Vacation divers - when did you decide to buy your own gear?

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I first bought my own mask after having issues with rental masks during our 2nd dive trip when we did our AOW.
It took a while to buy anything else because I didn't wanna carry a lot of gear on holiday, esp as we have young kids.
It's not until I met someone in Thailand with all his own gear, who became my buddy for that trip (wife taking care of kids), that I started looking into it more. I was impressed with his Hollis LTS.
I don't like jacket style BCDs anyway so decided on a back inflate SP Litehawk. I also bought a computer.
I then before the following trip I bought regs after diving with rental regs that seemed like they hadn't been serviced properly. At least I know I take care of my regs.
The rest of the gear (fins, dsmb etc) just followed on. I've got everything I need and more now!
It is a lot of stuff to take on a family holiday but so worth it.
 
We bought our gear the year we went to Raja Ampat - the year after we'd clocked 20 dives in two shorter dive vacations and it became clear that Liveaboard / dive holidays were a thing we were both interested in.

We both started with masks (I rarely find rentals that fit, my wife has prescription lenses in hers) and fins for snorkeling. Then wetsuits (because, again, fit) and computers.

The rest (regs and Backplate/wing) were based on the knowledge we would be doing at least 40 dives in that year. Honestly, even now that we will likely do far less diving (new baby) for a while, I would still get my own gear. I know my gear. I'm comfortable with it. I understand it better than rental stuff. I know it works, and know how to check it before a dive. I know how much weight I need. And it is far, far more comfortable.

We rented gear on an impromptu dive outing on a recent holdiay, and that just cemented it.
 
We bought in pretty much the same order you did: mask, fins, wetsuit immediately then gecko starter computer (simple & cheap as we did not know what we wanted in a computer at the time). Like you I am a gear freak & it was hard not to jump in & buy all the shiny new gear! But we resisted & rented for about 40 dives. At that point we pretty much knew how we wanted to dive (warm & clear!) what we wanted in gear & had time to investigate the options as well as wait for a good deal on the equipment we wanted. We purchased our regs & bc before going on our first real dive vacation to Cayman Brac with no full week rental cost as an added incentive. We did not regretted waiting on the regs & bc or any of the purchases we have made to this point.

Even now, if we are going to be somewhere where we are only going to get in a few dives, we will usually leave the bc & regs home for convenience. Mask, wetsuit & fin fit & computer familiarity is much more important to me than regs & bc. Almost universally the rental equipment has been in good shape & has not impaired our diving enjoyment in the least. .

A couple pluses for eventually owning your own rig are: 1) Customization - from tech bp & wing to different hose configurations, back inflate style jackets (my preference) lightweight or extra padded units & specific fit for you. 2) the ability to keep all dive gear you accumulate in one place both for convenience & familiarity when diving. You may (will) eventually have, line cutters, lights, smb, whistle, signal device, personal locator beacon etc etc to keep track of. Over the years I have lost several items which may still be floating around in a rental bc somewhere.

At some point you may still want to upgrade equipment but if you choose wisely you will certainly enjoy the equipment you purchase & get your moneys worth diving it.

Good Luck!
Jack
 
I bought everything after my OW certs... both times. The first time I bought the stuff the LDS recommended. I think I spent a little over $2k on it all. I sold it for about half that a couple years later when I moved away from the water. Then, the second time I got certified (after a little more than 10 years without diving) I bought everything again, but smarter this time (more stuff used), but still not smart enough...

I knew most of my diving wouldn't be local (as I'm still landlocked, so local diving is crap), so I went with a Cressi Travellight BCD. It's going up for sale here when I get around to it as I've switched to a BP/W and am MUCH happier with that now. My Aluminum BP/W setup weighs close to the same weight but packs nicer and is much nicer to dive with. I do not miss those massive pockets etc.

As for regs, I've had three sets now (still have two of them). What I've found is that the lower-end regs don't breath as well as the better regs. You wouldn't think it would be much of a difference, but my experience is that the regs designed for harsher environments breath better everywhere.

I first bought a cheap computer, then quickly upgraded that when I realized I didn't care for the conservative-factor of the algorithm it used. So I've upgraded to a better dive computer with air integration.
 
Finally pulled the trigger last night on my beginner BCD & Reg. Rented everything for our certification, and also for some quarry dives after that. Then purchased everything but BCD & Reg before we went on a live-aboard. Was thinking of renting BCD & Reg for our next trip, but my son wanted his own for his birthday last week (a starter set from Divers Supply with great reviews with upgraded Reg and console). After looking at his this weekend, I decided to get a set just like it for myself rather than keep renting. A 10% off coupon code from Divers Supply that was sent to me after I made an account and left it in my shopping cart a few days without buying also helped push me along.
 
I'm also a vacation diver, but I also make diving the focal point of most of my vacations, so I wanted my own gear after my first experience with rental gear. I got used to how 'my gear' felt while diving, and also got to customize it

However, I am also the poster child for not taking the time to test out different gear for what worked for me and my type of diving. Ended up replacing my BC after a year with one that works much better for me. An expensive lesson, but an important one.

