Protecting your eyes while boating on the water is just as important or more important as protecting your skin from the sun. The sun’s glare off the water and UV rays need to be battled and the best way to do this is by purchasing a good pair of polarized sunglasses. No matter what pair you choose, you want to ensure that the sunglasses you purchase block 100% of UV rays. Below are a few things to consider when purchasing:

Polarized Lenses

Polarized sunglasses are pretty well a necessity when boating on the water. Regular sunglass lenses just dampen all light that pass through them, while polarized lenses only block horizontal wavelengths but allow the vertical wavelengths to pass through.

What does this mean to you? Polarized sunglass lenses reduce the sun’s glare off the water. If you are fishing on a sunny day and you are wearing polarized sunglasses, they will block the glare allowing you a much clearer view of fish and obstacles in the water.

Lens Tint

Lens color is not just about style, it also determines contrast and color while boating. Generally speaking, the darker the lens color, the better they will perform on those bright days. Lighter colors will enhance colors and can work best for specific light situations.

Lens Shape

It can be tempting to purchase glasses that wrap round your face to protect your eyes from light or dirt entering your eyes from the side. However, generally speaking the more flat your lenses are, the less distortion there will be in your vision. When lenses are curved it distorts the light coming through your lenses causing images to appear inaccurate. This can lead to headaches or eye-fatigue. Always make sure that if you purchase curved sunglasses that they have passed the Prism Test and will not compromise your vision.

Are they Floating?

Something that most boating glasses have against them is they don’t float. Thats where the BOB’s line of boating eyewear from Coyote sets itself apart. All polarized sunglasses in the BOB’s line float. So you don’t have to worry about dropping them in the water.