Anyone dive a "Travel" BCD all the time?

[rongoodman]

But second hand. Save money.

(I've two Halcyon Evolves which I bought separately for under half price. I've one Halcyon Eclipse which I also bought at less than half price and the stitching had perished. Halcyon sold me a replacement outer for a fraction of the full price, so it's a new wing for half the price of a new wing!)

Backplate & wings are great. Probably your second BCD though.

Actually, it's the first one I ever bought, right out of OW. (I found Scubaboard pretty quickly!) The Eclipse is 15 years old now, I think I replaced the inflator once. I had to replace the bladder in my Evolve a few years ago because I damaged it in transit to Mexico somehow.

 

[Silt Life]

I dive the Zeagle Covert exclusively. I have two. One is next size up for wetsuit use. Due to the lack of connection points or storage pockets I have holster pockets when I need to carry extra gear.

 

[FishWatcher747]

I think you are being hoodwinked by the marketing term "travel" BC. As mentioned by another poster early on an aluminum backplate weighs less than 2 pounds and is perfectly suited for "traveling".

Avoid the mistake I made and just start with a BPW.

Also you will probably save money.

 

[Jayfarmlaw]

Pump the brakes Pistol Pete! It's your money, spend it how you want. My advice would be get certified first. There are some that have great difficulty equalizing and may not be able to dive.

A travel bcd may be a little lighter, maybe a smaller wing, fewer connection points, and pack a little easier. Big. Friggin. Deal. I can get a full set of gear and 3mm full suit , along with a weeks worth of clothes in a large, but airline legal, suitcase. Regs, computer, and maybe lights go in my carryon.

I could probably get mine in a large carry on unless a gate nazi wanted to make sure it would fit in the little square. Fins take up a lot of room no matter what you do. A travel bcd is mostly marketing hype.

I dive a softplate and wing, wife dives a women's jacket type bcd. Both sets of gear fit in the same size suitcase and weigh less than 50 pounds. That's about as travel friendly as it gets.

Right now you don't know what you don't know. There are hundreds of options beyond jacket type, back inflate, and BP/W. Beg, borrow, and rent umtil you find what is right for you. Lots of people don't like a back inflate and prefer a jacket type for a reason.

I spent a lot of money to figure this out, probably 7 to 10 Glocks worth, and that was buying mostly used gear.

There is actually some pretty mediocre diving in Oklahoma, sometimes bordering on good. Elmer Thomas (outside of Medicine park) had great visibility most of last year. Tenkiller has has 20+ recently but cold. Athens and Tyler Texas have Scuba parks as well and may be more driveable for you. I've heard of some abandoned quarries in SE Oklahoma with clear water, but have yet to find one.

Welcome to the addiction. All that money isn't going to spend itself and you can't find ammo anyway.

Jay

 

[hedonist222]

To me travel bcd means three things:

Light weight/compact
Lift for warm water
Fragile

The above aren't necessarily written in stone though

I used the hydros pro for two years on about 140 dives
Locally and abroad

Compact
More than enough lift for a rash guard and 4kg of weight

But fragile also
I am careful with handling my gear and that's why mine is in pristine condition
But for the price scuba pro charges, it should be much more durable
I know they advertise that's each part is replaceable but that shouldn't mean prematurely replaceable

But I can see it quickly falling apart if handled like a regular bcd
There's a lot of neoprene and plastic parts where there shouldn't be

It's an excellent dive though
I recently picked up a xDeep zen and could not tell a difference in dive between the two

 

[Searcaigh]

Fragile

The DiveRite travelpac does not fall into that category IMHO and is a good option.

As mine is one of the older models, the only downside it has is one tank strap, the newer model has two tank straps.

 

[Hoag]

@OKgunguy, until recently, I used exclusively travel BCDs. There are some very good ones out there and some that have some "idiosyncrasies". The last travel BCD that I had was a Cressi Air Travel. I would not recommend it to anyone especially a new diver. It was made out of some very lightweight materials, and while that is great when packing for a trip, when it was in the water, it was 4 pounds positively buoyant. The first 4 pounds of lead that you added was simply to offset the BCD.

For new divers, I tend to recommend that you try renting a few different types of BCD before you make your purchase. Find out what you like and what works best for you. If you haven't noticed it already, ScubaBoard tends to be very heavily biased toward BP/W Keep that bias in mind and take it with a grain of salt.

I dove for years using a variety of back inflate travel BCDs from a variety of manufactures such as Oceanic, DiveRite and Cressi. It can be done, just don't be in too much of a rush to buy one. Try as few and get what fits your needs the best.

 

[kelemvor]

If you haven't noticed it already, ScubaBoard tends to be very heavily biased toward BCD. Keep that bias in mind and take it with a grain of salt.

I imagine it might be frustrating for an older diver who took up diving years before the BCD was a thing. These days, it's a firmly ingrained standard that divers use BCD's.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I use the same Freedom Plate and wing every dive.

 

[Hoag]

I imagine it might be frustrating for an older diver who took up diving years before the BCD was a thing. These days, it's a firmly ingrained standard that divers use BCD's.

I think you just called me old. Actually, saying biased toward BCD was a typo. I have corrected it to read biased toward BP/W which is what I originally intended to write.

FWIW, I use a BP/W myself, I am just not blindly biased and I see that there are other viable options.