Totally new to diving

[Scott William Miller]

Drich22, actually i worked in the public safety sector for many years and i love helping others and to be honest my heart is into search and rescue. I know the corpses can be gruesome but it wouldn't be my first dead body and if I can somehow bring some relief to a family or loved one by finding and or rescuing that someone. Than it would be all worth it to me. Thank you to everyone I appreciate all the advice'

 

[Khrissi]

I would personally recommend ( as i am a new diver too) the Puk marez as its inexpensive and simples and Egypt as its fab diving. Everything else you can hire til you get what suits you.

My 50bucks wetsuit off ebay was great. Mask for 20 bucks also good in spite of others rubbishing it straight out of the bag. Take yr time mate. K

 

[Jackie Treehorn]

Welcome to the wonderful world of diving.

Try to find a local dive store if you can. That will help you in many ways. Don't worry about gear at this point, worry more about getting the most out of your instruction.

The most important focus item is this -- After getting certified, try to dive as much as you can. Learn from people you meet and from your own experiences. This will allow you to make real life connects which will help your diving immensely.

Use this forum and other internet forums with caution. While there is a wealth of info on here, there is also alot of noise. Get that experience first and then augment it with the info on here.... by then you will be able to filter the good info and positive contributors from the forum jockeys.

 

[Addicted2H2O]

First off, congratulations on making the decision to dive head first into the depths with he rest of us! It sounds like you're pretty intent on making diving a passion and that's a good thing. Be sure to take any instruction you receive seriously and try to learn as much from it as you possibly can. Once you get your open water certification, dive as much and as often as you can. Once you have 15-20 dives or so, take an Advanced Open Water course and a peak buoyancy course. Peak buoyancy may well be one of the most important courses you take as it will help you figure out how to get yourself into good horizontal trim underwater, which will increase your efficiency, decrease your exertion and help to maximize your bottom time. Advanced Open Water introduces you to a few different specialties and sort of gets you in the door with dive operators for doing more "advanced" dives. What's going to make you stand out more to dive operators, though, is how you dive. Usually the first dive you make with a dive operation is for them to size up your capabilities and let them know if you're fit to take on more challenging locations without them needing to hover around you like a mother hen. So again this is where that peak buoyancy class comes in. I'm surprised no one has mentioned taking a "fundies" class yet. This further enhances your diving abilities and helps you to develop your basic skills far beyond that of your open water class. Not an inexpensive class but most will tell you it was money well spent.

As far as gear, it seems like you have some decent stuff in your dive bag already. At this point, though, I'd be wary of buying anything more (save maybe a good dive computer) because you may find that as you continue to dive you don't actually like the gear you've already purchased and would much rather have Gear X instead. This is why it's a good idea to rent gear until you've got several dives under your belt. Renting gear allows you to try different configurations without committing too much financially, helping to figure out what you like and don't like. You may very well find out that you don't exactly like the gear you have so I'd probably steer clear of buying too much else, again unless you want to get a good dive computer. One that I recently bought as my son's first dive computer is the Deep Blue Cosmiq+ and I gotta say for the price point, it's been a great computer so far! It'll be what gets me into diving a wrist mount with air integration, which I've been really hesitant about diving for quite some time.

I hope this information helps and I really hope you get everything out of diving that you aspire to. It's changed my life and I'm sure it will yours too!

 

[StevenRN]

Being new, I am only suggesting that you look at Brian Stafford from Lake Hickory Scuba in Taylorsville, NC, probably not too far from you. He has over 700 videos on various topics, but several of them are based around public safety/search and recovery. Public Safety work is truly a thankless career, but so needed. I am a 1st Receiver, not a 1st Responder and see my share of dead bodies, but not where they were found.

It sounds like you are already in that career, so if you are, take advantage of any training that is offered. If you look towards FEMA, DHS, Urban Area Security Initiative and other Federally funded training opportunities, there are hundreds of classes that are offered (once the pandemic is over) at no cost with some even including travel, lodging, and food as well, so keep looking.

Good luck.

 

[vwfinatic273]

The best approach I believe is to start diving and meet people, talk to them about the gear they use and why, I can recommend some and explain why I use them also. Some people will even let you try things and you can see for yourself how you feel with them. Sola dive lights are really good, just found them, they are about $180. I have a knife but man it's really just a safety thing in case you need to cut yourself loose or get tangled up in something. Just needs to be stainless and the plastic holsters usually hold up well, a $15 ebay or $80 scuba pro will do fine. Also, what type of computer are you wanting? A console or a wrist type.