Hi everyone, excited to be joining you

[David_Ramsey]

howdy and welcome from southeast florida....good luck with your classes.

Thank you!

 

[David_Ramsey]

Welcome and good luck with your course & trips. Yes, ScubaBoard is the best forum, and the most populated. I joined many forums when starting out 15 years ago. This and one local one remain my only ones.

Thank you!

 

[David_Ramsey]

I’ve listened to, and read Dave Ramsey for years. As long as David is not funding this on credit, I’m pretty sure he would be all for it.

David, many of us started diving pre-kids, and took long breaks, then returned to diving once kids were grown. You are not too far off track from the norm. Hope you find a good instructor and have a great time!

Thank you and none of this will be financed.

 

[David_Ramsey]

David, welcome to Scubaboard and I like your enthusiasm for diving. I see you are in NC which gives you a lot of opportunities for diving. Not only do we have great diving on our coast, but we also have several quarries in the state set up for diving, 3 or which are within about an hour or less drive time from Matthews (one is at Lake Norman.) When you and your wife get your certifications, my wife and I would be happy to meet up with you for some diving. We dive almost every weekend somewhere through the summer.

Good luck and have fun getting those certs.

Thanks that sounds great. I'll have to pick your brain on best local dives. Right now we're taking a look at Cozumel for a first trip after certs.

 

[JackOfDiamonds]

If you are not related to Gordon Ramsey i will be really disappointed

 

[Vitesse2l]

Hi DR,

Cost per dive depends on the type of diving you want to do. Following a DM or hanging out with a group of dive buddies could be quite different. Generally though the big ticket stuff will last several years. Some of it for your whole dive career.

It pays to check through a few threads here instead of buying twice! Hope you both get as excited about diving as I do.

 

[David_Ramsey]

If you are not related to Gordon Ramsey i will be really disappointed

Somewhere along the line I'm sure we are.

 

[David_Ramsey]

Hi DR,

Cost per dive depends on the type of diving you want to do. Following a DM or hanging out with a group of dive buddies could be quite different. Generally though the big ticket stuff will last several years. Some of it for your whole dive career.

It pays to check through a few threads here instead of buying twice! Hope you both get as excited about diving as I do.

Thanks! Excited so far!

 

[GreggS]

Thanks that sounds great. I'll have to pick your brain on best local dives. Right now we're taking a look at Cozumel for a first trip after certs.

You're more than welcome to PM me and I'll give you whatever info I can. Being in Matthews, there is a possibility you may do your in water training dives at the Lake Norman quarry. It is part of NC PDRA .

And although Coz is a great place to dive, I would suggest getting a few local dives in first, just to "get your feet wet" and acclimated to diving post-cert. The waters of Coz will be mesmerizing after diving in the local quarries.

 

[kelemvor]

It seems like there are quite a few fixed costs - computer, mask, fins, wetsuit, BCD, regulator, etc. But once you get past that, the cost per dive is a bit cheaper, yes? At least that what it looks like from a complete novice view.

That's one way to do it.

There's more brands and styles of each of those components than you can shake a stick at. Dive shops get in bed with one or two brands and most will tell you the brands they don't sell are not good. so...

Another option is to rent for a while (maybe your first year of diving) so you can develop an opinion about what you like and what works for you. If you do decide to rent gear for a while, then make sure you rent from different places. There's no point in doing the renting thing if you rent the exact same stuff every time.

Dives in Florida tend to cost between $50 and $100 for a "two tank" trip. That includes the boat ride, two tanks of air, usually a snack in between dives, and usually a dive-master in the water with you. Equipment rental is usually about $50/day. Maybe a little less if you're renting from the shop which owns the boat you're using. Obviously prices vary and that's not exactly what you'll pay everywhere. I think that's good for a rough estimate of costs.

The big cost in diving is travel. Most people want to go dive in awesome and exotic locations. I didn't think I would, but 3 years after certification I started flying down to Mexico or Honduras for a week at a time... Airfaire, hotel, food.. those are the big ticket items.


Whatever you do, try to avoid a "package deal" on equipment at a dive shop. While some of the gear in the package is okay, they usually throw in a bunch of junk that sucks up your money, is un-necessary and probably useless. It's a common thing for shops to do. Go ahead and buy from a shop, but put together the list of stuff you want on your own.