Financially, well it relies upon on your personal state of affairs and when and where you are diving. If you will only be partaking of one or two dives on a family holiday and the hire rate is minimal, then that would be far less costly in the long term than purchasing. But if you are diving at home most weeks, hiring could be at most impractical, at worst costing a small fortune.
There are many attractions other than financial savings in owning your own scuba equipment. Not having to share regulators with unknown previous diving guests is just one of them! More importantly, you can become familiar with your own scuba gear, which gives a self-confidence that you might not develop if you are continually hiring different equipment whenever you dive.
Personally, I would advise acquire in just smaller pieces of gear every now and then. Keep in mind that the bigger items such as BCDs and regulators not only will need to be purchased, but will also incur repair costs as well as possibly being heavy to carry in luggage. Even though I have my own BCD and regulator set, I do not always take it away with me if I am only anticipating to partake of the odd dive or two.
So where to begin? If you are setting out purchasing your diving gear then a good point to start with is your mask and snorkel. These are very individual items and do not cost too much. The mask must be a seamless fit, so owning your own could make some dives far superior than if you are employing ill fitting hire gear. I would go as far as saying that you might probably buy these items even before you start your fundamental education so that you become used to them.
The other benefit of your own mask and snorkel is that they are not limited to scuba scuba. Once you are cheerfully established into your holiday resort you can kit up in these and have a go at snorkelling. This can be the prospect to practise mask clearing exercises, even if only within the hotel’s swimming pool. If there are quite a few days before you begin your four open water scuba sessions of the course, say while you complete the theory, then it is at least a step in the right direction.
After that you might like to look at the safety equipment and accessories such as scuba torches and knives. Your own torch can be a enormous benefit on a night dive and a knife, once you have finished your training, can be for prodding and signalling on dives.
Once you are settled into your diving then you may like to look at the more pricey and larger items of gear. Familiarity with your gear might just be a great gain one day.
Author Resource:
If you would like to discover some scuba gear reviews or you want to uncover good prices on gear, have a look at what is there to do at godiving.org.
Written by Keith Lunt, who owns godiving.org, where you can come across a selection of scuba centre reviews .
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