My night dive scared the living shit out of me. I have problems getting horrible images out of my head in the first place - and I don't like the dark. Being in the water, pitch black, unable to really hear anything, with a torch that only lights up a very thing beam _exactly_ where it's pointing was unpleasant.

There could have been a shark four inches from me, just outside of the light cone.

And in my head, there was.

I found it kinda peaceful. I turned off my light once, just to float in the dark, but one of the instructor's friends that came along for fun rushed over and turned on my light, thinking I'd forgot to turn it on or something.

We are obviously living in different movies.

I suspect you can even wander to the toilet in the middle of the night without turning on all the lights and then screaming when the cat walks over your foot.

I did _love_ wreck diving. Dropping down onto the prow of a cargo ship and then getting to clamber all over it (not going inside, obviously) was amazingly good fun.

Congrats, I'm still 10 dives away from my advanced.
What BC and regulator did you end up getting?

I can't remember which regulator, but BC is Scubapro Nighthawk w/ Air-2. The inflator hose is also my secondary air, so no octopus, and my Suunto D9 saves me a higher pressure hose, so I only have my regulator hose, BC hose (out of the way).

And dry suit hose, if I'm diving dry, but that's even more out of the way than the BC hose, really short and tucking under my left arm.

Ahh was this rental gear? I thought you'd mentioned in a previous post you'd purchased all your gear. I only ask because I'm about to spring for a BC regs, and computer.

I personally hate the integrated inflators if only because the dump button is on the side instead of the end, which I find somewhat difficult to press with gloves on.

I don't own a dry suit, tanks, or weights, but I have everything else. Tanks/weights I should buy soon.

I had problems with my drysuit neck seal but on the advice of a friend I started putting a little bit of silicon grease along my neck where I'd get the red line from the neck seal and it's been fine since.

Dry suits rock when you get one that fits you and doesn't have all of that extra material turning you into a big bag of loose nylon fabric.

You can do better than $2,000 on a drysuit. I had to get mine custom made (extra tall, add-on pockets) and it still came in under $1800. (Diving Concepts Ultraflex Pro).

If you fit into stock sizes, you could get something like a DUI TLSSE for ~$1300

I dive with a guy that likes his Ocean Vendors suit and said that the price was reasonable $1000 I think.

Just don't get neoprene. Tri-lamanate is the way to go.

Just don't get neoprene. Tri-lamanate is the way to go.

There are people religious about both. I think it comes down to preference.

Yup, everybody I dive with says neoprene is the way to go, stay away from trilams.