Full Face Diving Mask

Full Face Diving Mask

A full-face diving mask is a type of diving mask that seals the whole of the diver's face from the water and contains a mouthpiece or demand valve that provides the diver with breathing gas. The full face mask has several functions: it lets the diver see clearly underwater, it provides the diver's face with some protection from cold and polluted water, it increases breathing security and provides a space for equipment that lets the diver communicate with the surface support team.

Full face masks can be more secure than breathing from an independent mouthpiece; if the diver becomes unconscious or suffers an oxygen toxicity convulsion, the diver can continue to breathe from the mask unlike a mouthpiece which must be always gripped between the teeth.

Full-face diving masks are often used in professional diving. They are relatively rarely used in recreational diving, where they protect the face from cold water or stings, such as from jellyfish or coral, and prevent the discomfort derived from gripping a mouthpiece between the teeth for long periods.

This type of gear is also sometimes referred to as a Jack Browne rig, named for a Desco engineer who designed an early version of a full-face mask with an integrated air-supply attachment.

Read more about Full Face Diving Mask:  In The Public Media

Famous quotes containing the words full, face, diving and/or mask:

    It was because of me. Rumors reached Inman that I had made a deal with Bob Dole whereby Dole would fill a paper sack full of doggie poo, set it on fire, put it on Inman’s porch, ring the doorbell, and then we would hide in the bushes and giggle when Inman came to stamp out the fire. I am not proud of this. But this is what we do in journalism.
    Roger Simon, U.S. syndicated columnist. Quoted in Newsweek, p. 15 (January 31, 1990)

    It will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    A worm is as good a traveler as a grasshopper or a cricket, and a much wiser settler. With all their activity these do not hop away from drought nor forward to summer. We do not avoid evil by fleeing before it, but by rising above or diving below its plane; as the worm escapes drought and frost by boring a few inches deeper.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    It’s a terrible thing to be alone—yes it is—it is—but don’t lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath—as terrible as you like—but a mask.
    Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923)