Full-face diving masks - from Phantomas to Darth Vader

After having recently been to the BOOT 2006, a rather large water sports (and diving) trade show/shopping event here in Germany, the whole "full-face mask thing" came into mind again.

I have been using full-face masks for a couple of years now, while diving for my own pleasure as well as for scientific missions and usually in rather cold water. Most of the time I use the good old "Cressi" type (also dubbed "Phantomas" and sometimes mistaken for a fetish thing ;-) which is cheap, simple and reliable. There is only one way to make it unusable, and that is to break the front window, in which case you just pop in a spare one.



This type of mask is by now considered quite "old-school" but adequately fulfills its purpose: it keeps your face dry and holds your reg in place, which of course is a nice safety featue.

So (theoretically) you do not have to bite into the mouthpiece any more, which can be tiresome, especially in long exposures in seriously cold waters. You can even add a "diver's telephone" i.e. a surface line communication system to this mask, although this requires drilling a small hole in the silicone or rubber mask body and glueing the microphone into the mask, which will stick into your chin with its rubber cap.

But there are more advanced alternatives from professional diving equipment manufacturers like German Dräger Safety or Swedish companies Interspiro and Poseidon, all of which make pretty similar masks.

Here a few shots of my favorite type, which I started using on "open-system" ice diving missions in the Arctic recently:



The Interspiro Divator is a classic in its own right, although not going back quite as far as the 1960's Cressi model. It is one of the most common military, rescue, and scientific models currently in use. Unfortunately, it is also still the most expensive... (ca. 950€)

Full-face masks are usually produced and sold as professional (or military) diving equipment and apart from fire and police departments, only commercial or scientific divers are commonly seen to use them as standard equipment. True, there is a growing market for so-called 'tech divers' and recently this trend has also trickled into the mainstream market.

Here is the runner-up, which I am currently thinking (or rather, dreaming:) of purchasing one day for myself:



Not surprisingly, the Poseidon is more or less an exact replica of the Divator, although it has a few improved design features - and a more reasonable price...(ca. 850€)

If you are thinking of putting a rebreather mouthpiece into a full-face mask, you will probably either 'mod' an existing cressi or older Dräger masks with straps and glue and handmade parts, or you will succumb to the designers and marketing people of Dräger and shell out for their "Panorama Nova" model:



This is the newest of the three and comes with three reg/communication/bailout ports which can be conveniently opened and closed by easily handled plugs, so that you can breathe surrounding air while you are already fully sealed and dressed up, or you can even swap a rebreather loop for a reg or one reg for another. It is also the cheapest of them all (680€), except for the Cressi which will cost you only 50€ apiece (I bought 4 over the years...).

I used it successfully in recent under-ice rebreather diving missions (using Dräger's Dolphin system) both in the Arctic and Antarctic, and the most prominent "user-friendly" features are both the 'port plugs' and the quick-release feature, i.e.you can easily pull the mask away from your face even with thick gloves by grabbing the two "bars" on each side of the mask, which will open all of the four the strap buckles at once. Maybe this system could be modified for the other masks as well?

There is just one slight problem: ONLY Dräger's own second stages or especially modified Apeks regs will fit into ANY of its ports. Of yourse you can try to modify another regulator (p.e. by welding a dräger-style mouthpiece onto a Poseidon Cyclon 2. stage) but anyway you are forced use a fitting regulator. Another downside: you cannot get them as "overpressure" systems which are a switchable option for the other two systems, so you will have to go on "demand-only" instead.

BTW: there are several (in my eyes largely unsuccessful) models of full-face masks produced by sports diving equipment manufacurers like Scubapro and OceanReef, but after trying them both for s short period I returned them immediately: too expensive and neither as functional nor as robust as any of the models mentioned above, while offering poor comfort and even warped visor surfaces which scratch easily and give you 'tunnel vision' alreada at the surface.