This is going to be so much fun....and expensive...LOL

[Gary Stinar]

So my wife and I went to Mexico for our honeymoon, we took out 4 children with to make it a family vacation as well. We all did a "pool try out" and then took an introductory dive with Dressel Divers! The staff were amazing and we had a blast, 3 of our children ended up not having a good time on the open water dive (rough seas got 2 sick and another panicked). The dive instructor who was with them took care of the 2 sick kids as if they were his own, I couldn't believe how much effort and caring he put into trying to make them as comfortable as possible while my wife, our oldest daughter, myself and 3 other instructors finished our dive! The 3 of us are hooked on diving but the attention, care and consideration that was showed to our sick children by these instructor...I think that is what completely made up our minds.

We are just starting out, wanting to buy the best possible equipment we can get for the price (we are on a budget as I work full time, wife part time but will have to quit to finish school). We want to make sure what we buy is going to be items that will last us long into our diving lives and can be used in fresh and salt water. We live in North Dakota but plan on traveling all over the world and then retirement will be traveling all over the USA with a camper, motorcycle and dive equipment....lol.

My wife found this board and set up an account as well, we are open to all kinds of advice and suggestions and also looking for "dive buddies" who are either in our area or we can meet through online and plan a vacation dive together!

As far as work, well I spent 10 years in the North Dakota National Guard...yeah yeah...weekend warrior, whatever but I was also a Federal Tech and worked Mon-Fri doing the same thing (Huey, Blackhawk, Kiowa and Lakota crewchief). Now I am a Correctional Officer at a max security prison and enjoy my job there. My beautiful wife (we just got married Jan of 2020) spent many years as a Vet Tech before relocating to North Dakota and then became a Paramedic, now she is going to school full time to become a nurse!

So that's pretty much us in a nutshell, there is always more but let's get to know each other first....lol

 

[Edward3c]

Hi, and welcome to this fantastic underwater world.

If your ever in Scotland your more than welcome to come diving with us.

It really doesn't matter which agency you start with, just remember you normally get what you pay for. Most dive operators value Mastercard, Visa and AMEX over agency cards.

 

[formernuke]

Welcome to the rabbit hole. How far you go down is up to you.

As stated above agency isn't that big a deal. More important is a good instructor.

 

[iamrushman]

howdy and welcome from southeast florida....congratulations on your wedding.

 

[Sean Walberg]

Congratulations! Have you considered renting gear for the first little while until you figure out what it is you like? Buy your own mask and fins, and rent the rest until you know what it is you like. If price is a factor then used gear might be a way to go, and for that it really helps for you to know what models and features are important to you.

 

[MichaelMc]

Wow. Welcome. You'll should make a great dive team. Helo crew chief, mechanic, and medic. Damn.

Diving is a bit shut down for the pandemic, so a good time to read up, plan, etc.

Instruction: Navy dive manual is free and gives good overview of physics/physiology. The later procedure chapters you could skip, or with your background, read for an intro into one operating mindset from one you already know. Not that civilian diving uses that mindset. Doing just that might get you a long way on instruction. And on having a reference to judge if any instructor is way off base.

https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Portals/103/Documents/SUPSALV/Diving/US DIVING MANUAL_REV7.pdf?ver=2017-01-11-102354-393

The Navy dive manual gives you the basics on being underwater. But not hardly any on moving about. You might look at the threads on training neutrally buoyant. It is an approach many here advocate. Also at discussions on buoyancy and trim. Again, welcome.

Gear: A can of worms. I'd browse the "Diving into New Gear" sub forum. Most of the discussion that has been had, have been gently rehashed there. With both your backgrounds I'd suggest you may appreciate the durable adaptable reconfigurable options that are available. On regulators, with your mechanical background I'd take a peak in the `vintage` regulators section, several here use, service, educate, and rebuild them.

 

[tbone1004]

welcome!

and it's going to be a LOT less expensive if you listen to the advice on this forum than it would be if you didn't stop in here. Please feel free to ask all sorts of questions, there are some true experts in the field on this forum that are more than willing to help you

 

[Compressor]

Welcome to ScubaBoard. Nothing beats diving with friends and family. It's time well spent. As others have said, ask and you will get answers.

 

[txgoose]

Welcome, welcome. Read for a while. Ask questions for a while. You don't have to buy the most expensive stuff to get quality, but you will want to research to know you're getting quality. FYI, my personal best advice for scubaboard newbies is about how to search. Use google. Love scubaboard, its search not so much. i.e. in the google search bar make your search pattern be "site:www.scubaboard.com cut webbing" or "site:www.scubaboard.com BCD" Without the quotes. Quotes are best used if you want to link multiple words together in a search patten. more like site:www.scubaboard.com "cut webbing"

Enjoy your time here. Ask a lot of questions before you buy. Watch for just a few days and you can start to figure out who some gurus are. A couple have already posted in your thread.

Oh, and as a family of divers, I can also verify the expense issue. Good luck. For me it has been worth every dollar.