The first thing to buy?

[bdurrett]

Assume that you had a limited budget (VERY limited) and could only buy one piece of gear aside from your ABC (mask, fins, and snorkel)... What would that piece of gear be?

1. Exposure Suit
2. Regulator / Octopus
3. BCD
4. Other (If so , what?)
   [/list=1]

 

[Reef Raider]

It must cold there but if thats the case I would still go for the regs . Your life support is ## 1 in my book the other stuff you can rent . I would never trust a rented reg.If the last person to use it got it wet you might be in for a bad dive and if your cold water diving thats sure to be trouble....

 

[Duncan]

WetsuitSuit

I would definately make it an exposure suit...if that means a wetsuit....a drysuit might be different...

if it is a wetsuit then people pee in them so you do not want to to rent!


:naughty

 

[Kalaya]

Wetsuits

Def. a wetsuit. Although since you, Duncan, are in Durban where water temp. is always cooking, you might not be aware of the fact that people dive in dry suits as well

Which brings up back to the point of peeing into rental suits

Cheers

 

[bdurrett]

Reply to Duncan and Kalaya

Peeing in a wet suit?!? :yack

Eeewwwwwwww! That is BIG TIME RUDE! :naughty I suppose that is a VERY good reason for having your own wet suit. That way if you did pee in it, you would have no one to blame but yourself and you would be swimming in your own.... uh ...... well, you KNOW what I mean! :yack

Bret

 

[Duncan]

Peeing

Peeing in a wetsuit actually causes a very pleasant creeping feeling of warmth....or so I have heard...

The key is to rinse your suit afterwards or it gets a bit smelly

 

[Duncan]

Durban

btw, Durban is not always cooking...the other day I had to dive is water 20 degrees centrigrade...brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

[bdurrett]

Re: Peeing

Originally posted by Duncan
Peeing in a wetsuit actually causes a very pleasant creeping feeling of warmth....or so I have heard...

The key is to rinse your suit afterwards or it gets a bit smelly

Oh MY!!!

Dude, DON'T GO THERE! :rofl

I think that is just a little TOO MUCH information

 

[Duncan]

You asked

Bret...You did ask what you should buy....so you found out with reasons! I guess that is why 83.33% of respondents say that you should be an exposure suit....

 

[bdurrett]

Re: You asked

Originally posted by Duncan
Bret...You did ask what you should buy....so you found out with reasons! I guess that is why 83.33% of respondents say that you should be an exposure suit....

That is true, I DID ask about what to buy as a first thing... I guess the "creeping feeling of warmth" was a little more than I wanted to know about, never mind the "getting a bit smelly" part. :duh

But, I must admit, that DOES explain why Big Island Divers in Kona was so adamant about rinsing out the suits and adding a big shot of some heavy duty disinfectant each time we came back from a dive, although they specifically asked that people NOT pee in the suits..... I guess that they were not convinced their request had been followed....

It is now 6 to 1 in favor of a suit over a Reg.... Interesting

 

[Jon]

There are two types of divers. Those that pee in their wet suits and those that lie about it.
The real pain is having to pee in your drysuit without having a p-valve installed.

Jon

 

[Reef Raider]

If you have a dry suit (like me ) than you should have some depends too unless your dives all last 20mins.
The peeing in the suit stuff only makes you colder in the long run if ya'll believe anything believe that.

Back to the REGs
What cost more to rent?????
What helps to keep you alive underwater the suit or the REGs???
I have
A dry suit
A 5mm one pcs. suit
A 3mm farmer john and jacket
A polar tec skin
Now tell me that you could buy that for what a good set of REGs cost and I will start going to your dive shop.
Last of all If you have ever spent the night in a hotel or motel than the suit thing is no worse but would you kiss someone that you never meet be for in your life.
I even disinfect my own REGs!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Jon]

I have a p-valve in my suit. I have used diapers in the past, but found that they leak around the legs.
The one time I had to go, and didn't have a p-valve or diaper, was up in Lake Superior and had a good 35 minutes of deco left to complete.:waterwork
I went to diapers after that and switched to a p-valve as soon as they came out. P-valves are one of the greatest inventions next to the drysuit zipper.

