The first thing to buy?

[BatRay]

My vote goes for an exposure suit, in particular a dive skin. They can be used in warm water, they make it much easier to get into your wetsuit, the wetsuit does not touch your skin (excellent if you are renting) and they make you warmer than a wet suit alone.

 

[Reef Raider]

Get the nov.-dec. alert diver mag look at page 34 Then tell me whats closest to your body . I still say regs if you plan on staying in the sport for a while...

 

[Jon]

"Get the nov.-dec. alert diver mag look at page 34 Then tell me whats closest to your body . I still say regs if you plan on staying in the sport for a while..." RAIDER

Once you put a drysuit on, with the p-valve and condom catheter in place, I think I know what touches my body the closest.

I do know of some dive shops that won't rent out regulators with mouth pieces on them. They make you buy your own mouth piece to put on and not worry about any germs. If your worried about germs you can buy a mouth piece for a couple of bucksand switch it to whatver reg you end up using. Actually there is, or at least there was, a company out there that makes little mouthpiece condoms for you regulator. They even had three different flavors to choose from for salt water diving.

I have taken trips in the past were I couldn't bring all of my gear. I have always opted to bring my mask, snorkel, fins, and a drysuit with me. My dives were warm and my suitcase was light because I left everything else at home.
I have never had a problem with the tanks Bc's or regs that I have rented. In today's legal climate, any shop that rented out crappy regualtors wouldn't be around for too long.

Also, if you have your own suit, plus the basic maks/snorkel/fin set-up, you can go snorkeling anytime you want. That can't be done in cold climates with no suit and a regulator.

One of the most important reasons to get your own suit when starting out is to get your weighting right. Your bouyancy will change with every suit that you put on. If you get one suit and work to get your weighting just right you will improve much more quickly as a new diver. I have seen diver change bouyancy by up to 10 pounds just by putting on a differnt suit!
It has long been said that bouyancy control and compass navigation are the two most difficult things for a new scuba diver to master. By having one suit that you use all the time you can start working on that first skill. Buying a BC second will help you refine that skill even more.

When it comes to scuba diving the general rule is to be totally neutral at 15' with no air in the BC and only 500 psi in the tanks.
If you really want to take it to the limit, make it 10' with only 50 psi in the tank- a situation that you should never find yourself in. :naughty
To wear anymore lead than that is totally unncessary.

Jon

 

[Reef Raider]

I'll bet you are a padi inst. I must look at things diff from you ice divers . Most of my diving is done 100nm off shore so my gear is in top shape all the time The only thing I have ever rented from a dive shop is some tanks . (thats the other thing you must dive AL 80s)As for 10 lb of lead to change suits what did they do go from a 3 m to a 5 m?I never change more than 3lb to 8lb all year long!
If you want to get wet that bad you should find a HEATED POOL!
You will not need a REG then or a suit !

 

[Jon]

Actually I teach PADI and SDI, and have for close to 20 years.
Aluminum 80's make great stage bottles on trimix dives.
Most of my dives are done wearing double steel 80's or 95's plus the aluminum 80's you talked about. I have found that double 112's were just to big for the bottom times that we pull in 39 degree lake water. The rest of my dives are freedives. We actually run two charter boats out on Lake Michigan. One of them we run all winter long. She can break through about 3' of ice pretty easily and once your out on the lake a couple of miles the ice is usually pretty clear.
When a person goes from a well worn one-piece 7mm wet suit to a new two piece farmer-john wetsuit, also 7mm, you can easily get a 10 pound weight difference.
My regs are always in top shape because of the constant fear of freeze-ups around here. Of course, since I dropped the IP down to 120 psi and started running helium in almost all of my gas mixes I could make even a crappy regualtor work well. That's one of the beauties of trimix.
My weight can change quite a bit depending upon what I am wearing. In the middle of the summer I use a Picasso 3mm freediving wetsuit for freediving and a DUI CLX-450 with Weezle wear for mix dives. I use 5 pounds for the 3mm, neutral at 33', and no weight with the drysuit because my doubles and back plate give me all of the weight that I need. A new diver will need time to figure that out.
I will say this. From a divestore point of view, it is much cheaper to keep a few regulators in stock rather than a full range of wetsuits to fit every single diver who comes in the door. One regulator can fit any person. The same cannot be said for a wetsuit or drysuit.

Jon

 

[DiverD]

I just voted so I thought I should post my reasons. You're in the Germany, I've never been but I'm assuming the water is not tropical warmth. I say Exposure suit without a doubt. As someone else said here, If you have mask, snorkel, fins and a wetsuit, your diving, even if its not scuba. With a mask, snorkel, fins and a reg your only dreaming of diving. The reg with computer & console was my second purchase, after wetsuit. Forgetting other peoples cooties, rental suits may not always fit well. A good fitting exposure suit is imperitive to having a good dive. I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference durring a dive between two similar regs, the console components would be more of a difference when renting. As for regulator cooties, I go by the rule that if something is rinsed in relatively non-poluted ocean water, thats as clean as its going to get, disinfectant or not.

