Here's my 2cents.
Don't spend your money twice. I heard some talk about steal vs aluminium tanks. AL makes no sense where you are at. Unless $$ is your motivating factor. And unfortunately if it is you will buy everything at least twice or you'll out grow your equipment and just suffer through with it anyway.
Buy once, buy it right and be done. It's cheaper and in two years you can celibrate a your intelligence by taking a $2500.00 trip somewhere for some really awesome diving.
Get Steal, where you live you'll be drysuiting it in REAL short order, and the bouyancy charactoristics will be greatly appreciated. If you have the $$ get 100cf or better. Who cares if your buddies dive 80's and you have extra gas, can you really have too much as long as it's a good fit? IMO NO!... I dive with buddies all the time who suck about 2x the amount of gas I do, they come up with 1000psi I come up with 2000... so. The problem isn't that I have too much... the real problem is that they don't have enough... They all bought bigger tanks so that they could match me.. So they all went and spent $150.00 on AL80's, I spent $325.00 on steal. Less than a year later they are buying the steal 95's, 119's etc at that 325$ or better... So they all have about 500$ wrapped up in tanks... who saved $$
Don't buy a computer unless it will attempt to track free phase gas's. There are a few out on the market. IMHO the Suunto Vytec is the best choice. The Vyper will work well, it just doesn't have some of the features you may want in the near/far future. However you will never outgrow them, you will only grow into them. They uses an RGBM math model (do some research via the web to find out more about that) they are fully Nitrox capable from 21 - 40% (Vytec 21 - 100%)... This will be nice in the future... the Vytec will let you use 3 gas's and change between them during the dive...This too may come in handy in the future.. if not who cares.. but odd's are in favor of you using it in the future as you guy's in BC have some FUN wrecks and deep walls so DECO could become something you do in the future.... Though you can do all this same stuff with a Vyper it will not keep track of it as the Vytec will.. If you really need to save $$ do the Vyper and learn to do DECO using tables right away. The Vytec has a nice stopwatch function that is real nice when doing DECO via tables (which is the best way anyway,... but thats another story!)
UWATEC is another good computer that use's micro-bubble technology. Nitrox ready etc..etc... Check them out also.
Do yourself a favor and get a weight integrated BC, go back inflation and stay away from anything that has pocket on it. You'll not like it in a few years. Less is more. Subscribe to the minimulistic principles and you'll love your gear FOREVER and there will be NO REASON TO BUY AGAIN... If you choose to reef dive you'll love it. If you choose to stay at 30' for the rest of your life... you'll love it... if you travel... you'll love it.... if you choose to head off to Mexico and happen to do some cenote diving and want to try some caverns... you'll love it... cave's... you'll love it... wrecks, what ever you want to do you can. Buy a jacketstyle bc, there are places you cannot go, and things you cannot do. Yes you will spend more upfront no question... and if you can say for sure "I'll never do wrecks, caves, deep stuff with twins" then a jacket style will work but you probably won't love it 3-5 years from now. Buy a back inflation, backplate and harness system and you'll love it forever and if you choose to do some of the deeper stuff with twins, caves, wrecks etc... you won't buy another BC... Buy a jacket style and then start doing this stuff and you'll be back shopping for a new backplate and harness system.
Reg's... there are no cheep regs... anything cheap should be used in a pool only and you'll hate them in short order then go and buy the good stuff anyway. Stick with the best of the best Scubapro and Apex (with the Atomics pushing pretty hard at the threshold). Scubapro and Apex both have a free parts for life program when bought from an authorized dealer. You can go and buy a cheap regulator for 350.00 it'll be alright. But the best reg's will only cost you 550 - 600... AND you'll never pay for parts if you follow the maintainence program. that could potentially save you the cost of the reg's over the lifetime of the unit.. (Yes, it would be a LONG time) But we see reg's all the time that are 20years old. 30$ a yr for 20 yrs... 600bucks.. I think I'll replace mine before 20years but many people do not... just an example.
Like anything in life you get what you pay for and this is stuff our life depends on DON'T,,, DON'T be cheap and try to pinch pennies here. This is when you want to over budget. If you spend it now you will save at least 2x the $$ differece between the right stuff and the cheaper stuff over the long haul.
The last thing I'd say to you is to find yourself a local dive store that you like and trust, I'd ask you why you don't trust the folks that trained you?... If they were smart enough to teach you the skills that your life will depend on underwater I wonder why the shouldn't be able to help you make some equipment choices? Perhaps you didn't learn through a shop, or you didn't feel comfortable with them. If however you did learn through a shop and you do feel comfortable with them I'd urge you to give them your business. They go through alot of work to stay in business and provide education. They spend alot of $$ to have equipment in the shop for customers so they don't have to wait. Not to mention pay employees so that you have someone to come and get information from, they plan dives to local areas. It may seem like all they do is sit around getting fat.But heres the real deal. Without diveshops, no one learns to dive except by trial and error. No new divers and the MFG's go out of business. No MFG's = no equipment... Support you locals, keep you $$'s in your town, help the people who you trust to train you stay in business so that you have a place to go for further education, travel, local dives etc.
Just my 2 cents.... I'll go now it's late and I'm mumbling....blah,blah,blah,blablablba
Waynne Fowler
