Let’s look at your equipment now that you are a real diver and have successfully completed your open water and advanced open water diving. You have gotten a bunch of dives under your mask and now it is time to start looking to buy some real good equipment.

 If you are becoming like most divers, you go into a dive shop and want to buy everything you see. Where did they get all this wonderful stuff? You can’t go in unless you buy something and then justify it by saying, "I really need this, it’s life support." I would love to have a scooter and so would my dive buddy, but you can’t just have one. It’s life support for diving so I have to go about selling some of my wife’s stuff to get the life support equipment I need. If you are married I am sure that your wife or girl friend will go right along with that, just as mine went along with it. No matter, I still need a scooter.

 The point is that when you are buying equipment make sure that it’s what you want and really need. Always look at others who are diving with you to see how they are equipped for the kind of diving they are doing. Get lots of information from other divers, and believe me, they will tell you all you need to know about their equipment and that it is the best on the market.

I really don't think that I should go into telling you what to buy or where. Your dive shop should help you in this area. The only advice I would give is to use the DIN valve system. I could give you many reasons why, but the main reason is that you can't knock it off; you have to unscrew it. Now how do I know you can knock those others off?  It just it happens and if it’s a Deco bottle, well there you are, instead of 10 minutes at a stop you revert to your deco table you are carrying and spend 35 minutes. Before pulling out the plastic, it’s very important that you make up your mind for the type of  equipment you need for the type of diving you want to do. It can save you a lot of money.

 You have been used to using the aluminum 80's good tanks for sports diving and some people can last forever on one of those. Me I like the big ones. They are STEEL 130's, heavy, and pack a lot of gas. However, there can be a danger. Too much gas is just as bad as not enough. I have heard it from several reliable people in Canada that some charters may stop letting people use them due to people getting injured for staying past their NDL (No Deco Limit) and getting sick. Remember those awful tables you learned about in open water class? Those things are made for a reason, SAFETY in capital letters. Stay within them and you will have a safe dive. Again, ask yourself what kind of diving are you going to do? Remember that you also have a buddy that will be diving with you, so if you have the big tank and he or she has the small one, that person sets the standard for the dive. When you reach the time to end the dive at a pre determined PSI you will have a lot left over. With air it’s no real issue but with mixed gas its expensive. I would like to do more on equipment since this is real important to a diver for one simple reason, your life depends on it. Next week we’ll talk about taking care of the equipment and hopefully other stuff as time permits.

©  03-03-2005 G. McK.