How many Open Water divers buy gear?

[Centrals]

My daughters, on the other hand had their gear before the class. They did their pool sessions and all checkout dives with their own regulator, BC, and computer. Used the shops tanks, though as they were included and the shop had smaller tanks available. They also used the shops wetsuits. The girls were still growing like weeds, so I wanted to wait a bit on their wetsuits.

BC would probably have to go first and pass down to the younger!
BP/W could be another option in few yrs time.

 

[Belzelbub]

BC would probably have to go first and pass down to the younger!
BP/W could be another option in few yrs time.

Probably won’t outgrow the BCs. Got them Zeagles, which are modular. As they grow, I may need to swap out shoulder section, but so far, the oldest just needed to loosen straps a bit. Still plenty of room.

 

[wildbill9]

I did not read all the pages but I and my wife bought full sets of dive gear prior to being certified. I do have to question about the certification level being open water. It seems to imply that a person that is only OW is an inferior diver. Certification level to me is a farce, experience, knowledge and situational awareness create a safe diver. I know dive masters i would not trust as a dive buddy as much as my buddy who is only OW certified. She has 800 plus dives, dive master less than 100. But I do highly recommend buying your own gear; you are familiar with it and know it's history.

 

[MrCultureJammer]

I co-taught an open water class recently that had 22 new divers, and none of them bought anything from the dive shop gear-wise. Not one thing amongst all of them. The class comes with tanks and weights included, and that's all they got from the shop. They were not one large friend group (a few of them came in with 2 or 3 friends but a lot were solo new divers) but all of them either borrowed masks/snorkels/fins from friends or bought them online at Amazon, etc.

The intro classes are really cheap but the plan/hope/expectation is that the shop will make some of the $ back on gear, of course. Not sure about this race to the bottom with open water pricing but it seems people are figuring out ways around it.

 

[Cthippo]

Welcome to the board. Be aware this thread is from 2021.

 

[TMHeimer]

I bought it all (mostly used) during my OW course except the wetsuit. I bought that at Vortex Spring, FL after my first post cert. dives. They wouldn't give me the rental price off the purchase price, the cheapskates.

 

[MrCultureJammer]

Welcome to the board. Be aware this thread is from 2021.

Yep. Been here 15 years now I think. Just wanted to add my .02 after seeing that class.

 

[SouthernSharktoothDiver]

Hey, if we're starting this one up again, I'll chime in. Most of the people in my open water class, to my knowledge, did not buy gear. I know a handful of other divers IRL. Three do not own any gear except the basic fins, mask, wetsuit, etc, two own all the gear you would need to dive on your own. One is an older fellow who's been doing this since the 60's, the other is my cousin after I talked him into it.

I live in the south, so it's plenty warm, but the local diving is either niche, like fossil diving in a black, fast moving river, or hard to access, like off-shore dives that frankly aren't exactly stunning on the best of days, and cost quite a lot to charter a boat to. Most divers here are vacation divers, but the river gets its share. There's also a few lakes and quarries people dive in scattered around the state, but that's mostly bored college kids taking advantage of the club rental rates.

 

[RGatl]

I bought my equipment sometime between earning AOW and rescue ratings. I got tired of renting equipment on vacations that was suffering from heavy use and poor repair. it's also nice to have equipment that is familiar when i'm diving. I would recommend renting at the beginning to make sure you love it before investing $$$$.

 

[Tracy]

I bought a bunch of old gear on Craigslist and used that for my class and first couple years of diving. Then I bought different old gear on Craigslist. This has continued for more than a decade.