"Sea-gypsy Children": Human underwater sight secrets revealed

Ivan Seeking

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030517/fob4.asp

Ivan Seeking

When Tsu and I saw this story on the tube last night, after thinking a while she commented that this happened to her one summer. When she was about eleven years old she spend much of an entire summer in the water. She and her friend spent a lot of time looking at objects while underwater and by the end of summer the objects could be seen clearly.

She would have posted but she is doing some continuing ed stuff right now and is very busy, so she told me to post for her.

Moonbear

I would have to agree with Tsu's observations. I noticed the same myself when I was a child spending a lot of my summer days swimming around underwater (we had an assortment of toys that were probably meant more for dolphins than people, including things to be retrieved from the bottom of the pool and hoops held down with weights to swim through). It's probably just a matter of the eye adjusting to the changed refraction index when looking through water than air, though I would guess that someone who already has problems with their eyesight might not be able to fully adjust the same way they can't focus either at a distance or close up as (depending on the visual problem). Of course, with seawater, the toughest part is probably getting past it stinging your eyes if you open them. I used to have a lot of trouble with that when swimming in the bay that I didn't have when swimming in a pool.

Tsu

I always avoided opening my eyes in the ocean, but I was playing in pretty strong waves, and sand in your eyes was worse than the salt sting.

Yes, I remember being struck with the thought toward the end of my 10th summer how much clearer my St. Christopher medal looked on the pool bottom than it did at the beginning of the summer. I had mentioned it to my friend Shirley (my swimming buddy - we were ADDICTS!! We swam every day!!) and she said she had noticed that, too. I hadn't thought about it again until Ivan and I saw that Show on Science Channel and I suddenly had a memory of my St. Christopher medal at the bottom of the pool! Thought it was very interesting...