@Aloha Joe
What I would do right now is take a bit of a step back.
Get your exposure protection first. When diving in cold water, it is most critical to have a proper fitting wetsuit. Everything else can be addressed later, but if you are renting gear, it should arguably be everything but exposure protection if you can help it.
If I were diving socal, this would be the suit I'd get. Granted, it is the suit that I have, but I have it for a reason. Not cheap by any means, but it is truly incredible and warmer than my previous 7mm fullsuit with hooded vest.
65 Diving Semi-Dry Wetsuit | OThree Custom Drysuits
I dive it with this hood and have been comfy down to about 50F in that combination. It's awesome.
Cave Adventurers - Pinnacle Dry Suit Hood - Marianna, Florida USA - Never Undersold!
After that, I would support some local business and contact Deep Sea Supply. The owner is active on this board, they're made in Pasadena, and they are top quality. Not the cheapest, but definitely the best value in my opinion. You also have the ability to put weight plates on for single tank diving if you want to get rid of some lead from your belt. With as thick of a suit as you will have on, I would urge you to try the single piece webbing first, and if that doesn't work, then we can look at some other options with you, but give it a whirl, you may be surprised, especially with a thick suit on.
Probably at just shy of $900 for that stuff above, though you may get lucky with finding a DSS rig used depending on your height.
After that, if you plan on doing multiple dives/day, grab a cheap computer. You can usually find decent used ones on here/ebay for less than $200. Multi button is important in my opinion. If you are doing single dives/day, I'd just dive tables for now.
The regs become interesting. If you are serious about wanting to fix your own regs, this is a great deal.
$125, includes the parts kits to rebuild. The videos on how to rebuild them are all on the Vintage Double Hose youtube channel and
@OWIC647 did a great job making them.
Store - Vintage Double Hose
You need to purchase an IP gauge-$20
Deluxe IP Gauge (PSI and BAR)
and some stuff from
@herman. Regulator vice tool, MK5 piston o-ring tool, pin spanner, like $35
Store - Vintage Double Hose
some o-ring picks, lube *Dow 111 works if you don't want them O2 clean*, Simple Green
Three Piece Brass O-Ring Pick Set
Ultrasonic cleaner is nice to have $80 from Harbor Freight*, you should already have a pair of adjustable wrenches and some allen keys, and other than that the in-line adjustment tool from VDH is nice to have for $22 but isn't necessary. Just greatly expedites the tuning process.
Add in some proper length hoses *about $90*, some new mouthpieces, $10, and you're all in for about $400. Cool part though is you now have a bunch of tools that you need to keep rebuilding them, you have regulators that are stupid simple/cheap/easy to rebuild, you won't have to do it for another 3-5 years, they look cool, and that 109 will perform about as well as anything on the market today for recreational diving. Down the road, you may decide you want to dive doubles, sidemount, whatever, and these regs are perfectly sufficient for that, just need an extra first stage, some new hoses, and maybe a DIN conversion kit depending on where you're diving.
Especially since my motorcycle accident, I haven't been able to go for a run in 6mos now. But I had no problem floating in the waves in Hawaii last week, which seemed like a 'good' thing at the time!
