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Hi @csiems, sounds like a great gift idea! I completely agree with your thought on buying something of better quality than a flimsy kit. Personally, I have a medium-large tool bag for mine that I've maxed out. If you are starting from the ground up, buy larger than what you think he needs so he...

Hi Clayton, the short of it is, you may find it better to opt for larger tanks or bring more gas with you. No need to put so much stock into your gas consumption rate. However, this was a question I got asked frequently and wrote an article on how you can improve your consumption here on page...

Helium has gone up 25-30% over the past two years for us in Hawai'i. :cry:

Hi @GuysDigDirt, kudos for your interest in taking the next step! In my circles I get asked all the time about tips on buying dive gear, so I wrote up an article with my tips and advice for our University of Hawaii Newsletter. You can check it out here on page 4: December 2017. Similar to what...

It has become a tradition of mine to watch Mike Mullane's "Normalization of Deviance" talk before every mesophotic/rebreather expedition I do. I highly recommend it!

Aloha Jessica, I just published an article in our University of Hawaii magazine on "How to Properly Shop for Dive Gear." I explain some of the questions that folks should be asking themselves before buying equipment (which might be remedial info to your experience). At the end on page 7 I listed...

Aloha Eric, I live in Hilo on Hawai'i (aka "Big Island"). The manta dive is in Kona so you would want to come to our island for that. Hawai'i has a very diverse amount of attractions such as our famous Kona coffee sampling/tours/tasting, great dining, awesome waterfalls, hikes, the best night...

Looks like you got quite a few tips and videos on how to string the harness. For their polyurathane coated nylon webbing, it can be tricky to weave, especially the crotch strap! I found spraying it with a little bit of water helps to reduce the friction. Imagine you're looking at the bottom of...

From my experience, ScubaBoard's Classifieds are probably your best bet. Craigslist and Ebay can be very challenging if you don't know the correct questions to ask, or if the seller doesn't know the full history of the gear (often times I've seen people selling equipment that aren't divers)...

Thank you for sharing @Akimbo! Can you tell us more about that last vice with the ratchet strap? At my previous establishment we had the V-shaped vice from Global Scuba Manufacturing. Is this the same one?

FYI - Kuakini Hyperbaric Treatment Center in Honolulu, HI is now seeking a new Medical Director and has a physician opening. Please see link below for more info and share to interested parties. Careers

Our mesophotic team probably has over 500 collective hours using the NERD and have had 1 failure in that time from a flooded battery compartment. Since the NERD 2 is rechargeable, hopefully that failure point will be eliminated in the future.

If you have the budget for it, Shearwater's NERD would satisfy both the loop and deco monitoring concerns. I love using it and looking forward to upgrading to the NERD 2. I also use a standalone too but that's because I encounter more deco time than most. I have plenty of dives just using the...

Nice! Happy to see such large Porites (lobata?) that's healthy. Our massive ones in Kona were killed in the 2015 El Nino bleaching event :(.

Aloha! I live on Hawai'i Island (AKA the "Big Island"). Given your choices I'd recommend the Big Island for sure. I've dove most of the main Hawaiian Islands and Hawai'i is still my favorite. Plus we have the world famous manta dive as @diversteve mentioned. We also have some of the best coffee...

The Palau Central Hotel was FANTASTIC, very solid breakfast, great service, and nice new rooms.

I prefer my Big Blue lights over my SOLAs. I was originally attracted to them from another colleague that also does deep videography. My avatar photo (<--) is me using my VL7500P at 110m on a fish survey, and it's survived many dives in that range. Great value, lots of lumens! I highly...

I used to have SOLAs but now use Big Blues and have been very happy with the switch. I also have the VL7500s and love them. I'm amazed by the value, output, and burn time mine have given me! While the SOLAs are "sealed," I've had too many problems with the charging contacts over the years, and...

I haven't found the need to so yet with my system, they're pretty strong! If your light has some sort of loop, you could attach it via bungee or line to the tray. I wonder if you could drill a tiny hole to feed the line inside the LocLines and out the bottom to attach? Wonder if that would also...

I have. I've done fish surveys with DPVs and would bring float so the boat could follow us for support (but have also done from shore). I have a hard plastic "torpedo float," very popular with free divers here. I hardly seem to notice it after awhile, just try not to do too many barrel rolls or...