You've booked your Open Water course, and now you're staring at a dive shop wall wondering how much of it you're expected to walk out with. The honest answer: not much. Most courses include the bulk of the gear, and buying a full kit before your first dive is a fast way to end up with expensive equipment that doesn't suit the diving you actually end up doing. Here's what's worth owning from day one, what can wait, and what you can comfortably hire for a while yet.
Buy first: mask, snorkel, fins and boots
These are the personal-fit items, and they're the ones most likely to ruin a dive if they're wrong. A hire mask that leaks or fogs the whole way through your first descent is a genuinely miserable introduction to the sport, and it's not the mask's fault so much as it never being fitted to your face.
Fit it dry before you buy: hold the mask to your face without the strap, breathe in gently through your nose, and see if it seals on its own. If it does, the seal will hold underwater. Silicone skirts are the standard for a reason — they're softer and hold their shape far longer than cheaper rubber. The Tusa Freedom Ceos is a popular first mask for exactly this reason: a low-profile 100% silicone design, with prescription lenses available if you need them. Have a look through the full range of scuba masks and snorkels and try a few on if you can get in-store.
Fins are the other one worth owning early. Open heel fins with boots are the usual choice for scuba in Australian conditions — they're easier to walk in on rocky entries and warmer on winter shore dives.
Hire for now: BCD, regulator, tank and weights
Your BCD and regulator are the two biggest purchases in diving, and they're the two you're least equipped to choose before you've done twenty dives. Hire them. By the time you've dived a few different setups, you'll have opinions about inflation style, integrated weight pockets and how a particular reg breathes at depth — and those opinions are what stop you buying the wrong thing twice.
Tanks and weights are almost always cheaper to hire than to own unless you're diving weekly and have somewhere to store them. Tanks also need periodic testing, which is another cost that doesn't make sense until you're diving often.
The wetsuit question
Wetsuits sit awkwardly in the middle. Hire suits are the single most-complained-about item in dive hire — they're worn, stretched, and rarely the right size for you. A suit that's too big flushes cold water through it constantly, which is why so many people finish their first course convinced they get cold easily. They don't; the suit was wrong.
If your course is in cooler water, or you already know you'll keep diving, a well-fitting suit is money well spent. A 5mm is the sensible all-rounder for most of the southern half of Australia, with 3mm suiting warmer northern water and summer diving. Check the scuba wetsuit range and our size guides before you commit — fit matters more than brand or price here.
What it comes down to
Buy the things that touch your face and feet, hire the things that keep you alive until you know what you want from them, and let the wetsuit decision follow the water you'll be diving in. A mask, snorkel, fins and boots will get you through your Open Water course comfortably, and none of it becomes redundant later — you'll still be using that same kit when you eventually do buy a BCD. If you're unsure about anything, come in and talk to us, or have a read through our FAQs. Everyone on the team started exactly where you are.