Scuba Gear: Becoming a Christmas Tree

With Christmas just a few days away, all of the city of Rotterdam is decorated with light, bells and all sorts of other Christmas decorations. More special even, the city is covered with a decent amount of snow....And of course, our house is pretty much the same. Without the snow of course. And as I am a member of the declining race of people who buys a real tree, I was dragging a nice and green, great smelling, tree into my house.

While my girlfriend was decorating the tree, I was catching up on some dive reading and thinking about all the scuba gear I still wanted to buy. And when I looked at the tree again it hit me.......

All suited up, I am the Christmas tree.

I will try to explain what I mean.

When I took my first scuba lessons, I started with the basic scuba gear.
So starting with a mask, snorkel, fins, wetsuit, BCD, regulators, a weightbelt and a console, I hit the pool and later Lake Oostvoorne. Like most novice divers I had my hands full with all of that gear. It was hard to check the compass, stay trimmed at the same time and look at my instructors, divemasters and fellow students, but I managed, no more, no less.

After the open water course I started diving with the dive team of the divecenter and after I made sure I loved scuba diving, I started to acquire my own gear. Of course I started buying the list above and (tried to) get familiar with it.
Wanting to improve my diving skills en experience all sorts of different types of dives, I enlisted in more diving courses. And those courses needed me to by more gear.
Starting with the advanced open water course, I needed two (regular and backup) lights. Then I needed a dive slate, to determine a course during the navigation specialty course. And last, for the deep diver specialty I had to get a safety sausage (SMB) to use during safety stops.

Now back to the tree. When it was still in the forest, all it's branches were free. At most there was a bird's nest on one of them.... But now, all decorated, every branch had something on it; whether it's a light, a ball or some artifical snow.
And my BCD is the exactly the same. At first there were just the console and the octopus, but now all the rings are used to hang all my stuff....



See what I mean?



The worst thing is, I still need (want) more gear... I still have quite a long wishlist that I sent to Santa....
I always thought of myself as a pretty down-to-earth guy, but looking at all the gear I have acquired in two years time, I have to ask myself:

Am I a scuba gear junky?

Something to ponder about during the Holidays.

Have a nice Christmas and a happy new year....

Menno