Daily noob introduction: Liv2themax from Seattle

[liv2themax]

Hello all! Just got my SSI OW certification last weekend. I found this site by searching for regulator reviews and decided to sign up to learn more.

I got my certification here in Seattle diving on the Puget Sound and really enjoyed what I got to see during the open water dives (Seeing the large pacific octopus was certainly amazing). As such, I'm now in full gear acquisition mode (drysuit included). I'm sure I'll be doing a lot more reading than posting here for a bit. Looking forward to seeing what the forum has said or has to say about specific gear items.

My basic philosophy when buying gear for a sport is to buy the best I can afford unless there is an innate learning curve required to use the better gear that dictates time on less advanced gear. Any such curves I should be aware of?

Second question: Does the site search feature work pretty well or do I need to use Google's site feature when searching the archives (I'm a member on boards which fit both categories and I'd hate to bring up an old topic if searching on Google would turn up relevant discussions in the past).

 

[TSandM]

Welcome, Live2!

In answer to one of your questions, no, there is no learning curve on good gear, no matter what some dive shops will tell you. Many people will advise, "Buy it nice, or buy it twice." There's a lot of truth to that. You can learn a ton by reading the "What did you buy that you regret?" thread -- although there are some people who dislike almost anything you can think of, there are definitely some themes of things lots of people bought and discarded.

The search engine on this kind of forum software is pretty primitive and doesn't do Boolean searches, so if you can phrase the search criteria well in Google, it will probably work better.

Please feel free to ask any questions you have, either in the equipment forums or in the Orca Bait forum, where you'll get region-specific opinions for our cold water diving.

 

[Atomic_Diver]

Welcome To :sblogo:

 

[9fingers]

Welcome from another NW diver! Cheers