I have been shopping for a bag I can use to transport my gear on my first trip out of the country. I'm going to Roatan in early April and needed a way to get my dive gear there securely and in one piece. Many thanks to the people here at SB, for sharing their ideas and experiences! I have the typical mesh backpack bag that I have used on dive trips to the Keys, but I wanted something that I could check as baggage, so I checked with my LDS, who carries Akona and Scubapro bags - they had some really nice bags that I was leaning towards, until someone here reminded me that the logo and names on the bags would be advertising the contents as being expensive dive gear... So at someone else's suggestion I started looking at outdoor stores here in the Atlanta area - the two big retailers are Dick's and REI. I shopped both of them and found a bag that looked perfect from REI; thier "Wheelie Beast" which was still expensive at $165, but seemed like a perfect size to handle all my dive gear AND my clothing and personal gear.
Here's the one I found:
REI Wheely Beast Rolling Duffel - 35'' at REI.com
So, I went to the local store to buy it, but I found that the construction was a light-weight nylon fabric and it had cheap zippers. The salesguy there told me that originally it had been manufactured in 6 colors, and they had discontinued all but the green and black colors. He said that they dumped the non-opular colored bags for $15.00 apiece!! None left though, just a tease...
While there, I found a bag that was a little bit smaller, more expensive, but FAR BETTER made - carbon fiber structure, HEAVY DUTY fabric, stout wheels and about the same weight as the bigger bag - 11 pounds. I plunked down the money for the bag (used my REI discount to get 20% off) and took it home. Here's the link:
REI Tech Beast Rolling Duffel at REI.com
I am delighted with this bag - super quality, plenty big enough for all my checked gear including my big-*ss scubapro twin-speed fins (huge), BCD, lights, mask, SMB's, etc.
Thanks to all for the great suggestions!