 

[mishu1984]

SPEARGUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Kim Eslinger]

Its a toss up on where you plan to dive and what you plan to do with those dives. If you are diving in chilly water with long bottom times then an exposure suit gets my vote right from the start. When I bought my gear I bought my regs and bc first - not such a problem until I started putting in three dives a day in 65 degree water. The wet suit was a must! My regs keep me alive, but my wet suit keeps me warm, happy, and allows me to keep working. Plus, in the long run - its a cheaper buy early on.

 

[poacher]

Get a good quality 3mm open cell suit then some long blade fins and go freediving -once you buy this gear you dont need to buy any other stuff like tanks regs computers etc etc that scuba needs - but a good speargun would be handy and a float and floatline

 

[MadForIt!]

absolutely the first thing to buy is a computer.

when you dive a computer you really know what it is going on, depth, dive time, water temperature, ascent rates, safety stop timer, no deco stop time. not to mention greatly extending your bottom time when compared with using tables or the wheel.

forget worrrying about getting cooties 'cause you are using rental equipment - your diving in the sea which is full of pollution anyway.

my first purchase (after snorkel & mask) was a Suunto Mosquito and i havent looked back since.

 

[DiverD]

bdurrett, its been almost a year. Have you bought anything yet? Wanna tell us what you bought first? Just curious.

 

[bdurrett]

Nada, Zippo, Zilch

Originally posted by DiverD
bdurrett, its been almost a year. Have you bought anything yet? Wanna tell us what you bought first? Just curious.

:waterwork

Not only have I not bought anything, I haven't even been in the water since I posted..... Can't take more than a week off at a time and that is too hard to get anywhere decent from the middle of Germany.....

I was trying to convince the boss that we oughtta go for a cruise to Thailand or someplace and she looked at me as if I grew horns and a third eyeball and then asked if we had won the Lottery or something.....



I would still go for the suit though, especially after reading all the stuff in the "Rubber Peeing" thread <YUCK!>

Saw a couple of guys going into the Achensee which is a lake in the Tirolian Alps (Austria) that is about 133 meters at the deepest point, 500 meters above sea level and a balmy 7 degrees C. One had a 7mm wetsuit and was looking pretty miserable and the other had a semi-dry and was making fun of his buddy.....

I did buy a Suunto Mosquito while I was in Hawaii 2 years ago but it was an act of self preservation after my "buddy" at the time had a "moment" and decided to head over the wall LONG after we had been through 2/3 of a tank of air. VERY bad inverted profile.... Instructor had the only computer but I was still within "no deco" and was told to go up and do my safety stop while he went and caught her to haul her back topside. At least I had my dive watch and tables but the rental comp was so scratched that it was unreadable. Damn difficult to hold a slow rate of ascent with an analog gauge..... Bought the Mosquito the same afternoon since I NEVER wanted to get caught out again.....

 

[babelfilm]

Old but interesting thread.
I´m diving in Denmark where the best temperatures are 15-22 C and the worst are sub zero. I use a double 7 mm wet suit. It´s great in the summer but in the winter it´s a wee cold. Not that that´s gonna stop me.

I was taught to always pee in a rental suit since everybody else does it anyway. And i must admit that in an emergency peeing in the suit buys you 15 minutes of warm dive time.

Friis

 

[jeadiver]

Originally posted by babelfilm
Old but interesting thread.

I was taught to always pee in a rental suit since everybody else does it anyway. And i must admit that in an emergency peeing in the suit buys you 15 minutes of warm dive time.

Friis

Remind me never to rent gear in Denmark!

Joe

 

[babelfilm]

I was certified on Utilla, Honduras. They had all sorts of wierd rules. Like dive no. 100 has to be in the nude.

 

[Tom Leclaire]

I live and dive in the pacific noth west (british columbia) for any -one that knows where I live , you know it's pretty cold here. Water temp. below 30 feet year round is generally the mid 40's to low 40's. Cold. Any way I also work in one of the oldest shops on the coast here and we ( all of us that work at the shop) would have to say that your reg set is the most important peice of gear that a diver has to buy. IT'S YOUR LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM. It's what keeps you alive under water. You want to know what has been going on with it from day one!!!If you are afraid of wet diving for a while maybe you shouldn't be in the water at all.

 

[Tom Leclaire]

..

 

[Tom Leclaire]

I live and dive in the pacific noth west (british columbia) for any -one that knows where I live , you know it's pretty cold here. Water temp. below 30 feet year round is generally the mid 40's to low 40's. Cold. Any way I also work in one of the oldest shops on the coast here and we ( all of us that work at the shop) would have to say that your reg set is the most important peice of gear that a diver has to buy. IT'S YOUR LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM. It's what keeps you alive under water. You want to know what has been going on with it from day one!!!If you are afraid of wet diving for a while maybe you shouldn't be in the water at all.

 

[Tom Leclaire]

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[KILINC]

I'm a diver from Turkey. Firstly i bought a dive computer (suunto mosquito) I wanna feel in safe!