How important is having good scuba gear?

Name three sports where good equipment can mean the difference between life and death. In my opinion, those would be skydiving, mountaineering and scuba. You wouldn’t want your ropes to fail on Mount Everest, your chute to fail during freefall or your regulator to stop functioning at a depth of 100 feet (33 meters). Properly maintained scuba gear is critical to your survival underwater - period.

I know this fact more acutely than most because my scuba gear failed and I’m lucky to still be alive to tell of it. In my case, it was a small seam that split in the rubber where my mouthpiece joined my air hose. It ruptured without warning and I began breathing seawater. Oddly enough and in retrospect, drowning actually saved my life because expanding air in my lungs expelled the seawater. Had I been conscious and breathing all of the way to the surface, I would’ve certainly died of ‘secondary drowning’.

Having a good scuba gear package is a MUST if you want to explore the fascinating world below the surf. And here in this scuba gear blog is where we can talk about it. Since my drowning, many people wonder how I can still scuba dive. Why wouldn’t I want to continue? I’m just a lot more careful of my equipment. I also don’t want to frighten people away from diving. I just hope that my misadventure, coupled with my knowledge of self-contained breathing equipment can prevent an accident like mine. Because scuba diving is awesome! (When one has good quality scuba gear.)