travisfull
Contributor
Hi everyone, considering that at the beginning of my “diving journey” I’ve made some mistakes in terms of “equipment choices”, wasting money and/or time, I wanted to share some general advices to all those fellow divers who are now facing the classical conundrum in terms of equipment choices. For most of you this is just good sense, but in my experience at the beginning it can be overwhelming considering the complexity of a proper scuba configuration.
- You often don’t know when you start diving what kind of diving are you going to do: we all start via the recreational way, and sometimes we end up in more tech courses over time. For this reason, when at the beginning of your journey you wanna buy new equipment bear in mind that “with a TEC equipment configuration you can do recreational diving, but its not true the other way around”: unless you are going toward the instructor route in the recreational world, think about buying equipment for a technical configuration even if you’ll be using it (at least at the beginning) to do recreational diving with your local diving center;
- Sometimes, your local diving is also a local dealers and since they have a real business to run and they bought equipment from one brand and not from another, they will tend to sell you what they have in stock and not necessarily it is the best equipment for your specific needs: before buying anything based on the advices of your local dealers (which are not necessarily bad advices) take a deeper look over the internet (scubaboard included) to see what other people buy and why;
- Drysuit: since it is probably the most expensive piece of gear you are going to buy, do your research and talk with all kind of divers (recreational, tech, salty or not salty water). A neoprene drysuit has definitely its own advantages (its warmer with less undergarments and consequently less expensive overall) and disadvantages (generally less mobility) but a trilaminate one will maybe serve you better over the long period: it can be used with a lot of different undergarments and it is ok for all different “schools”, including the stricter ones (GUE, UTD etc);
- BCD: if you go (and I strongly advice for it) toward the BP route, do not overthink about the brand because it is maybe the only piece of gear where it does not make such a big difference: an alluminium or steel backplate from the most trendy brand is basically the same as a cheaper one. Save money for your regulators;
- Regulators: do not save money here. If you have a budget, cut half of it to buy the best you can. It is better to have a mediocre drysuit/wetsuit and fins than a mediocre regulator: it does not matter what kind of diving you are doing;
- Computer: think about buying a multigas computer…by now you can find it at the same price of an air/nitrox computer (e.g. Garmin G1) but it will serve you over the long period;
- Multi use equipment: although 90% of your equipment will be for scuba only, you can still buy few pieces of your configuration that will serve you in other hobbies or everyday life: undergarments (a good pile is just a good pile, no matter if it is for mountain climbing or scuba) and computer (e.g. a multisport). It is good to buy specific tool for the specific job, but in a budget constrain environment and if you are at the beginning, postpone those expenditures once you know for sure that scuba will be your hobby for an extended period of time.