A well fitting suit is the most important thing to get after mask, snorkel and fins.
It is the one thing that needs to fit your body exactly to work correctly. There is a saying in the dive business: a rental suits fit everyone, so it actually fits no one.
You can buy a very nice wet suit for much less than the price of a reg. Regs work on any body size. Most rental regs work just fine for recreational dives. If your diving is so involved that you need that high performance a reg, then you need to buy all of your own stuff and skip renting, or slow down a bit and gain some experience slowly.

After the wetsuit, or drysuit , I tell my students to look at a good BC, I actually prefer a wing, because they are the second hardest thing to fit to your body. The last things to buy are tanks. Any rental tank will work with almost any type of gear set-up as long as you don't have differences with an A-clamp vs. DIN valve.

Start with gear that touches your body the closest and move out from there.

I know where your coming from about buying gear one piece at a time. I started diving when I was 14 and had to cut a lot grass and baby sit a lot of little brats, as in the kids that no one else in my neighborhood would sit for, before I could afford my first wetsuit, BC, tank, ect. I bought things in stages and looked through the want ads for as much used stuff as I could find. Now that we have Ebay you should have a much easier time of it.

Jon

 

[narked]

I'd say drysuit first. A decent fitting drysuit is a requirement, especially for northern Europe. If possible, go for made to measure, the fit will be SO much better than any off the shelf suit could ever be.

The really funny ones are when people that dont have p-valves go to the loo anyway, then decline any offers of help to get out of their suit afterwards

Second, I'd say a decent reg.

Matt

 

[Griff]

Re: Peeing

Originally posted by Duncan
Peeing in a wetsuit actually causes a very pleasant creeping feeling of warmth

Isnt that a bit irresponsible for the club Scuba Officer?

 

[Duncan]

Scuba Officer

Very irresponsible for the Scuba officer.....but the PRO can do as he pleases ...

If you read carefully and don't quote out of context...you will see I said..."so I've heard"

How the boats doing Griff? Do you know one of the battery cables broke on Sunday, tsk tsk....

see you thursday :duh

 

[Duncan]

Computer

Hello!

I've changed my mind....!!! I want to change my vote to 'Other' the other being a dive computer....

I was on the boat this weekend and it suddenly dawned on me what a bonus the computer is for bottom time....forget anything else....

at the moment I have all the skin diving equipment but rent the bc dv etc...BUt

I have a Suunto Mosquito on my arm and it really make a big difference to my dive experience...no more sticking to rigid tables etc etc...

Last trip my buddy was dive on tables and I was down for up to 20mins more than him diving a similar profile...


There you go...my two cents...

Bye for now...:wave :king

 

[bdurrett]

Duncan's Computer

I am STILL trying to find my DiveManager CD. I tried to start DM but it woffed on me saying it couldn't find some DLL file (after my XPerience) #*#^$#&%!!!! So, until I locate that blasted disk, all my data is locked up on the HDD.....

I'll let you change your vote Duncan.....:t

Bret

 

[Griff]

Re: Scuba Officer

Originally posted by Duncan

I see you read carefully and don't not quote out of context...you saw I said..."as I've done"

exactly!

I saw other Duncan last night and he gave me a list as long as my arm for things to do on the boat.

BTW, i saw your local as Durban and was about to pm you and ask what club you are part of and ask if you wanted to join us on thursdays for a few drinks etc, before i clicked. would have been a laugh.

cheers
Mark

 

[Duncan]

Dive Manager

Well Brett....always make backups :duh

Anyway all is not lost....you can download the latest version of the dive manager straight off the suunto web bladsy...

http://www.suunto.com/v2/datafiles/downloads/sdm14.zip

or I can mail it to you....it is zipped to 2.5 Mb...

So there :thankyou

now can you change your vote