advice needed- gear and reading

[dsteding]

Light envy is a terribly.............................. expensive disease.

Yes it is. Woke up this morning, saw a special by a Salvo retailer posted on TDS, called him, and I am now the proud owner of the remote head 21w with the dual 4.5A, 14.4v batteries and chargers.

Bob, if you go out and buy a bigger, better, badder, light, I don't know what I am going to do.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Bob, if you go out and buy a bigger, better, badder, light, I don't know what I am going to do.

No worries ... I'm quite happy with the Salvo. Besides ... I already own three canister lights, and that's my limit ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Nailer99]

Wooo- Hoooo!!!!! I just purchased a Scubapro MK-25 and Suunto Cobra setup! I'm kinda giddy right now. By the way, thanks to everyone for all the friendly advice and greetings and stuff, even the Texan Dr. Seuss fan! So....what do you all think of my new rig?

 

[bradshsi]

So....what do you all think of my new rig?

Scubapro is nice (I own a well travelled MK10/D400 combo). I don't use a computer so I don't know enough to comment on that.


I'm still on the equipping path although I hope I'm nearly done spending money. I'll tell you how I went about it. I hesitate to call it advice since I'm wildly less experienced compared to some of the people who have posted here. However I do possess an engineer's love of optimization and that is what guided me here:

Basically when I arrived back in Portland I only had a jacket BCD and the aforementioned regulators that I'd purchased from a diver I knew while I was living in Switzerland. I wanted to move away from renting stuff but was constrained by my wife's admonishments not to spend too much. If you are not afraid of shopping around , DIY and ebay you can accomplish a lot for example...

Drysuit $230 brand new from ebay (Bare ATR Trilam)
Diverite Transpac II and wing from ebay (dived twice) $210
Overvolted 50W halogen canister light (brighter than an 18W HID), DIY about $135

What I did isn't for everyone, but it got me safe comfortable and diving more, far quicker than if I had to pay MSRP.

 

[Nailer99]

That's inspirational, actually. Especially the 230$ drysuit. I bet there are more that a few people who buy a boatload of gear and then lose interest in diving. I should look around a few places for the BCD I want; once I figure out exactly what I want, that is... And you built your own waterproof light? That's really cool. I build things for a living, and I own a lot of tools, but it wouldn't have occured to me to build a dive light.....got any pics?

 

[Jeff=Dive]

One more sugestion... get yourself a custom mouthpiece. After 30 or 50 min in the water, and on the second dive... it can give you a headache as it did me. It's way more comfortable and relaxing. A little steep on price tho, but in my opinion it's $$ well spent.

 

[bradshsi]

And you built your own waterproof light? That's really cool. I build things for a living, and I own a lot of tools, but it wouldn't have occured to me to build a dive light.....got any pics?

I'm travelling on business at the moment so I won't be in a position to upload pictures for another week or so. In the meantime you can read about this at the link below.

Go to
http://groups.msn.com/Divelight

and join. They have information under documents and a lot of good information in the forum. For parts try:

www.mcmaster.com
www.batteryspace.com

 

[TSandM]

You are getting plenty of advice about gear (and light envy is curable, if you simply go out and buy a Salvo 21W), but I'll offer a reading suggestion: Clay Coleman's Certified Diver's Handbook. There is a LOT of information there and it's very readable.

The other suggestion I'll make is to take a Marine Life ID course as soon as you can find one. There is an excellent course offered every few months through Bubbles Below, but there are others as well. That's one of the best things I've done to increase my enjoyment of Puget Sound diving. Along with my light, of course

 

[bradshsi]

The other suggestion I'll make is to take a Marine Life ID course as soon as you can find one. There is an excellent course offered every few months through Bubbles Below, but there are others as well. That's one of the best things I've done to increase my enjoyment of Puget Sound diving. Along with my light, of course

That's an excellent idea. I have to admit my ability to identify critters is pretty basic. Being able to ID some of the more interesting creatures from a book I got certainly adds interest, and a course would be a good way to reinforce the learning.

Thanks

BTW I read about a project for a 30 W HID (that someone was partway through building), this morning. So the cycle of light envy may not be over any time soon

 

[jumbo]

good reading-

The SRT diver( special response diver) a cool read about special warfare and police divers, plenty of neat stuff but not that practial

Get a book about dive gear, not a PADI or SSI class book but an actual repair manual.

Welks to Whales is the best marine ID/ information book in my opinon.

and a good Clive Cussler novel is always a good read, especially the non fiction books a quick warning you may want to go diving in spots you shouldnt looking for like ghost ships in ponds and parking lots

to top it of one of OEX2's books, you may want to start paddling after that

JUMBO