>I didn't know there were so many choices still available<
Indeed. I travelled throughout Eastern Europe in the 1970s and one of the things I noticed was that each country then had only one manufacturer of diving gear making just one or two styles of fin, snorkel and mask. In the West, there's always been enough of a competitive market to guarantee a range of equipment, from "classic" to "modern" for want of better terms. It's a little patchy, though. Classic rubber masks, snorkels and fins are hard to get hold of in the UK, where I live, because every single British manufacturer jumped long ago on to the plastic fin/silicone mask bandwagon. Like the USA, France, Greece and Italy still manufacture classic dive gear, but they have no British distributors. Of course, the solution for those who, like myself, prefer retro gear lies in purchasing from non-UK online retailers, who usually charge reasonable prices for goods but extortionate rates for international shipping!
David
