I need a Dive Computer! Advice please...

[victor]

Save the bubbles,

I find your story confusing to say the least. If I stick with my buddy reasonably closely I would use their max-depth value. Maybe I'd add a few meters just to be conservative. A simple depth guage will do just fine for this job like it has for many many years. All of them I owned had a "maximum" needle that you reset to zero before a dive and the depth needle would shove it over.

So when you get to the surface:
1) Look at max depth
2) Look at wristwatch (Timex IronMan 200M works great, cheap)
3) Read the table

As I said I'm not against anyone purchasing a computer. But it seems a waste of money until you have been diving long enough to get your air consumption under control. Every new diver I've seen goes through a tank so fast they do not get near table limits. At which point why not just use a table? It's cheap, simple, and everyone should be able to do it.

When I dive with computer I have a table and wristwatch also.

Interesting idea. I sugest you buy a trip to Bonaire, stay at Captains Don's, Sandollar, or 1 of a dozen others and dive using your system.
By lunch time on the first day you will be out of the water until the following morning.
It's normal to do 3 dives before lunch, 2 in the afternoon, and maybe a night dive.
None of the dives are very deep, all of them are multilevel, nitrox is a real big advantage here.
Air consumption is not an issue here, if you are a bit of an air hog, come up, wait 30 minutes put on a new tank and off you go again. The more you practise the better your air consumption gets.
I expect to here next that you could plan a multilevel dive, but that's not what you sugested. You said square diving off the tables.

Square diving off tables works for some types of dives.
Dives on wrecks from boats where its straight down, examine wreck, straight back up. 2 dives a day because thats all the tanks that are on the boat.
It does NOT work for shore diving on reefs.
You might plan a descent to 90ft and find something very interesting at 60ft and stay there for the whole dive.
Some dives are straight down to 70ft then a steady 60 minute ascent to 10ft.
Unlike a wreck you don't necessary know what you are going to dive before you enter the water.
You should know the max depth you are going to go to, particularly if you are using nitrox.

Diving a square profile and tables you will get less than half the time diving in these situations as someone diving a computer.

 

[rockhound13]

I have a Suunto Gekko in a console with an SPG and a seperate compass, not PC downloadable, but the Suunto Cobra is, all the same features. The Suunto compass thats fits on the console is regarded as one of the best in the market. As far as air intergrated, they are more money, and if you have a failure you will lose all of your info, most importantly, how much air you have left. IMO, I would not personally own one or recommend one. The Suunto is adjustable to altitude and personal fitness level which can make it even more conservative if needed. As mentioned before it is regarded as very conservative right out of the box. I personally don't have a problem with this, but it is a personal choice. It does not go into gauge mode when you exceed you NDL, it gives you a deco profile to follow. It is water activated. I've read several posts saying you can trick the Suunto software to make the Gekko downloadable, but I didn't look into it. Good luck.

 

[saturnkk]

Interesting idea. I sugest you buy a trip to Bonaire, stay at Captains Don's, Sandollar, or 1 of a dozen others and dive using your system.
By lunch time on the first day you will be out of the water until the following morning.
It's normal to do 3 dives before lunch, 2 in the afternoon, and maybe a night dive.
None of the dives are very deep, all of them are multilevel, nitrox is a real big advantage here.
Air consumption is not an issue here, if you are a bit of an air hog, come up, wait 30 minutes put on a new tank and off you go again. The more you practise the better your air consumption gets.
I expect to here next that you could plan a multilevel dive, but that's not what you sugested. You said square diving off the tables.

Square diving off tables works for some types of dives.
Dives on wrecks from boats where its straight down, examine wreck, straight back up. 2 dives a day because thats all the tanks that are on the boat.
It does NOT work for shore diving on reefs.
You might plan a descent to 90ft and find something very interesting at 60ft and stay there for the whole dive.
Some dives are straight down to 70ft then a steady 60 minute ascent to 10ft.
Unlike a wreck you don't necessary know what you are going to dive before you enter the water.
You should know the max depth you are going to go to, particularly if you are using nitrox.

Diving a square profile and tables you will get less than half the time diving in these situations as someone diving a computer.

This is why I felt a dive computer would be a good investment. I am leaning towards a module (rather than wrist) that has a computer puck and a seperate pressure gauge. A compass would be a nice feauture or I could simply buy a watch with one built in...

 

[bperrybap]

This is why I felt a dive computer would be a good investment. I am leaning towards a module (rather than wrist) that has a computer puck and a seperate pressure gauge. A compass would be a nice feauture or I could simply buy a watch with one built in...

If you go with a console with seperate spg, computer & compass.
Think about how you will use it. Just my preference but I don't care
for the ones that have 2 on one side and 1 on the other when
the compass and the computer are on different sides.
This means you can't see your heading and depth at the same time.

--- bill

 

[Vicente]

Interesting idea. I sugest you buy a trip to Bonaire, stay at Captains Don's, Sandollar, or 1 of a dozen others and dive using your system.
By lunch time on the first day you will be out of the water until the following morning.
It's normal to do 3 dives before lunch, 2 in the afternoon, and maybe a night dive.
None of the dives are very deep, all of them are multilevel, nitrox is a real big advantage here.
Air consumption is not an issue here, if you are a bit of an air hog, come up, wait 30 minutes put on a new tank and off you go again. The more you practise the better your air consumption gets.
I expect to here next that you could plan a multilevel dive, but that's not what you sugested. You said square diving off the tables.

Square diving off tables works for some types of dives.
Dives on wrecks from boats where its straight down, examine wreck, straight back up. 2 dives a day because thats all the tanks that are on the boat.
It does NOT work for shore diving on reefs.
You might plan a descent to 90ft and find something very interesting at 60ft and stay there for the whole dive.
Some dives are straight down to 70ft then a steady 60 minute ascent to 10ft.
Unlike a wreck you don't necessary know what you are going to dive before you enter the water.
You should know the max depth you are going to go to, particularly if you are using nitrox.

Diving a square profile and tables you will get less than half the time diving in these situations as someone diving a computer.

Are you offering me a free trip?

From years of working with students in the Keys, I can say that >90% of them will huff and puff and hand-swim their way through a tank in about 20 minutes even very shallow. Sending them back up after 10-15 minutes at anything past 30 feet was not uncommon.

Give me some dive numbers extracted off the computer of a newly-minted diver in Bonaire and we can do the math here in public.

Probably in my poorer days, I'd have taken your offer of free diving, dove it on tables, and paid the penalty for it. I'd be doing some long safety stops if I were doing your kind of diving in any case, multiple days of 5-6 per day. Which would probably be a good idea, I've seen some good sights on long stops like a pod of dolphins. My first 50 dives or so I spent all my diving budget on dive trips, very little on gadgets. Had a lot of fun diving off Florida. Don't think I have the money even now for Bonaire trips but if you are ever in NorCal (my current base) will take you shore-diving here in exchange!