take one long or two exhales. Purge-valve masks simplify it further: look down and exhale, the valve does the rest.

The skill matters because leaks are routine, not exceptional. Hair under the skirt, a smile, a stray fin during a group descent, all put water in the mask, and a diver who cannot clear it calmly is one flood away from panic. That is why open water training drills partial clears, full floods, and complete mask removal and replacement, and why instructors return to it during every refresher course. The underlying lesson is bigger than the mask: you can always breathe from the regulator, water on your face changes nothing.

Practical refinements: keep your eyes open if you tolerate salt water, or train comfortable eyes-closed clears if not, blow gently rather than blasting, and defog properly so a clear does not leave you blind anyway. Divers who struggle with nose exhalation can practice in the shallows until it is boring, which is exactly the goal: a skill that is boring in a meter of water stays available under stress at depth.