Brazil Trip - Dive Computers

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Lemuzzon

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Maybe this thread belongs in the dive computer section, but I'll give it a go here.

I'm going to Brazil (all over) to travel and do a lot of diving. I have been looking at many dive shops, particularly in the Recife and Rio areas. Looks like there's lots of good organizations and places to dive. Either during this trip or shortly after I was looking at getting a dive computer; therefore I was hoping to rent/test some out down there.

I was wondering if anyone could help me out with suggestions of dive shops that let you rent computers and/or what brands they carry? As I said, I found a lot of good looking shops, but I can't find any that list what they rent or if they rent at all. I'm not picky and would like to try many. Does anyone know what REC computers are available in Brazil? I know Suunto is carried down there, but can't find much more information...hopefully the import taxes and regulations don't drastically diminish what's available.
 
Maybe this thread belongs in the dive computer section, but I'll give it a go here.

I'm going to Brazil (all over) to travel and do a lot of diving. I have been looking at many dive shops, particularly in the Recife and Rio areas. Looks like there's lots of good organizations and places to dive. Either during this trip or shortly after I was looking at getting a dive computer; therefore I was hoping to rent/test some out down there.

I was wondering if anyone could help me out with suggestions of dive shops that let you rent computers and/or what brands they carry? As I said, I found a lot of good looking shops, but I can't find any that list what they rent or if they rent at all. I'm not picky and would like to try many. Does anyone know what REC computers are available in Brazil? I know Suunto is carried down there, but can't find much more information...hopefully the import taxes and regulations don't drastically diminish what's available.

It's not really a standard procedure to rent dive computers in Brazil, but if you are paying for a dive package here (dive + equipement), you can probably ask the dive-shop to include a dive computer and will be asked to pay a little bit more for it. If you go to Recife, you can talk to "Aquaticos", which is the best and better equiped (boat and equipment rental) dive-shop there. I guess that, even if it's not standard procedure, they will find a way to rent you a dive computer. I know they have some spare computers there as they include it for people doing the OWD course.

About brands: you can see everything here: Suunto, Mares, Liquivision, Shearwater, etc. If you're planning to buy, they are all ridiculous expensive (even the cheaper models). If you're planning to rent, don't expect to have lots of options. I don't think they will have much more than one or two brands (or even models) to rent.
 
Thanks for the response. I have come across "Aquaticos" and they were high on my list to contact.

The brands that you see down there, are they mainly purchased online or more from dive shops? I can find places offering Suunto and a tiny bit of Mares, but not much else. Maybe it's not the best place to test really.

My ultimate goal (though I know it was a little bit unrealistic) was to purchase one down there. I was hoping to test a little bit, then make a purchase that I could use for the remainder of my trip. If I wait until I get home to buy it may be a while before I get to try it out. Any comment as to why they are so expensive down there? Is it due to the import costs/taxes or is there just no real competition?
 
Thanks for the response. I have come across "Aquaticos" and they were high on my list to contact.

The brands that you see down there, are they mainly purchased online or more from dive shops? I can find places offering Suunto and a tiny bit of Mares, but not much else. Maybe it's not the best place to test really.

My ultimate goal (though I know it was a little bit unrealistic) was to purchase one down there. I was hoping to test a little bit, then make a purchase that I could use for the remainder of my trip. If I wait until I get home to buy it may be a while before I get to try it out. Any comment as to why they are so expensive down there? Is it due to the import costs/taxes or is there just no real competition?

It's a mix of taxes (specially) and a bit of greediness, in my opinion.

You have basically three options to find a DC here:
1 - Buy it from a dive shop. It will be really expensive, costing 3 times the price of the same computer in the US or europe.
2 - You can buy it online, in the gray market like mercadolivre (it's like ebay). Usually people that goes abrod find a way to bring those gadgests without paying taxes. Not cool, but quite common.
3 - Buy it in the US or Europe when you're traveling (it's usually my approach)
 
Thanks for the response. I have come across "Aquaticos" and they were high on my list to contact.

The brands that you see down there, are they mainly purchased online or more from dive shops? I can find places offering Suunto and a tiny bit of Mares, but not much else. Maybe it's not the best place to test really.

