About monos in general
Hey Bat,
Buying a mono in carbon is not really nessecary as your first buy of a mono. Some people are unable to use the mono for anything good and in any case one needs to get used to the whole new way of propulsion through the entire body.
I'd suggest that you don't start out with an expensive carbon fibre mono, get an Eastern European/Russian glass fibre fin to start with. A place like
www.sebakfins.com (Estonia) is a good place to start.
The thing is that glass fibre is only a slightly lesser choice of fin material than carbon fibre, but again it's a heck of a lot cheaper and doesn't break as easy. Buy a cheap, good old fashioned, fin swimmers glass mono for starters (for instance in middle hard stiffness) and work with the proper technique before you buy anything as expensive as carbon. The only reason for getting a carbon fibre fin is usually for using it for competition, especially deep competition.
Chris Engelbrecht, Copenhagen