Equipment Question

[Scuba Sciences]

Hi There,

The personal equipment (mask, fins, snorkel, boots and gloves) is the key equipment any diver will need. You can use this equipment to snorkel and of course scuba dive.

The most important of those items is the mask. It needs to be comfortable, fit your face, allow great vision and work with prescription lenses if you need them. It should be made of tempered glass and silicone for the skirting to be safe and durable.

I work at Scuba Sciences in Phoenix. We have 2 locations one just south of Dunlap on the west-side access road of I-17 and another at 2348 N 7th Street. We have a special Customer Appreciation Day on December 2nd at our Metro location (8502 N Black Canyon Highway) from 8-4 pm. At this sale we will have huge deals on all scuba equipment as well as snorkeling equipment from 10-70% off!! Most of the equipment we sell in our two stores carries a lifetime warranty from companies like Scubapro, Zeagle, Deepoutdoors, and more. You can save a ton of money and get a great deal on the classes and equipment for your Christmas surprize!

We will be having a special on Scuba Classes that begin in Jan / Feb too, buy one class, get one free! Can't get any better than that!

Just wanted to give you a heads up!

Tina
Scuba Sciences, Inc.
Plan your dive, dive your plan and be safe!

 

[pinkladydi]

dive gear is life support equipment, buy it with that in mind.
snorkeling stuff is a lower grade gear, than the quality of a dive mask,
EX; a good dive mask with proper care will last 10+ years but we pay over $100 for it
visit your local shops, develop a relationship with the staff and shop around,
not necessarily for price but for service/ personality,
we either use the gear till it's outdated or we loose a piece of gear and need to replace it.
personally I will update my gear then sell my used stuff while it still has a lot of life left in it.
I LIKE THE FOLLOWING SHOPS;
EL MAR,........ a great sale in may,...awsome repair person
SCUBA SPECIALTIES..........mike cain auction
OCEAN PLANET ......monthly pool party/BBQ

 

[booth22]

I LIKE THE FOLLOWING SHOPS;
EL MAR,........ a great sale in may,...awsome repair person

FWIW, El Mar (one of the repair guys) tried to sell me a long hose (7ft) for "roughly a dollar an inch"- and yes I thought it sounded weird and double checked he knew what I was talking about and he confirmed it- around $70-80 for a 7ft reg hose :shakehead . Haven't been big fans ever since. Well, that and the time the wife was trying on a used drysuit and when we asked the sales guy about the fit (first drysuit purchase) he said - i think it looks alright. and left it at that. no mention of how snug/loose it should fit, etc. etc.


On a positive note, I will say we used Bill for our drysuit certs and he was great, as was the class. I'd highly reccommend him for anyone looking to get the drysuit cert.

 

[GreenDiverDown]

FWIW, El Mar (one of the repair guys) tried to sell me a long hose (7ft) for "roughly a dollar an inch"- and yes I thought it sounded weird and double checked he knew what I was talking about and he confirmed it- around $70-80 for a 7ft reg hose :shakehead . Haven't been big fans ever since.

Well.. that could have been right depending on what you were looking at. For instance, the hoses for Atomic regs and the hoses for Oceanics Delta 4 have very expensive swivels built in. These hoses cost about 80 bucks.

 

[booth22]

Well.. that could have been right depending on what you were looking at. For instance, the hoses for Atomic regs and the hoses for Oceanics Delta 4 have very expensive swivels built in. These hoses cost about 80 bucks.

Nope, this for an Aqualung Titan- which I did mention when asking for the hose. Nothing fancy here- so I called up the fellows at TDL and got my hose for around $25.

 

[PFF]

Give her like a gift certificate and let her have the fun of opening it....and then going shopping.

I have to agree with the gift certificate. If you want have some fun with it tape it to the back of a little kids snorkel and mask set. Attach it with a note that this may be upgradable with the gift certificate.

Given you have some time before Christmas, I would say you need to go have some fun yourself. Take the time to go around to each of the LDS in your area. Talk to them, see what type of training and equipment they offer. If there is a dive club in your local area attend a meeting and seek out their advice also.

