Just had our first child, time to sell my gear?
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admikar
Contributor
Don't listen to them! Sell everything! At heavily discounted prices! I'll send you my adress.
On more serious note, I was in same predicament as you....sort off. My problem was flying. There was a spate of deadly crashes in years preceding my firstborn, so she was a bit anxious about that. Since it was a winter time with heavy snows anyway, I agreed, kept quiet for few months and then slowly worked my way back. By the time I got into diving, she was over it.
Start easy and do shore diving first. more important, try to get her back into water too if possible.
On more serious note, I was in same predicament as you....sort off. My problem was flying. There was a spate of deadly crashes in years preceding my firstborn, so she was a bit anxious about that. Since it was a winter time with heavy snows anyway, I agreed, kept quiet for few months and then slowly worked my way back. By the time I got into diving, she was over it.
Start easy and do shore diving first. more important, try to get her back into water too if possible.
SlugLife
Contributor
It seems pretty obvious to me that new-parent emotions are influencing you & your wife in ways that are likely to be non-permanent.
If you or your wife are "paranoid" about something happening while diving, consider increasing redundancy and setting limits. A pony-bottle with regulators is a relatively inexpensive form of insurance (compared to health-insurance). You can also sign up for DAN insurance, which is $100 to $150/year depending on the plan you get. The advantage of DAN is more than just the insurance, as if there is an incident, they can contact rescue services, get you in touch with medical professionals and more.
Even if you don't solo-dive, a solo-dive class can make you very self-reliant. You might also consider a rescue-diver class, as it would make you that much more capable of rescuing your wife (or vise-versa).
You may wish you had a hobby again in a couple years. Your children might even want to start scuba-diving themselves when they're of age.
If you or your wife are "paranoid" about something happening while diving, consider increasing redundancy and setting limits. A pony-bottle with regulators is a relatively inexpensive form of insurance (compared to health-insurance). You can also sign up for DAN insurance, which is $100 to $150/year depending on the plan you get. The advantage of DAN is more than just the insurance, as if there is an incident, they can contact rescue services, get you in touch with medical professionals and more.
Even if you don't solo-dive, a solo-dive class can make you very self-reliant. You might also consider a rescue-diver class, as it would make you that much more capable of rescuing your wife (or vise-versa).
You may wish you had a hobby again in a couple years. Your children might even want to start scuba-diving themselves when they're of age.
Bubblesong
Contributor
Here is my take:
1)Expensive: keep doing easy peasy shallow dives, pay for Grandma to come along and care for the baby while you dive.
2) Cheap: Sell your gear, put the money in a dedicated mutual fund on ETrade, and add to it, so when the kid is ten, you all three start diving and you can buy everyone brand new, state of the art equipment that doesn't smell like ten years in the garage. But keep swimming & snorkeling so you don't find out your 55 year old self has so much gut he can't see his own fins.
1)Expensive: keep doing easy peasy shallow dives, pay for Grandma to come along and care for the baby while you dive.
2) Cheap: Sell your gear, put the money in a dedicated mutual fund on ETrade, and add to it, so when the kid is ten, you all three start diving and you can buy everyone brand new, state of the art equipment that doesn't smell like ten years in the garage. But keep swimming & snorkeling so you don't find out your 55 year old self has so much gut he can't see his own fins.
How long ago was your kid born? I'd give it 6 months, then decide. From your description of your gear, I doubt it will depreciate in that time. In 6 months, you might feel like you can sneak away without abandoning your family. Or you might find you don't miss it as much as you thought you would.
Definitely sell it. To me. I'm being facetious, of course. It's the kind of high quality gear that comes up all too frequently on the used gear market because someone's life took a turn and they prematurely sold their gear. It's great gear and will last forever. You'll dive again.
Don't be silly. You got a child now and that will take up your time now but in the future you will need some time of your own. That is when you will go diving. One of my dive buddies is 75 years old. You have plenty of time if you love diving.
Trust is an important thing. Work on that.
First, cherish that daughter, and do what you can with her and your wife. Those are the important things right now. Watch her smile, her lift her head, turn over, start to crawl, become aware, and enjoy every moment of it. This is the experience of a lifetime, and diving pales in comparison.
