Diving in the tropics includes hours on boats and in the sun. To avoid burning and turning red we often slather our faces and bodies in sunblock. Although its common sense using sunblock, it’s a good idea to leave it in the bag and jump in the water without it, for different reasons.
Sunblock can irritate your eyes
Even for a diver who fixes their mask on the boat and keeps it on for the entire dive, they will still find a bit of water entering the mask during a dive. If water or sweat enters a mask it will most likely dribble down into the diver’s eyes. Divers who experienced this know how unpleasant it can be and how it can destroy your dive.
Sunblock can make a good mask foggy
Even if you have treated your mask with defog, toothpaste or other defogging methods your mask is most likely to fog when sunblock gets in contact with lens. Every diver knows how ignoring a mask that fogs up is and how it will ruin your dive.
Sunblock is harmful to the ocean
Tanning oil, bug repellent and sunblock all contain oils and chemicals found in non-biodegradable can pollute and damage the aquatic life. Even waterproof products will wash off after prolonged submersion.
Researchers testing the effects of sunblock on corals explain that the chemicals can awake a coral viruses – the coral will become sick and expel their life-giving algae. Without these the coral will bleaches and often die.
All Evolution’s boats have lots of shade so think about whether to lather and slather before your next dive!
