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Eyesight

I'm short sighted and need glasses to see distant objects (my vision for reading is going downhill too). In normal life I wear single vision glasses, when diving I wear daily soft contact lenses. Here's why: I have an astigmatism (non-uniform cornea shape) for which my glasses are optimised. The contact lenses I use do not address this so with them I struggle to read (gauges, camera, etc.). Having said that, for diving they're the most convenient for me. I can wear them all day, I don't have to take my glasses with me, I can keep spare lenses (the individually packed 'dailies' take up next to no room) and I don't really care if I lose one.

Pros/Cons from a diving point of view

On the subject of expensive glasses (Yup. Gripe coming up..) I'm really fed up of paying over the odds for a pair of frames. I don't mind the glass/other material being expensive because that's the bit that's custom ground to my specification, It's the £150 for a few bent pieces of metal to stick 'em to your face. Just recently discovered a british university student that felt so strongly about this that he started his own web-based shop supplying complete glasses to your prescription from £15. His name is James Murray Wells and his shop is glassesdirect. He's kicked up a bit of a storm with the high street opticians - read some of the press releases on his website.

Stop Press Oct 06: Had laser eye surgery - have to wait 3 months before I can dive again but looking forward to doing without all the paraphenalia.