One of the high points of our year is The DEMA Show, where we meander among booths and revel in shiny new gear. This year we noticed exciting trends in drysuits, fins, BCs and LED lights. Here is the 2013 gear preview...
Ready to buy your first set of gear? From buying new dive gear to taking care of what you already own, these simple tips will help you get the most out of your money.
Scuba diving is an equipment intensive sport, and your gear can be a fickle ally. Assembling a collection of dive gear-specific tools and spare parts to deal with basic maintenance and minor emergencies will help keep you ready to hit the water at a moment’s notice
A load of new gear debuted in 2012, and the ScubaLab team dive-tested just about all of it. After digging deep into both objective and ergonomic test results, on the following pages we celebrate the year’s top-performing fins, BCs, regulators and dive computers, along with some first-rate travel bags, warm-water wetsuits and a couple of our top picks for safety gear.
The winner of both a ScubaLab Testers Choice and a Best Buy, the Travelight is a full-featured jacket-style BC designed for traveling divers. Constructed of featherlight 210-denier nylon, it comes with Cressi’s Lock Aid integrated weight system, two zippered pockets and six alloy D-rings. Its soft pack design can be folded in seconds and stowed in its own carry bag. For 2013 the BC features a new range of colors.
From our recent test of the latest BCs, these four models were the clear performance leaders.
Dive Gear reviews from our recent equipment test at The Devil's Den in Williston, Florida.
Sure, there might be other dive gear deemed more important to basic survival (a reg) or your general well-being (a dive computer) than a BC. But when it comes to being able to comfortably acclimate to being underwater — to the point where you feel like a resident rather than a clumsy topside tourist — the BC is the most important component of your kit.
Follow these 8 easy tips to keep your BC in good working order and ready for your next dive.