4 Years, 500 Dives, 1 BC

[rainmaker]

Originally Posted by Daved

That is hard core! All salt water by the sounds of it. You must be fairly tenacious about cleaning. Congrats on 500 and way to go with the BCD.
Just out of curiosity--why not the regs?

I live relatively close to a lake that has an area set up for scuba (Lake Jocassee, SC). I usually spend at least 1 day a week there from May - October, and make 5 - 6 dives during the day. I've also made 7 trips to the Caribbean and Pacific and 2 trips to the FL Keys. I've made about 150 ocean dives, and I'm pretty careful about cleaning my gear.

I bought 2 regs when I started diving, the idea being I'd use the "quality" reg (Zeagle Flathead XP) for local dives, and the less expensive Tusa RS-130 for trips that required air travel. It really didn't work out that way, however, neither reg has made 500 dives so I didn't mention them on the posting.

I just remembered that a year or so ago, I made 5 - 10 dives with my back-up BC, a Dacor Talon model. However, with its hard plastic backplate it is not nearly as comfortable as the Sherwood Avid. Also, it has only 1 tank band, which seemed to negatively affect my trim when underwater. It hasn't been used since, but is still available if I need it.

Only 2 other items have made 500 dives with me, the others being my Aeris Atmos2 computer (console), and my Aeris Velocity fins. The computer has required 3 battery changes, but no other maintenance. For the fins, I recently replaced the rubber straps with spring straps, even though the rubber straps were still intact and working well. The fins are pretty beat-up, but still functioning.

[LCF]

I've got about 600 dives, but there is not one single thing that has made all of them with me. The closest would be my Jet fins, which I bought for my 61st dive. They've done all the rest.

[thesmoothdome]

Geez...how are the equipment manufacturers supposed to survive if we all realize our gear will last a long time?

Seriously, for me, I've been diving the same pair of Mares Power Planas since I was certified in 1990. When I moved to a dry suit for cold water, their usage decreased, but I still use them for warm water. I've probably got 500 dives on them plus hundreds of hours of pool work. I think I'm going to retire them and get a pair of split fins for my warm water trips though.