Retired Instructor out of action for 25 years, what's with the new gear?

[HonuDeb]

Out of action for 25 years, retired to Big Island in August, doing long snorkel/swims and free dives to 20 feet 2-4 times /week. Waiting for husband to finish openwater so we can start staying down for longer than 2 minutes!!

Have been checking out gear online and in dives stores. Kinda overwhelming. Will mostly be doing tropical shore dives, 10-50 ft..

My experience has been with steel 72s and no frills regs & BCDs. Simple, rugged, venturi brass regs that I could open 2nd stage to adjust and clean diaphram. I am openminded to new features if they are truly improvements, but all this plastic "sealed" stages has me wondering--bulletproof or expensive repairs because I can't get into them? And integrated octo and weights in BCD? (I started with horse collar I would manually inflate UW and was easy to flush out afterwards). So yes, I am a dinosaur, hence why I need advise from you awesome folks!

Mahalo!

 

[lowwall]

Reg design had matured by the time you stopped diving, there's no particular functional advantage to the plastic stuff other than lower weight. Lots of people are happily using older metal seconds.

BC design has gone two ways. The jacket style has evolved more and more frills and higher and higher costs, although most manufacturers still have basic designs intended for shop rental fleets. Integrated octos are rare, but all mainstream jackets have some sort of integrated weight system. You don't have to use them though.

The other path for BCs is using a backplate and wing instead of a jacket. There were different variations of plates and/or harnesses from the '50s until the '90s, but what is commonly used now came out of Florida cave diving and consists of a nylon harness threaded through slots in a metal plate that goes on your back. Modular air bladders or "wings" are attached to the plate and the tank(s) are held on with nylon bands for single tank diving or metal straps for two tank. They are used with a weight belt or sometimes with small weight pouches added to the harness. Advantages of the BP/W is that it's easily adaptable to different configurations, less confining and more streamlined than jackets. It can also be cheaper. If you are interested, you can understand it better by looking at this good quality, yet inexpensive BP/W system: DGX Custom - DGX Singles Harness / Backplate / Wing Package | Dive Gear Express®

I should mention that the latest trend, especially for diving doubles, is called sidemount and consists of attaching the tanks along the side of your body instead of on the back. This has specialized harnesses. Since it's fairly new, it hasn't evolved into a standardized configuraion

 

[rhwestfall]

have you seen dive computers?

 

[scubadada]

Diving has not changed all that dramatically in the last 25 years. For me, biggest changes were universal acceptance and availability of nitrox and the nearly universal use of the dive computer, both, very positive. I dive a 5 mm full wetsuit when visiting Hawaii, to remain warm during nice long dives, often several per day.

I still occasionally dive my Scubapro MK5/109 I bought in 1972

 

[Bubblesong]

Check out Deep6 Gear. There is the option to learn to service it yourselves that might come in handy, since shipping fees for service seem like they would be higher for you.

 

[lowwall]

have you seen dive computers?

Oh no.

Actually, that's easy. Here's the flowchart:

1) Will you be diving more than one gas mixture on a single dive?

Yes. Skip to 3b.

No. Go to 2.

2) Would you pay $600-800 more for a beautiful and customizable color display than a fixed, monochrome display?

Yes. Skip to 3b.

No. Go to 3a.

3a) Do you prefer something vaguely watch-sized or something bigger, but easier to read?

Watch-sized. - Deep6 Excursion Deep 6 Excursion Dive Computer

Puck-sized - Oceanic Veo 4.0 - https://www.oceanicworldwide.com/product/computers/veo-4-0 . (There are actually a bunch of options here. You can save a few bucks by getting one that doesn't have bluetooth download capability, but you want one that is nitrox compatible).

3b) Do you prefer something vaguely watch-sized or something bigger, but easier to read?

Watch-sized - Shearwater Teric Teric - Shearwater Research

Bigger - Shearwater Perdix Perdix - Shearwater Research

 

[runsongas]

the regs haven't changed much. plastic is just cheaper to manufacture than chrome. mk10/g250 is functionally identical to the mk25/g260 they sell now. you can still get the conshelf 14, the civilian equivalent is now the titan classic. VDH has parts if you want to fix up a vintage reg instead of getting a new plastic one.

if you want a horsecollar, aropec has them. Navy Dive Horse Collar BCD

plastic backpacks from piranha. Backplate Accessories Piranha Dive Shop |

an argument could be made the modern bpw is derived from the backpack/seatec wing of the 70s.

dive computers are the one big change, no more tables for most divers these days.

 

[MichaelMc]

I think @lowwall summed up the board's views on computers, though I have not paid attention to what the non-excursion non-shearwater favorite is, as what I have works fine. Recently, my battery went flaky at the start of a dive and I thought of 1) getting an excursion as a first/backup or 2) just finally getting a shearwater and having mine its backup.

+1 on BP/W for simplicity and adaptability.
As a single tank refinement on it, look at the Freedom plate on the board, though you would have to wait for it.
Freedom Plate Divers Roll Call: show us your rig!
The new Freedom Contour - The Rolex of backplates.
For Sale - Official Freedom Plate List: Please respond here.
Mine has not yet been wet, though is mostly rigged up now.

+1 on Deep6. Self service of their second is easy, though a ScubaPro 109 is even simpler. And Deep6 supports self servicing their regs.

On sidemount shore dives, think twin LP50s/AL40s/AL30s not twin AL80s. More of a fun free movement thing, or a redundancy or a carry one to the water at a time thing. But it is a little more setup on land. From your profile I'm not sure if you have the breadth of experience for it yet, . Maybe when you reach 20 dives or so, though they do teach it in OW.

While you are looking at backplates, look at the streamlined open water reg setup. It is more the way much of the board goes instead of the integrated octo-inflator route, though not exclusively. Also, you should know the board does not mirror the dive population in general. Perhaps even rarely does.

Welcome to the board.

Michael
(UC Berkeley Scientific diver)

 

[Sam Miller III]

@HonuDeb
Welcome !

Happy for you that you and your husband retired at a reasonable age in a delightful location so to enjoy diving many years into the future.

I just completed reading your "Profile." Certainly interesting ! You have exceptional knowledge and experiences over and way above the normal population of this board . Your knowledge and experiences are indeed an asset.

I wish you well in retirement and may all your dives be in crystal clear warm water
SDM, III
LA Co UW instructor #11
NAUI # A 27
PADI # 241
etc etc
. .

 

[GJC]

What's new? Some of the following may be from before 25 years ago. It has all been a big blur for me.

Technical dive training is readily available including cave and decompression diving using helium and high O2 nitrox for decompression.

Rebreathers are available but expensive.

Recreational Nitrox is now mainstream.

Sharkskin and Lavacore make zero buoyancy wet suits (equivalent to 2mm).

Drysuits are a big thing for cold water divers.

Way too many computers to pick from. (Almost everybody on here will tell you to just get a Shearwater computer)

Low volume masks.

All lights are now LED.

You can take your Gopro diving with the proper housing.

Knives got a lot smaller.

You're not supposed to touch anything underwater now.

Dive training got a lot shorter and you can do the classroom stuff online.

There are dozens of extra dive courses to take, now that the original training got shorter.

And I think that about covers it all. Oh wait, I heard there is a thing called split fins now too.