Minimum travel gear question

Hi All,

We are leaving for S.E. Asia and the surrounding area in a week. We will be travelling for six months and was wondering what some thoughts on minimum gear to bring would be. We are going fast and light and obviously there will be many places where we will not be diving. I was planning on bringing regulators, computers and masks and renting all other gear. I don't maybe it would be smart to bring our core warmer shorty's for sanitary reasons...
All input greatly appreciated!

We're doing a 6 month trip in a few months. I'm planning to take full gear (although I've got a backplate and wing to replace my padded BC) because we're doing a fair amount of diving and the hasstle of hiring gear along with the added cost seemed not worth it.

That said, if you're not doing as much diving, I'd think that what you're planning to take is ok- I'd possibly be inclined to leave the regs because they're heavy and if you're hirind BC may as well hire regs, and take fins and a snorkel instead, but thats me. Just means you can snorkel if you want to which is a cheap and easy way to entertain yourself.

I not getting much input here, so I think I'll post over in the general forum...

mslise:

We're doing a 6 month trip in a few months. I'm planning to take full gear (although I've got a backplate and wing to replace my padded BC) because we're doing a fair amount of diving and the hasstle of hiring gear along with the added cost seemed not worth it.

That said, if you're not doing as much diving, I'd think that what you're planning to take is ok- I'd possibly be inclined to leave the regs because they're heavy and if you're hirind BC may as well hire regs, and take fins and a snorkel instead, but thats me. Just means you can snorkel if you want to which is a cheap and easy way to entertain yourself.

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If you're planning on doing a lot of traveling around, and think you can get halfway decent rental gear, I'd do just a mask & computer. Anything more you'll just have to drag around with you on your non-diving travel segments.

If you need a prescription mask then take that.
A wrist divecomputer / watch is a good compromise.
The water is so warm all you need is a tee shirt for protection, I have a one piece dive skin that is perfect, protects against sunburn on the boat, and firecoral on the anchor rope.
Since diving is not the main aim I would rent any gear I needed, I would check to see the quality before I booked.
Dive gear is heavy and a pain to hump around.
The items that I have seen fail most often is the BC inflator and freeflow second stage.

I have dived quite a bit in SE Asia. The condition and cost of rental gear varies widely. You will want your own mask to insure a good fit. As someone else suggested, I like to carry a lightweight pair of fins as well, for snorkeling. Depends on how much time you will be near the ocean, I guess. Many places in SE Asia you do not need a wetsuit for warmth, so a .5 tropical suit or a diveskin works well and packs up really tight. I see many DMs diving in shorts and rashies, or even t-shirts.

In Thailand and the Philippines, the equipment seems well-maintained and often very affordable. The exception is that often they will let the wetsuits get sort of well-worn before they replace them, but then a wetsuit is not life-support gear.

I often see full equipment rentals from as little as $5 USD to $10 USD per dive.

If you know where you will be diving, I may have more specific info.

Over the past few years, I have evolved a set of dive gear specifically for traveling light. I can carry full gear, less tanks and weights of course, and all my other clothes, etc. and still be under 15 kg. not counting camera and video gear.

I have a Titanium reg, .5 tropical suit, light but powefull fins, wrist computer, frameless mask, travel BC. But most of my trips involve lots of diving.

For fast and light with a bit of diving, I would carry mask, snorkel, diveskin, wrist computer. I would personally add my light Tusa Xpert Zoom fullfoot fins, which are very light, if I was going to be in an area where I could snorkel as well as dive. I usually carry a lightweight pair of dive booties as well, since they can double as beach shoes.

Regulators are heavy, and most places take pretty good care of those, so I would not be afraid to rent them.