Thanks for your input guys , its nice to know that there's a great community of people willing to help out so readily .
First off to mpetryk , I believe the reg I purchased should handle the climate I hope lol , its the Oceanic Delta 4 FDX10 Diaphragm Regulator with Environmental seal . After reading some reviews it seems to be a solid cold water reg . I think once I get home i'm gonna start doing some dry suit training and see how that goes so I can keep doing this year round . Not to worry about me taking it easy though , I'm not a very brave soul when my life is possibly at risk , and to be honest with what I do for work and stuff safety is normally my #1 priority . I also purchased a pony bottle because having the reassurance of knowing if I can't reach my buddy in time , to have a redundancy in place is gold imho .
To CamG , thanks for your kind words man , right now its hard to contain my excitement for a new passion . I will do my best to not let that cloud my judgement with diving outside of my abilities , athough I do think that to continue to grow and gain skill one should push themselves , obviously in small increments . I feel very fortunate to have some great instructors here who are spending to time to make sure that I am understanding all the material and working hard to ensure a level of comfort with all the skills that are set in front me . . The thought of having a loss of oxygen at depth is what is scaring me the most right now , which most of the people I dive with are trying to cure out of me . Its keeping me out of 80 ft + right now cause I just don't feel comfortable with it , plus there is so much great stuff to see here without really going below that . Although when we are out on the boat in the daytime its stopping me from doing some dives which really sucks , but i'm just not that eager to risk it right now . Thats a long way to go without air , I suppose with expansion it shouldn't matter , but it still scares the crap outta me lol.
Again thanks all for your great input , and again i'll give a little update about my experience so far . First of all I hate weight belts and jacket style BCD's , I dove a integrated back inflate style BCD earlier today . That is by far a much better way to go , I always wondered why my instructors seem to have killer trim control compared to me . Well I must say that it is so much easier , when your not constantly compensating for your body trying to upright itself all the time (glad thats what I bought lol) .
The last dive I had to complete for my AOW was the night dive which I did tonight , I must say I wasn't all that impressed . Not the fault of anyone else but me , honestly i'm a bit blind to begin with , but I couldn't really see anything . We were using lights and all , but I just couldn't seem to maintain a good field of view to actually get some really good shots . I suppose I have been a bit spoiled since here in the daytime is really quite active , but I thought there would be more action than that . I think if I had like car headlights strapped to my body I could enjoy it more , but i'd feel bad stunning the whole ocean as I swam by lol . Anyway yeah , hopefully my next experience will be a better one lol .
PS I love nitrox , honestly I came out of the water feeling better than when I went in . Using air always made me feel a bit tired and i've been doing some serious napping between dives and stuff lol . But that nitrox , I was all pumped and ready to jump back in right away ( I didn't mind you lol) . Just thought i'd share that for anyone who might be on the fence about trying it . I was only diving the 32 , i'm interested in trying the 36 might give it a go tomorrow . :cool2:
Cheers , reap .