Diving is a sport, and activity. It is great to dive, and I have been doing it for a very long time. BUT, it is not life itself; your daughter is life itself. When my sons were young, I enjoyed doing everything I could with them. As they grew older, I could dive more often. But I don’t travel-dive; I dive locally, where it doesn’t affect much in the way of family life.
I also did a lot of swimming, and pool work. At one point I became finswimming director for the Underwater Society of America. Did you know there is a sport called finswimming? I did that instead of diving sometimes. It got me in the water (the North Umpqua River) and kept me in condition to dive. I would use the long free diving fins to do finswimming in the river, testing my skills against the current, then returning to my entry point. I’d swim with a light wetsuit, fins, mask and snorkel (finswimming snorkels are front-mount, and go over your forehead, but most times I used a regular snorkel). If interested, the World Underwater Federation (CMAS) sanctions finswimming competitions worldwide, and the Underwater Society of America is the sanctioning body in the USA.
https://www.finswimmer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/NAP_Regles_V2017_01_shortVersion.pdf#:~:text=Finswimming in Open Water (OW) For safety and,second yellow card is shown to the swimmer.
That way, I could get a workout and still remain in one of the activities associated with diving. I even bought a monofin and get a bit proficient on it, but not like the European and Asian competitors.
This is Michael Phelps trying out finswimming.
This shows the 400m immersion finswimming event in 2018.
Okay
That’s just some ideas for 6 months to a year down the road. In the meantime, enjoy that daughter!
SeaRat
Diving is a sport, and activity. It is great to dive, and I have been doing it for a very long time. BUT, it is not life itself; your daughter is life itself. When my sons were young, I enjoyed doing everything I could with them. As they grew older, I could dive more often. But I don’t travel-dive; I dive locally, where it doesn’t affect much in the way of family life.
I also did a lot of swimming, and pool work. At one point I became finswimming director for the Underwater Society of America. Did you know there is a sport called finswimming? I did that instead of diving sometimes. It got me in the water (the North Umpqua River) and kept me in condition to dive. I would use the long free diving fins to do finswimming in the river, testing my skills against the current, then returning to my entry point. I’d swim with a light wetsuit, fins, mask and snorkel (finswimming snorkels are front-mount, and go over your forehead, but most times I used a regular snorkel). If interested, the World Underwater Federation (CMAS) sanctions finswimming competitions worldwide, and the Underwater Society of America is the sanctioning body in the USA.
https://www.finswimmer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/NAP_Regles_V2017_01_shortVersion.pdf#:~:text=Finswimming in Open Water (OW) For safety and,second yellow card is shown to the swimmer.
That way, I could get a workout and still remain in one of the activities associated with diving. I even bought a monofin and get a bit proficient on it, but not like the European and Asian competitors.
This is Michael Phelps trying out finswimming.
This shows the 400m immersion finswimming event in 2018.
Okay
That’s just some ideas for 6 months to a year down the road. In the meantime, enjoy that daughter!
SeaRat
Scuba Lawyer
Contributor
I lucked out. My wife knows me and didn't blink an eye when, the morning after my son was born I attended a 3 hour meeting at the office, drove down to the beach and did a 1 hour solo beach dive and was back in her hospital room for dinner with wine and candles on an Italian tablecloth with Pasta Con Pomodoro E Basilico that I made from scratch that afternoon. Oh yeah, and I was playing Paganini Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 6 softly in the background on the Boombox while we ate. When my son was 8 months old I sailed he and my wife down through the Panama Canal and dove by myself every few days. When my son was 2 years old my wife insisted I go with my cave diving buddies to Akumal for a two week trip laying new cave line. I said I didn't want to be gone that long because she needed my help with the kid. She just smiled, reminded me we had a life insurance policy and assured me she would be just fine should something happen to me. Besides she said the pool boy would be around every few days in case she needed something. It wasn't until I was through my first week in Akumal when I realized our new house didn't have a pool. Hmmm. 
Keep the dive gear you will use it again!
Keep the dive gear you will use it again!
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