 

[oly5050user]

My girlfriend and I are planning on taking our OW course here in town and then completing our check-out dives in Cabo San Lucas in June. She doesn't know this yet and I want to surprise her with some basic equipment for christmas and then tell her about it then. My question is what basic equipment should I get? Like mask, fins, etc. Anyone have any brand recommendations? Does that matter? Where's a good place to get them? I'm not lookin to get any actual scuba gear yet, buoyancy control and whatnot, until we've dove a few times and I'm confident it will be worth the money. Any advise would be greatly appreciated!!

for something as basic as a mask-fin -snorkel set which in most training
facilities are required personal equipment why even ask this question? Really should get this at the location that is training you. Start the relationship you will have with them on a trusting note.You trust them enough to get the most important item you can get for diving-your training.Why not trust them to set you up correctly with equipment.?The instructor teaching you will have the most vested interest in your purchasing the equipment that will work for you because it will make both your lives easier with proper functioning/fitting equipment during your training..I find when student divers take my advise the training sessions go much easier versus when they buy something a "friend" advised them on and then it does not fit or work properly for the type of diving they are doing,and there is nothing I can do about it being that they purchased elsewhere.You are paying the instructor for their advise on your endeavor to dive,why not follow it?

 

[Dive-aholic]

EX; a good dive mask with proper care will last 10+ years but we pay over $100 for it

Good equipment doesn't need to be expensive. I paid about $70 for my first mask. It served me well for about a year or so. I still have it now in my student gear pile. But I'm now using a $35 dive mask that I like much better and has lasted a couple years/couple hundred hours so far with no significant signs of use. I'm even still using the original mask strap.

 

[shark.byte.usa]

I called up the fellows at TDL and got my hose for around $25.

Well no shops in Southern/Central (SC) Arizona compete with TDL in price, actually don't think anyone can compete with most of the gear they offer, including the big e-tailers.

I'm very suprised that no shop in SC Arizona, has adopted the new "click-and-mortar" business model, it seems to me that the shops here are prime candidates for such a move( small market, saturated market, seasonal business, increased cost of doing business, etc.). They simply cannot compete for my gear dollars and I often wonder what the LDS landscape will be here in 2-3 years, especially now that some hard-liners like PADI and Atomic are crossing the proverbial line in the sand, with more manufacturers, etc. sure to follow.

Call me selfish but I would love to have a "click-and-mortar" shop locally, the best of both worlds, competetive pricing and the added convenience of walking in the shop and having my instant gratification too (Ahhh Heaven..). I thought about it and I'd proabably spend (way) more money, I'd definitely have more "impulse" buys, knowing I wasn't getting bent over the cash register. Whereas now that is the perceived case and once I get home and research prices online, I've have time to think about it and generally talk myself out of it or decide to wait for a bit, the impulse and thrill is gone.

Dare to dream my friends...DARE 2 DREAM!

-Garrett

P.S. I currently only wear 2 pieces of gear bought in a shop, my mask (my original from OW class) and my wetsuit (bought on sale/closeout). Everything else was bought from an "Authorized" e-tailer or eBay (fins only) and I've saved over $1K easily.

 

[Dive-aholic]

The reason most don't go e-tailer is because the manufacturers/distributors scare them into not doing it. I've talked to a couple of shop owners in SC AZ and all I hear is "so-so won't let us sell that for less". What they don't realize is that there are ways around that. Joel recently offered a special on Green Force lights. The lights sold for MSRP as required in his contract with Green Force. But with every purchase you got a $100 certificate for any future purchase of any non-Green Force product he sells. What a concept! Not only is he essentially lowering the price, but he's getting people to buy more from him. He offers similar deals all the time. If it's not the certificate, it's extra stuff he throws into the package to make up for the MSRP. Either way you always get your money's worth and then some. I just bought a helium analyzer from him because I couldn't pass up the deal. I've been in his shop (the back room), but to be honest, I'm glad he's not closer. I'd be in the poor house if he was...