Dive computer necessary?

[beaverdivers]

For $24, you can get an ERDP and do multilevel plans. Still not as nice as a computer

If you use an eRDP, then you need a watch & a depth gauge.
Total cost for eRDP, watch & depth gauge about $100+ dollars.

You can rent a dive computer for about $10/day or $50/week.

You can buy an excellent dive computer for under $300.

Almost all ( 95% ) recreational divers are using dive computers or they are blindly just following the divemaster ( Bad Idea! ).

 

[Tigerman]

I have flooded my computer during a dive. I do however also dive with a dive watch and have enough dives to know what kind of profiles is within reason. So in short I can do a dive by the tables and watch, its just easier to do it by the computer.
Knowing how to dive tables and watches still can save your dive, but its much convenient with computers.

 

[Damselfish]

Whether or not a computer is required, you should buy or rent one for this sort of diving, if the op does not supply one free. You've spent the money to get there, spend a little more and get much more bottom time.

I don't know if you're going with a buddy, but if you're going someplace alone and expecting to buddy up with someone there, you're unlikely in this day to find anyone who is willing to dive table profiles with you, or even planned multilevel dives. On most tropical sites, you may splash with a general idea of what you're going to do, but once you're down there you will modify that according to details of the topography, what the critters are doing, etc. So even a multilevel dive plan made in advance doesn't work all that well - it may get you more time but possibly not time where you really want to be once you're down there and you want a better look at the ray or turtle cruising by, or someone 10 feet below you finds a seahorse.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

For $24, you can get an ERDP and do multilevel plans. Still not as nice as a computer but much better than the impossible to use ( for me ) and no longer available PADI wheel. ( you don't even want to go there) At least with the eRDP you're not stuck with a single level. I actually like my ERDP. You will need a bottom timer, if only a decent watch that can be taken to 150 feet. I used tables for 5 years before I bought a computer.
Most live a boards require a computer.
There are quite a few reasonably nice computers in the $200 range, even with nitrox. I just bought an Aeris XT wrist model that does nitrox for a little over $200.

I liked the Wheel and did not find it hard to use,although admittedly it did require a degree of currency to be good with it. I suspect I liked it for the same reason I like the E6B flight computer - the circular slide rule type layout, and at the time it came out, computers were less capable, more expensive and less common.

But the Wheel cost almost $50 by the time it passed into history and by the time you bought it and a suitable dive timer or dive watch, you'd have spent enough to buy a low end computer given the price drop in computers by then.

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I agree with what Marci states regarding the advantage of a dive computer whether you are diving air or nitrox. Most reef type dive sites have a fair amount of vertical relief and a diver really benefits from the multi-level capability of a computer. Given what a diver spends on a dive trip, why would anyone even consider going cheap and saving a couple hundred bucks NOT getting a dive computer and in the process sacrifice about half their bottom time on the trip?

 

[grassgreen]

Read a earlier post from this week, Bent in Belize!! dont make the same mistake as this guy!!

 

[diverrex]

Your dives in Belize will mostly likely be multilevel to such a degree that without a computer you are then mostly do "trust me" dives off the DM or other diver's computer. Not a good idea. I see limited sense in taking a tropical dive vacation without a dive computer.

 

[Tigerman]

Read a earlier post from this week, Bent in Belize!! dont make the same mistake as this guy!!

Id rather not be bent anywhere, but thats just me

 

[peterbj7]

Whether or not a computer is required, you should buy or rent one for this sort of diving, if the op does not supply one free

No op here will give a dive computer for free. I did, but stopped when one was stolen by the diver it had been lent to. One bad apple will taint a whole container-load of barrels.

But for Belize diving and indeed any warm water resort diving, a dive computer is pretty much de rigeur. Profiles are too erratic for tables to work. Like dive insurance, just regard it as one of the costs of going diving. Treat it like the precision instrument it is, avoiding knocks, and be extremely careful with re-sealing if you change the battery yourself. And wash it with warm water and soap at the end of every day's diving. A decent computer should last you many years of diving. Because of that, don't think in terms of your current diving standard but think ahead, so always get a computer that's nitrox-capable.

Oh, and replace the battery before a dive trip. You'd be amazed how many people come here and immediately look to get their computer battery replaced. The latest I was asked about was a Suunto D4. No-one here can open that computer, no-one has any o-rings, and if you find a battery that fits it's probably been on the shelf for several years. The only one of that type that I can open is a Suunto Stinger, as I have one myself and bought the opening tool. I also have some new spare batteries and one o-ring.

Suunto have a crazy way of appointing service engineers. To be eligible to attend one of their courses you have to be a dealer with a track record of buying a large number of units from them - I forget how many, but 50/year seems to ring a bell. Fine perhaps in Europe or America, but completely fanciful down here. I ran a very busy gear shop for several years, and never came close to 10% of that number of dive computers of all makes. And unless you're an accredited service engineer you can't buy any of their tools, not even o-rings. So the one I bought was a copy. I am a service engineer for several makes of computer, but not ever Suunto.

I might add that as computers are now so cheap, it's a good idea to have two. On the deep dives you can carry both to give redundancy, and on the shallow ones you have a spare in the event that your battery fails, or worse. Just remember that a computer that hasn't been on a particular dive has no knowledge of the nitrogen you absorbed during that dive, so if your primary computer fails during a day of dives, either stop diving for that day or dive shallow and extremely conservatively.

It's a moot point whether the two computers, when you're carrying both, should have the same algorithm or not. There are arguments both ways. I prefer to use computers from different manufacturers which start reading quite differently after a couple of dives near to the limits. I generally dive according to the more conservative one, except when from my experience I know I can push things a bit harder. This area is quite controversial.

 

[Bubba1]

Wow! what a wide variety of opinions.
To answer your question directly, 'No' no one on Ambergris Caye will insist you use a computer. A few shops rent them but very few and most dive operations plan their dives using the Recreational Dive Planner by PADI and that is perfectly safe and practical.
I've been on more than 8000 dives over a period of 30 years and say,
computers make me feel more comfortable but I don't 100% trust them and I like to use some common sense backed up by the tables when I'm using the computer.
I love my wife who is a diver so I bought her a computer! I dive with one just in case things get crazy in a rescue or other type of emergency where I might be called on to violate the dive plan.

 

[tracydr]

If you use an eRDP, then you need a watch & a depth gauge.
Total cost for eRDP, watch & depth gauge about $100+ dollars.

You can rent a dive computer for about $10/day or $50/week.

You can buy an excellent dive computer for under $300.

Almost all ( 95% ) recreational divers are using dive computers or they are blindly just following the divemaster ( Bad Idea! ).

Absolutely true.
I think GUE divers prefer to dive with bottom timers and Min Deco tables.
Have you seen the Xen liquivision bottom timer? Sweet piece of equipment but certainly not for saving money on a computer.
i was just bringing it up because the original question was "do you need a computer?". Of course, there are other options that are safe and effective. Maybe not cheaper, but certainly effective.