Newbie with newbie gear questions

[j.doe]

You will love the excursion. I am in the pool all the time with mine, and I just insure that I rinse it well with the local hose afterward. Usually most pools will let you use theirs. Or you can just take it with you down into the shower and shower with all your gear on and take it off piece by piece there.

Pick up a couple Zip ties, they fix everything. A whistle, a SMB, And a good dive knife and a backup especially if you are going to be doing some diving without a dive master.

 

[RTee]

I will not repeat what others have said considering that you have already purchased your gear. Interesting choice considering that at some point in time you might be lurking into a more technical oriented diving. However, the gear you have should serve you well for the initial type of diving you have in mind. (OW, AOW, etc)

Light, SMB and compass...+1. These will pretty much be useful to you right now and most of them are prerequisite for AOW. I would opt for an independant compass and not one integrated within something else. Good old analog compass is much more reliable than an all signing all dancing electronic one that now relies on circuitry and....a battery.

Tanks vs compass...not much different between steel and aluminium except most folks flirting with technical diving will go for steel tanks and have them assembled in doubles due to their trim characteristics as well as their much greater capacity (100, 117, 119, 120, 130 and 150 cft). Other advantage of steel tank is that most of them remain slightly negative when low on gas or empty which means that normally you will be requiring a minimum of five lbs less weight on the belt if diving single tank. For your info, when I dive doubles in fresh water using my SS backplate (weighs 6 lbs)/Wing and dry suit, I do not use a weight belt at all.

Have fun diving

 

[retro-steve]

Looks like I will pick up a light and SMB as I can see these being very useful, as for the compass I think I'm going to rent one to try it out, I've done a lot of land nav through the army and something as simple as a 5ft steel spike in the ground can throw your reading off by quite a bit, so I can't imagine what a large steel tank would do. I do not know anything about underwater navigation, however, so I do believe an underwater nav course is definitely in order.

I'll clarify now that my post is a little enthusiastic in what my goals are, anything on the advance side, wreck and cavern, I intend to do when I have significantly more dives in knowing the danger of it, my intention is to do the intro courses to these activities to learn how to be safe and then only try anything advanced when I'm well and ready. Most of my diving will probably be shallower dives as I can't see my girlfriend, who I will do a lot of diving with, being comfortable with the more advanced activities.

Should it turn out that my passion goes towards underwater activities that require more advanced gear I will just buy it as I need it.

 

[lowviz]

Looks like I will pick up a light and SMB as I can see these being very useful, as for the compass I think I'm going to rent one to try it out,.........................

Rent two of them, one that you read by looking down from the top and a side-view model (window in the side of the case). Buy the type that best suits you. There is also wrist mount, console, and retractor to consider. Search these topics, many opinions on all the above.

Very useful device in poor visibility conditions, all too easy to get disoriented. Even in a quarry it is nice to be able to confirm the direction of your intended exit point. (see post #10 )