Do your research, watch test videos, ask for suggestions, but at the end of it you need to actually try stuff on (and ideally try it out in the water) before you hand over your cash. Keep in mind the type of diving you will be doing. If you're a warm water vacationer, you probably do not need all the lift capability of some BCs, nor do you need an ice capable regulator. Paying attention to your specific requirements will make you happier and lessen the hit to your wallet.

My order:
Mask
Computer
wetsuit
BC
Reg
Fins
 
I'll share our story with you but it is just our story. I'm a diy kind of guy and I fix my own stuff. That makes a difference.

We found the rental gear on our discover scuba dives and the renegade non-certified dives that followed to be undesirable. We bought gear before we took our certification classes and did our certification dives in it. We bought Aqualung Zuma travel bcds. We liked them and used them on our first trip to Cozumel. The package came with aqualung i300 computers which we later sold for 150$ each. Before we took our first trip to Cozumel we had already bought Shearwater Perdix computers. I wanted to buy cheaper but she told me that I would never be satisfied and they would be sitting on a shelf when I replaced them with the real deal. She was right and now we own the Teric and the Perdix are our backup because we are getting into Technical diving.

After our first trip and before our second we had already switched to BP/Ws. Much nicer and solved a few annoying problems. I could still be diving the Zuma but much prefer the BP/W. She sold her Zuma, I kept mine. I let people borrow it. She how has one in Kydex for steel tank and one in Stainless Steel for aluminum tank diving. I have one in Kydex and have ordered one in Stainless. 2 1/2 years after starting out we have also purchased Sidemount rigs and gone through training to use them for our technical diving. She is also talking cave training now.

Regulators started out with a core for me and a mikron for her. She still loves it. I have also added Deep6 reg sets for each of us. We will be adding more sets for dedicated sidemount regs. I service them myself and have all the tools and equipment and training to do so. I have a problem with giving my stuff to someone at a counter and watching it disappear into the back. That's how it is where I live so I'll do my own for my own comfort level. She still uses the mikron because it is very small and light. That comes at a cost though as the work of breathing is higher than the deep 6 and when diving deep and working she has switched to her secondary deep 6 regulator to be able to breathe easier until the workload diminished and then switched back just for comfort.

I will add this story. My friend from upstate New York recently decided to follow us into diving with his girlfriend. He came to visit to check it out and looked over my gear and listened to my story. He immediately bought BPWs for both of them and deep6 reg sets for their ow course. The discover scuba dive gear was similar crap to what we had used so he managed to skip a step and went straight to the good stuff and he loved it and looks great in the water after less than 20 dives. He decided to not buy the expensive computers but still spent several hundred dollars on Cosmiq deep blue computers, I believe it was. One of them flooded on the first dive and so I let him use my Perdix for the dive trip and he looked at our Terics. He was totally dissatisfied with what he bought after using the Perdix so as soon as he got home he returned the Cosmiqs and bought a pair of terics so he skipped the Perdix step.

It gets just a little worse. Remember the part about not trusting the man behind the curtain? I built up my own trimix blending station for our local diving. It helps that I do all the work myself but I am quite satisfied so far with not having to take tanks to the shop and wait around for an iffy fill since I started diving. We aren't wealthy. We don't spend money on anything else except diving. We are just serious about this activity. It has brought us together and as long as she wants to go further, longer, deeper, further away and more involved, I will commit to making it happen for us and our happy marriage. I haven't been disappointed in any of our decisions except the titanium dive knife and the i300 computers. Beyond that we use it all and keep finding places to keep it. We now have 3 mil suits, 5 mil suits, drysuits and lots of undergarments. There are more and more tanks and more and more regs in our future.

If I was just going to do a few simple 80 foot dives in the caribbean, I might just still dive the Zuma and use some old regs from the 70s that someone gave me. They breathe great and are easy to service. Fortunately, the sport is taking us much further than that. I hope it does the same for you.
 
While I have not bought my gear yet I just want share something I noticed on my first liveaboard.

A lot of people at the beginning mentioned don't bother packing fins. Well if you plan on a trip with lots of diving off the shore or a liveaboard look into what they provide first. I did a liveaboard in Cairns, Australia with a very hghly recommended operator, 2 night/3 days 11 dives on the Great Barrier Reef. The fins they provided where closed heel. The majority of people that used the rental fins had blisters on there heels and tops of there feet by day 2. Luckily I had my own fins and boots and had no problems what so ever.

Just my two cents

Been fun reading this thread as I am searching for my first gear set too. I trained and certified on a oxycheq BP/W rental gear so leaning to the BP/W or maybe SP Hydros Pro
 
I have always owned my own equipment, on a check out did during my certification process a fellow newbie puked in his rental unit. Nuff said. Bill
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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