sonofzell
Registered
Greetings!
After obtaining our NAUI ow certs a few years back, my daughter & opted to "slowly" assemble our gear collection bit by bit as opposed to purchasing pre-assembled bundles. Admittedly, this was more a budgetary limitation than a strategic choice lol, but in retrospect, I'm happy and comfortable with our piecemeal setups.
At this point, our only required rentals for dives are tanks and wetsuits. While it's certainly something I can live with, I've recently started putting my feelers out for purchasing the latter. While my diving is purely recreational, my daughter is an aspiring marine biologist and just a year away from college (my point being that a suit of her own is likely a solid investment at this point since I expect her logbook to double mine in the near future).
So, my question is: Is there a recommended or common strategy for purchasing wetsuit gear for divers that really have no "typical" diving environment? We live just outside of Philadelphia, but have family on Florida's treasure coast... it's not uncommon for us to have a dive using 3m shortys, followed by a quarry dive at home in 7m full suits with hoods & gloves the next week.
I'm hoping those of you with more experience can share some advice for the most practical "first purchase" advice, so that I can avoid dumping a bunch of cash on items that may not necessarily be the most versatile. Any thoughts are appreciated!
Thanks in advance!
K
After obtaining our NAUI ow certs a few years back, my daughter & opted to "slowly" assemble our gear collection bit by bit as opposed to purchasing pre-assembled bundles. Admittedly, this was more a budgetary limitation than a strategic choice lol, but in retrospect, I'm happy and comfortable with our piecemeal setups.
At this point, our only required rentals for dives are tanks and wetsuits. While it's certainly something I can live with, I've recently started putting my feelers out for purchasing the latter. While my diving is purely recreational, my daughter is an aspiring marine biologist and just a year away from college (my point being that a suit of her own is likely a solid investment at this point since I expect her logbook to double mine in the near future).
So, my question is: Is there a recommended or common strategy for purchasing wetsuit gear for divers that really have no "typical" diving environment? We live just outside of Philadelphia, but have family on Florida's treasure coast... it's not uncommon for us to have a dive using 3m shortys, followed by a quarry dive at home in 7m full suits with hoods & gloves the next week.
I'm hoping those of you with more experience can share some advice for the most practical "first purchase" advice, so that I can avoid dumping a bunch of cash on items that may not necessarily be the most versatile. Any thoughts are appreciated!
Thanks in advance!
K