Gear crisis

Following my last post about the need for dive gear, this has been a traumatic day.

Having honed my selection of new gear down to a few choices, I decided the time had also come to get a new battery fitted to my dive computer - well, in face the time was about a year ago as I found out when we went away diving and my computer didn't work. So, off I toddled to the local dive shop (toddling being a fine method of travel in my neck of the woods).

I've had said dive computer for many years and it's never needed a battery, so I didn't really know what to expect in terms of price. I do, however, know what I didn't expect and that was the healthy sum of £140 being required. This seems rather excessive, but apparently it's all very complicated and time consuming and you basically don't have any choice (you can't do it yourself because you need to replace the seals to make it water and pressure proof again). Add to this the fact that I needed a new screen protector and was also thinking of getting a nice computer interface for it that I'd seen on eBay and we're rapidly heading in the direction of 200 quid. The worst part of it being it's not new or shiny, just the same old computer I've had for years (albeit in an improved state of actually functioning).

Just as I was pondering all this, Carl in the dive shop informed me that instead of shelling out all this cash, I could, instead, shell out even more and upgrade to a suitably shiny new computer - with whizzy new features like microbubbles and IRDA interface. I did ponder this for several hours before ringing him back and going ahead with the new-for-old option.

So these events have put rather a dent in the budget for new kit - amounting to basically the cost of a new BCD. So I've made the hard decision to keep my existing kit - with all its weighty joy and instead just get a couple of new spangly things to celebrate our forthcoming trip. Bit of a change of tack, but then I didn't expect to be getting a new computer.

We have also agreed to book the hol - even though herself hasn't officially been granted the holiday yet. I shall (hopefully) be doing this in the very near future.