I know this is a bit o t, but does anyone have any recomendations for glasses for surfing in? My son, Dan struggles to see on coming kite boarders when were out and obviously this is potentially hazardous to his health. He is quite short sighted and the only things weve seen are either like swimming goggles or just ordinary glasses with lacki bands at the back. Any help or advice would be great.
Thanks.
My son in law wears contact lenses, and says he has no problems with them while surfing.
Doug
Ha. don’t wear any! I lost a pair of glasses that way. A wave smacks you in the face, or you dive into the whitewater and BOOM their gone. Contacts are the way to go. Hopefully his face is out of the water the majority of the time? If so, and even if not contacts are fine. Just close your eyes if you end up under anyways.
I also bet the prescription swimgoggles would be more than contacts anyways.
Hi Mate,
Prescription surf glasses might be the way to go??!!
I have a pair (normal lens) for those real hot, glarey sessions in the middle of Summer, work well, don’t fog too much (a good hoik in the lens beforehand fixes that) and no sore eyes.
Not sur what the brand name is but I have seen the surf sunglasses that fit well to you face but arn’t goggles. you could get prescript lenses for them.
Everyone says contacts, but my friend lost one this weekend and then he couldn’t see out of one eye. HIs depth perception got messed up.
Disposable contacts are the way to go so it’s not too costly when you loose one. I used to do it all the time, couldn’t surf w/o 'em.
Ended up forkin’ up the $ and got lasik. One of the best decisions of my life…seein’ 20/10.
one day contacts
or
Lasik
I’d suggest your son try soft contacts, which are fairly inexpensive, especially on line. If he has a lot of astigmatism, he may need semi-hards.
I wore contacts for many years. didn’t like the hard ones, so wore soft ones, did lose them on occasion in hard offshores if it was really choppy going down the face…got to where I could pop one in from my “spares” case while floating outside.
Finally had Lazer surgery about ten years, one of the earlier ones to have it done…very happy with the outcome except for one thing - night glare. A large percentage of folks, especially those with larger pupils, will find night time driving to be a strain on the eyes - this can be offset by using night time glasses with an anti-glare coating…
Eye surgeons usually don’t want to do Lasic until late teens - suggest you do some research and find out who is the best in your area, and bring your son in for a consultation…
.
its been said here before , but i thought id throw my 2 cents in anyway.
im short sighted and ive been surfing for years with soft contacts.
im yet to lose one so far. even opening my eyes under water…
touch wood…
I have a whole damm family of near-sighted surfers—i’ve been wearing hard-gas perm lenses for many years—i lost one in 20 years. my son(now 27) started out at 9 with "rec-spects’ the glasses used for hoops and soccer–we set him up with a neck leash for them and they worked fine till he got soft contacts , since then no problems. daughter uses soft lenses too and step son uses disposable lens…Gotta take good care of your eyes and clean the contacts well every day to keep infection away…other wise no problems other than the learning curve with contacts…my eyes are toooo bad for the surgery at my age, so thats out for me.----if he really wants to surf, he will work out a solution
I’m not that short sighted, just can’t recocnise who is who in the line up unless they are sat next to me, which is why I usually surf by myself, I try to identify people by the boards they are riding or the colour of thier suit.
I tried wearing daily disposable contacts but found I would loss one on every surf. once one got folded under my eye lid and I had to gettit out with sandy salty fingers, looked loike I had pink eye so I stopped using them.
My board is fluro yellow so my mates don’t have any trouble spotting me in the line up.
Your kid must be really short sighted if he cant see a board about to hit him in the face, though that said I did get knocked out at saunton once but that was on the back of the head, still don’t know who/what hit me.
I’ve tried it all, I used to be 20/400 big ol coke bottle thick lenses. I did the disposable lense thing for surfing, and wore gas perms for everyday life.
I finally took the plunge and splurged for eye surgery. best thing I ever did, my eye sight is 20/15 and been that way for almost 6 years now. No side effects etc, etc. I don’t know how old your son is? I guess that would dictate the surgery thing. But disposables are good & cheap, so if you loose on no big deal.
i think the glass or goggles thing would sucks.
disposable contact lenses – yes, only about $50 for 2 sixpacks. i use them only for surfing or diving, so i can use them over and over. you can lose them in the surf… but really only if you are careless… been surfing with soft contacts since around 83… and i’ve only lost like 5 contacts … almost always from doing something stupid. from 1ft up to 15ft faces…
as a matter of fact, your contacts will never feel better than when you are in the ocean … almost like a light cleaning y’re getting.
Thanks heaps for all the advice.
Looks like the disposable contacts are the way to go.
I’m not sure whether the optis insist on kids being 16 for contacts or anything but I’ll look into it tomorrow.
Also looked at those Sea specs, they sound like a good second if we cant do the contacts.
Thanks again everyone.
Chipper, come home!
I use the day and night brand. I too only wear mine for sports … still like glasses the rest of the time … gee, I work in chemicals, could there be a reason why I like glasses?
don’t know if it’s viable in your son’s situation but, my wife had
lasek laser eye surgery done… seriously only took like 30 seconds per eye.
she’d been wearing glasses her whole life… she was amazed on the way
home that she could read street signs from way off w/o any glasses on.
now a few years later, still all good. no problems… i don’t remember the exact
cost but we did it on a payment plan and payed it off early no problem…
definitely worth checking out.
Disposable contacts. No doubt. I’ve been wearing them in the water since I was 13 years old and only lost 3 or 4 so far! They’ve only been knocked outta my eyes from a direct impact with the lip of a wave.
~Brian
Did the contacts-for-surfing and glasses for everything else thing for years. That got easier when I switched from hard lenses to soft, because the hards would reshape your corneas and it would take a while for them to return to where your glasses prescription would be correct–bad if you depend on your eyes for precision work. Contacts can be etched and destroyed by chemical fumes, so it wasn’t until I got away from resin and stayed with just shaping that I was able to switch to full-time contacts. I can even sleep with them in, and only have to take 'em out once a week–real lo-hassle! That said, many of my friends have had lasic surgey and swear by it.
Thanks heaps for all the advice.
Looks like the disposable contacts are the way to go.
I’m not sure whether the optis insist on kids being 16 for contacts or anything but I’ll look into it tomorrow.
Also looked at those Sea specs, they sound like a good second if we cant do the contacts.
Thanks again everyone.
Chipper, come home!
I don’t think his age should play a factor (don’t know how old he is though). I started wearing them at 14 and like greenlight said 13.
He will be much happier in the water, especially on overcast days with flat light when it’s tough to judge the waves.