The Fast & the Curious: A Beginner’s Guide to Overthinking SCUBA
So maybe this is an oddly timely post. I just passed my 500th dive—a nice round number that makes you feel momentarily more competent than you probably are—and right on cue, I’ve started getting a barrage of texts from a friend of a friend. He’s in his twenties, newly married, working his first proper job, and just signed up for his Open Water scuba class this summer. We’ve crossed paths a few times over the years—he’s grown up into a genuinely kind and thoughtful guy—and now he’s doing what all eager new divers do: launching himself down the internet rabbit hole like he’s trying to assemble a Mars lander from spare toaster parts.
Every day, a new question pops up on my phone. Should I get the Scubapro MK25 or the Atomic T3? What’s better for buoyancy—backplate or a jacket BCD? Should I go straight to a drysuit or start with a wetsuit? The energy is pure and familiar. It’s like watching a baby deer on roller skates, both heartwarming and slightly chaotic. And I totally get it. I was exactly the same way. Back in the day, I researched everything to death. Every forum, every YouTube video, every Reddit thread that mentioned dive gear—I devoured it all.
In the beginning, nothing is intuitive. You’re trying to remember to breathe, not flail, not float away, not sink like a stone, and keep from hyperventilating while your brain, quite reasonably, insists that this is no place for a mammal to be. Whether your fins are made of carbon fiber or leftover soup cans is, frankly, the least of your concerns.
And in the end? Most of what I read wasn’t exactly wrong, but it also wasn’t all that helpful once I actually got in the water. Especially when it came to diving CCR—closed circuit rebreathers—where the details get deep, fast. I remember spending absurd amounts of time reading about every way people had ever modified their stock AP Inspiration. Continuous harnesses. Backplates. Custom stands to make donning easier. I obsessed over whether I should use a Dive-Rite harness, webbing, steel or carbon-fiber backplate forged under a full moon. Eventually, I assembled a configuration that I like well enough. But honestly? It’s not dramatically better than what I started with. It’s mainly just different. Maybe it looks cooler. It certainly cost more. But functionally? It’s identical.
“Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterward.” ~ Oscar Wilde
When I talk to this young guy about diving, I try to steer him gently away from the gear vortex. I suggest that he just take the course. Use his dad’s old gear, if at all possible.
And actually, there’s a touching bit of poetry there—his dad passed away recently, and using his gear would give his first dives a little extra meaning. I told him I still use a regulator on my bailout bottle that’s 30 years old. It’s a Scubapro reg that’s been regularly serviced, and it breathes like a wind tunnel. I recently tested it in 33°F water, while practicing an open circuit ascent, I huffed and puffed on it like I took a freight train-sized CO2 hit, fully expecting it to freeze and free flow like a fire hydrant. But nope. The old reg just worked. Didn’t flinch.
You see this sort of thing a lot with new divers—this belief that the right gear will somehow prepare them for the underwater world. But the truth is, you can’t hack experience. You can’t shortcut the learning curve. Sure, you can technically go from Open Water to Divemaster in a few months, but you’ll come out with about the same level of understanding as someone who learned to drive by reading the car manual and watching Fast & Furious movies. Mastery in diving isn’t about collecting cert cards. It’s about slowly accumulating moments of comfort and awareness underwater, and you only get that by diving. A lot.
The best divers I know—really, truly skilled divers—are often the quiet ones
The best divers I know—really, truly skilled divers—are often the quiet ones. They don’t wear the fanciest gear. In fact, some of them wear gear that looks like it’s been salvaged from a shipwreck. But it works. And they know how to use it. They move through the water like they belong there, like they’re not thinking about what they’re wearing or whether their tank is DIN or yoke.
Because here’s the thing: once you actually start diving, all those questions you obsessed over? They start to make more sense. And more often than not, the answer ends up being “whatever fits and works well.”
You can’t understand buoyancy until you’ve done it. You won’t really grasp what kind of fin you like until you’ve kicked through some current. You won’t know what gear you need until you’ve spent time doing the kind of diving you want to do.
So to my friend, and to every other brand-new diver out there full of enthusiasm and spreadsheet-based shopping lists: take the course. Use the gear that’s available. Rent whatever. Dive as much as you can. Log the hours. Ask experienced divers what they like and, more importantly, why. Don’t chase drysuits until you’ve shivered your way through a few cold dives and know what you’re in for. Don’t buy a rebreather until you’ve spent enough time on open circuit to know why you’d want to stop making bubbles in the first place.
And please, above all, enjoy being a beginner. You only get to be one once. Everything is new. Everything is exciting. Even a 20-foot dive in a silty lake feels like a National Geographic special. Soak that in.
Because one day, 500 dives later, someone will be asking you which fins to buy, and you’ll probably want to tell them the same thing I’m telling you:
Dive more, worry less.
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