Me and my wife have been diving for a while now. After our recent diving trip to Grand Cayman, we realized that renting equipment isn't the way to go on these scuba trips. We could've been well on our way to owning our own equipment after dive trips to Cozumel (3x), GC, Thailand, etc... It's time to pull the trigger.
We are in the market to purchase BC's, regulator, octopus, guage, etc, combo but don't know where to start. It seems like there are thousands of providers. How do we go about this? We have a budget in mind.
We don't want to spend more than $1000 (USD) per person for the combo.
We would like to shy away from Backplate BCD's.
We prefer a BCD with integrated weights as opposed to Weight Belts.
We both dive Nitrox
Also, Is there a time of the year that scuba diving equipment is the cheapest?
Should we shy away from ordering online due to fit? My wife at times has trouble getting the right size fit.
My buddy and his wife got gear together and got a massive discount on what I'm looking for, but that was years back and he went into a local dive shop in Florida, not sure if online will provide something like this.
Thanks for your tips.