1st Liveaboard trip, what to bring?

[Damselfish]

What about dive lights? I have my BCD light that I carry on all dives, and the bigger hand-held. Are they worth taking or do most liveaboards provide lighting equipment?

I would take them. They will generally have lights for rent, but they tend to be pricy probably because of the cost of batteries. I don't think you'd want to rent for all dives.

 

[mike_s]

Ok My standard advice for trips. A Visa/Mastercard, opposite of your primary card and from a different bank. Also call both Credit card companies and tell them what countries you will be visiting.
When you get back change the card numbers if you go to a establishments with questionable buisness practices.
I travel alot on buisness and have had holds put on my credit card because I was in too many cities/countries in a short period of time.

This is good advice.....

I used to travel internationally a lot for work, so I really never ran into this problem as my credit card companies thought it was normal to have a lot of international charges, however, I've been on trips with others who don't travel alot and they've had problems like this before.

I've found that if you go with one of the "bigger name cards" like American Express that you don't have problems like that and they also have international toll free call numbers and offices in other countries that make it easier to deal with. Something the small mom&pop banks at home that offer their own version of VISA don't have...