Bring Brand New Gear on Vacation?

[jonhall]

toting around a soggy wetsuit is probably a pain.

If diving with a dive op multiple days, they may keep, rinse, and have your gear ready for the next day you dive. After your last day of diving, many ops will rinse (or allow you to rinse) and hang your gear at their shop to give it a chance to dry out - you pick it up later. If you have to tote it back and forth then a hangar does help.

 

[tep]

Apparently you? You'd be surprised how many don't know about those. I certainly didn't until last year or year before. Then again I had no reason to expedite the drying process because I just let them dry in the garage.

Huh. I had forgotten about those. I just moved from a house with a full double garage to hold/clean/dry the gear to a townhouse with practically zero space. It takes forever and a day for a wetsuit to dry in a bathroom compared to a warm (not hot) garage.

I gotta go shopping...

 

[berndo]

I would just go diving with it. I don't see the issue. Just the check the gear like you would the stuff you've had for a while. Maybe tell the guide that you got new stuff and ask if he can help you to properly adjust the BC, in case you need it.

 

[Marie13]

The HangAir (hanger with fan) is the hanger my drysuit lives on. Perfect size.

 

[Marie13]

Huh. I had forgotten about those. I just moved from a house with a full double garage to hold/clean/dry the gear to a townhouse with practically zero space. It takes forever and a day for a wetsuit to dry in a bathroom compared to a warm (not hot) garage.

I gotta go shopping...

HangAir for the inside and one of those small turbofans for the outside.

 

[Salamandra]

I don't have reasonable access to local diving and I used my new gear for the first time while traveling. I knew and trusted the divemasters and told them it was all new gear - they checked it out for me and kept a close eye on me - and had extra weight handy that I did end up needing.

If you're not comfortable with that, then I bet wherever you're going on vacation also has some shallow space that they use for the confined water instruction. Trying it there seems like it would be just as good as trying it out in the pool, and a lot less hassle/chlorine.

 

[kissonerga.ccr]

What do you think about bringing brand new untested gear on vacation?
I mostly dive on vacation, but have been trying to change that and recently bought a full set of gear. I'm from SoCal and our weather has been unusually cold and stormy lately, blocking my attempts to test out the gear locally before a vacation to the Azores. I purchased in a local dive shop so the BCD and regs were pressure tested together in store.
The only thing that would be possible between now and tuesday when I leave is testing in a pool (but a pretty chlorinated one).

Mostly good advice from others so far. My 2¢ would be: maybe make your first 1-2 dives essentially gear familiarization dives? Personally, I’m trying to follow the rule I learned in a different sport a long time ago – try only one new thing at a time, keep your stressors to a minimum.

Edit: yes, scuba gear in recreational configuration is pretty much standardized, so, you shouldn’t have big surprises with your new stuff. And yet, sometimes there is annoying lack of consistency, not just from one manufacturer to another, but even across different models of the same brand. My pet peeve of the month is the ‘dive / pre-dive’ switch on second stages. For some, pre-dive position is ‘in’, towards the diver, for others, it’s the opposite. If one has any muscle memory from the gear one used before, this becomes highly annoying, or worse. Hence, familiarization

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Why did you buy the stuff, so you can go on vacation and use rental gear?
What’s the difference between using your new gear or using rental gear? They’re both unfamiliar but you know the new stuff is yours and it’s brand new.
Nobody has puked in the reg, nobody has broken any parts on the bc so nothing is funkied together, or leaking, or broken. A DM could help you figure out weighting unless you know that now based on prior experience.
I wouldn’t use it in a pool, chlorine is too hard on fabric. Maybe the reg would be OK but why? Do you think it’s not going to work so you have to test it?

 

[berndo]

Why did you buy the stuff, so you can go on vacation and use rental gear?
What’s the difference between using your new gear or using rental gear? They’re both unfamiliar but you know the new stuff is yours and it’s brand new.

Hahahaha, pretty good point.

 

[fiveoboy01]

Take it and dive with it.

Keep the first couple dives conservative to uncover any possible issues and get used to the difference in gear. Beats using rental gear(which is much more unknown) by a mile.