ericfine50:
well, are you planning on diving up here locally? Just going away to dive a few times a year? Do you see yourself progressing in the sport to higher levels?
These are some of the questions, you need to keep in mind when looking at gear.
Eric
I plan to be an avid local diver high high hopes of getting south once a year, I also have occasional business travel that may let me get in elsewhere.
I have enjoyed Maine ocean snorkeling since I was a kid though there was a long period in there when I forgot what a beach was, major regrets on that one. I'm now 48
2 years abo my daughter an I sprang for 3mm wetsuiits so we could stretch the season snorkeling and that was nice.
This past summer (2004) the bug bit me bad in early June and before I knew it my wife joined me and we invested in good gear (in case we decided to advance to SCUBA) including masks, snorkel, fins, gloves booties, weight belts, 5mm full suits and hooded vests. We dove from Hampton NH to Schoodic Point, north of Acadia national park and had a great time. Also many lakes including McKinney park on Winnie. We ended in November with water temps in the low 50's and would have kept going exept I had to get the homestead ready for winter. Too bad the ocean was so churned up at that time, I missed having a last dive of the season in salt water. Over the summer I collected 214 golf balls. My personal best 43 43 in a dive, my collection bag was so heavy I was swimming in circles.
I ended up with 91 logged dives averaging an hour. In the second half of the season a typical dive was 1:30 - 1:45. She did 50. She needed the summer to get warmed up to the idea of diving. We have both done discover dives so we have a fair sense of what it's all about and the experince seemed natural to both of us. Being the analytical type I have been overdosing on Scuba board for about 6 months and it will be interesting to see if my learings here match what I am taught. She on the other hand is an "expressive" and is waiting to be taught, once in a while she has a question but so far her attitude is to wait to be taught when the time comes. Our skills and attitudes usually complement each other and I hope we make a good buddy pair.
After getting our gear squared away and perhaps a dozen (this is a wild a$$ guess) dives under our belts I figure we will begin to know how much we don't know and plan to do AOW before the end of the 2005 season. We are certainly intersted in night diving and want to be able to go deep (rec limits) when the occasion arrises. Navigation is another gotta have along with buddy rescue. That should be a good start. I'm thinking of nitrox somewhere along the way to get the most out of warm water trips, I'd love to do a liveaboard at leat once. I don't see us getting beyond recreational limits. I do enjoy instructing and writing (can you tell?) so something that allows me to assist an instructor might be of interst in a few years when I'm experinced enough.
Holly crap, did I answer your question?
There's probably a web page in my future about our summer of skin diving and a future scuba page. For now this is my only adventure I have online.
http://home.gwi.net/~spectrum/poco.html
Sorry if I've posted this link before but this event is what set the hook for my wife and we both still pinch ourselves about it, was that for real?
Thanks,
Pete
I'm a gearhead and equipment will matter bigtime. I know that (nearly) any brand name stuff will be good and safe I just like making an informed decision when I pick. You are right about tastes changing with time and skill and will keep that in mind.
