Why Don't Divers Wear Goggles?

Divers don't wear goggles at all. Not in competition, not in practice.

If you've seen goggles in a diving pool, that was either a swimmer or someone hunting for an earring or hair tie that ended up on the bottom.

They wouldn't survive the entry

The obvious reason first.

A diver enters the water hands first at somewhere between 20 and 35 miles per hour depending on the height, which I break down in how fast do divers hit the water. Goggles sitting on your face at that speed either get torn off or driven into your eye sockets.

Swimmers enter the water at a fraction of that, and at an angle rather than straight down, and their goggles still come off more often than they'd like.

You need to see clearly during the dive

This is the reason that actually matters.

Divers spot. They pick up visual references mid-flip and use them to know exactly where they are, which is the whole subject of how do divers not get dizzy.

Anything between your eyes and the pool interferes with that. Goggles fog, they distort, they collect water, and they narrow your field of view. Every one of those is a problem when you're trying to find the water in the fraction of a second before you reach it.

It's the same reason competition pools run sprinklers across the surface. Divers need every bit of visual information they can get, and adding a lens on top of that is working against yourself.

What about the chlorine?

It can irritate the eyes if you have them open underwater too much.

You're in and out of the water constantly across a long practice, eyes open the whole way down and often open underwater afterward. Sometimes you might have some red eyes.

That's another great reason to have the showers close by between dives. Most divers rinse their face naturally anyway since they're showering between dives to stay warm.

What divers actually use

The gear list is short.

A chamois for staying dry, which matters more than anything else on the deck. A swimsuit, for reasons covered in why are divers' swimsuits so small. Sometimes tape for the wrists.

That's essentially it. At higher levels, divers will use something like Itac to get better grip on their legs. But it's one of the least equipment-dependent sports there is, aside from the need for the diving boards and pool!

- DG