1: Get caps for your first stage to prevent water/moisture from getting in them
2: Rinse it with fresh water and dump through the inflator hose. Inflate orally and then dump again with the manual dump valve, located at the bottom of the BC, at the lowest position. Slightly inflate so the sides of the bladder won't stick together and hang up.
3: Get your own adapter. DIN tanks are generally the expection for recreational divers/dive locations.
Safe dives . . . . .
. . . safer ascents
the K
K's responses are generally good. Do get/keep the dust cap for your first stage and try to keep water out of the air chambers. Most divers do rest the 1st stage on a peg and let the hoses hang for drying. But you can also curl the hoses into a big loop and hang your looped reg on a peg. The main thing you want to avoid is excessive strain on the hose fittings. If you have strain relieve sleeves on your hoses, slide them down the hose a short distance to let the metal hose fitting dry.
Store your BCD "loosely" inflated on a BCD hanger.
Now for the question of yoke Vs. DIN. Since you specifically asked about the Caribbean, my experience diving all over the Caribbean is that nearly all tanks are AL80's with US yokes. The laws around the Caribbean are different than in the US. So tanks tend to get the bare minimum of maintenance. So, Caribbean resorts tend to buy AL80's because they are very cheap to buy in bulk, they can put up with an incredible amount of abuse and keep working and with the Caribbean's proximity to the US, they tend to buy US style equipment.
High pressure tanks with pressures of 3500psi or higher require a DIN fitting in the US. The DIN tanks introduced in the early 90's were 3500psi. But over the last decade or so, the industry has migrated to the 3442psi tanks. Since these tanks are under the 3500psi limit, they are usually sold with "international" valves. This is a valve that is a DIN valve, but comes with an adapter plug that allows it to support a US yoke, as well.
I would expect that resort operations that have "high pressure steel" tanks would have the 3442psi tanks and should be able to accommodate either regulator type.
If you are a "Boy Scout" and want to be prepared for any situation. Get a DIN regulator and a decent quality DIN to yoke adapter. This setup would allow you to be prepared for either situation. However, I've found that when using a DIN reg on a yoke take with the adapter, that the reg sticks out much further and can hit you in the back of the head. A DIN to yoke adapter is a yoke that fits on the valve of a yoke tank and has a cup for you to screw your DIN reg into.
To answer the last implied question: Can you use the plug from an "international" valve on a 3500psi tank. NO - The cup on the 3500psi tank valve is deeper so that the plug is forced to screw too far in to work. Also there is no "dimple" on the back side of the 3500 valve for a yoke screw.