My ultimate goal (though I know it was a little bit unrealistic) was to purchase one down there. I was hoping to test a little bit, then make a purchase that I could use for the remainder of my trip. If I wait until I get home to buy it may be a while before I get to try it out. Any comment as to why they are so expensive down there? Is it due to the import costs/taxes or is there just no real competition?

Yes, Aquaticos is the recommended dive operation in Recife.

You don't give your home location but frankly no one that has a possibility to purchase outside Brazil would seriously consider purchasing a DC in Brazil.
Import costs here will normally double the offshore price and it would not be unusual to see a factor around 2.6 as the limited number of suppliers play supply and demand.
(Typical import factors would be 6% International Freight, 1% International Insurance, 16% Import Tax, 4% Customs Clearance charges, 15% Industrial Tax, 18% State Tax, 10% Social Tax, many grossing up on top of each other).
 
Thanks both for your help.

miketsp - I'm located in Canada, which I know is a much easier place to buy a computer than in Brazil. However, like I mentioned I wanted to buy one in Brazil so that I could play with it on my trip. I would just buy one beforehand but I really wasn't sure which to buy without testing and I also just like testing out different gadgets in general.

It sounds to me like Brazilian dive shops or whoever's selling the dive computer, don't have any official regulations and can just charge whatever they want, is that somewhat correct? I wouldn't mind paying a little more than usual price, but 3 times more is definitely a excessive. Just out of curiosity, how do locals usually buy things like a dive computer? Do the majority of them have the ability to go abroad and purchase it or do they bite the bullet and pay the insanely high priced computer from the local shop?

One more thing - When I search Aquaticos Dive on Google I get one site, but if I translate it to English it changes to Atlantis dive. Is this the same company or is it like a sister company? I was just a little confused because the email address actually changes as well.
 
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miketsp - I'm located in Canada, which I know is a much easier place to buy a computer than in Brazil. However, like I mentioned I wanted to buy one in Brazil so that I could play with it on my trip. I would just buy one beforehand but I really wasn't sure which to buy without testing and I also just like testing out different gadgets in general.

It sounds to me like Brazilian dive shops or whoever's selling the dive computer, don't have any official regulations and can just charge whatever they want, is that somewhat correct? I wouldn't mind paying a little more than usual price, but 3 times more is definitely a excessive. Just out of curiosity, how do locals usually buy things like a dive computer? Do the majority of them have the ability to go abroad and purchase it or do they bite the bullet and pay the insanely high priced computer from the local shop?

One more thing - When I search Aquaticos Dive on Google I get one site, but if I translate it to English it changes to Atlantis dive. Is this the same company or is it like a sister company? I was just a little confused because the email address actually changes as well.

Unfortunately we often need to pay the high local price although whenever we get the opportunity we obviously buy gear while travelling. My wife's DC was bought in Mexico. My current reg set was bought in Bonaire. I have various pieces of gear bought in Miami and other places.

Re the Aquaticos site I don't see an e-mail change. Clicking the English button all the pages look the same but in English instead of Portuguese. There is a momentary splash screen between page transitions that shows "Atlantis Partner". According to the Atlantis site, Aquaticos Recife is part of the Atlantis Group of operations the other locations being Fernando de Noronha, Maceio and Natal.
 
Thanks again for the help. Maybe I should start selling dive computers down there at a reasonable price :wink:.
 
Thanks again for the help. Maybe I should start selling dive computers down there at a reasonable price :wink:.

Main problem is the ridiculous import tax imposed by the Brazilian government, it is not only with DCs but almost everything imported. This also translates in gear renting because of the high prices the dive shops would have to pay for quality stuff do not expect the quality you might have been used in other parts of the world, my experience renting gear last November in Noronha was disappointing to put it mildly.

Do not leave Noronha out of your itinerary if you can, diving is good and the Topside experience is excellent.
 
It's always sad to hear when governments do that IMO. What were some of your specific complaints about the rental experience. Was it just too expensive in order to offset the taxes?

Out of the water is still more important to me than the diving so I will definitely mark Noronha on my itinerary, thanks!
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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