Imported post
Trip Report: Diver's Warehouse Clearance Sale.
For those who were talking about this on the other thread: Conor - don't worry, there weren't any £50 Brittanics (not that I saw anyway, some marked at £450 though) and Dominic - if you wanted a reg to go with that £85 pony you were looking at quite a bit more...
Having decided to go get myself a drysuit and pony, I hauled myself out of bed at horrid o'clock this morning to tackle the 220 mile trip to Bradford and the Diver's Warehouse clearance sale. It was bloody cold, and I had to scrape ice off the windscreen for the first time this year. With my fingernails. Bloody Kylie, never around when you need her.
As I sped (under the speed limit of course, and watching out for cameras) through the darkness towards Bradford, at least I was able to amuse myself with the thought that many hundreds of people were probably already queuing up outside Stoney (if anyone reading this was - SORRY!). Anyway, I made good time and eventually arrived just before 10 - much earlier than I had previously planned (I'd been aiming to get there for about lunchtimish, which would have been a VERY bad mistake).
Nice and early I thought (the place opened at 9.30) - there were quite a few cars outside, but who knows, I might be in time to pick up one of those £50 computers they were advertising....
NOT.
Obviously, there were about a thousand people milling around, and queing up with the goodies they'd run in and nabbed. Apparently all the computers went in the first 2 minutes of opening. Anyway, being a cheapskate I headed straight for the ex-rental section and immediately started picking up anything and everything that looked interesting. Once I had an armful of stuff safely out of the clutches of the other customers (competetive, me?) I was able to relax a bit and look at what I'd grabbed and decide if I actually wanted it. Turned out I did - 8 month old 02 clean pony for £50, and an Apeks DS4/TX40 in good nick for £100 to go with it. Considering I'd been expecting to spend £180ish on a pony with a cheapshit Cressi reg, I was quite pleased with this even if it was secondhand.
Right then, drysuit. Up to the top floor of the crumbling semi-derelict mill building next door.
It was like a scene from Dante's Inferno (the one about Hell, not the one with Pierce Brosnan and the volcano - though some of the scenes in that came close). Or the bottom carpark at Stoney midway through a saturday afternoon.
Many, many, many, many people were swarming all over the ex-demo drysuit racks. It was difficult to even get near the 'good stuff', let alone try them on, and the pricing structure was far from clear - is this Otter Brittannic I'm trying on one of the 'make us an offer' bargains, or the 'as new and still pretty expensive' ones? Oh, the second one? OK, I'll put it back then... didn't like it anyway. Honest.
I shambled through the crowds in quite a serious state of distress. Things were cheaper than usual, but still more than I'd been hoping. None of the cheapo ex-rental stuff looked anything like my size. Even though I had a pretty good idea of what I was looking for, I could only find a handful of (affordable) suits that came anywhere near fitting the bill - anything that was the right height / boot size was WAY too baggy round the waist (and I'm not exactly stick-thin). And stuff was vanishing off the racks very, very fast. At a couple of points during my quest I was at the stage of walking out and going to look elsewhere, thinking that coming up all that way had been a waste of time.
At one point, I got as far as the exit - then turned back to have another look, as the crowd had died down a little by then. And eventually I found a suit - sold to me by one of the shop guys using the simple technique of saying 'yes, that fits you'. With a sales pitch like that, it was a done deal...
So - I ended up getting an as-new ex-demo Otter Skin, complete with (ex-rental - but it smells a lot less now I've washed it) undersuit, hood, hose, valves, bag etc, for £300. Got it so cheap because it had a damaged wrist seal - which they're replacing free of charge, and sticking on a cargo pocket for another £25. On the basis of my limited interactions with them so far, I'd tend to agree with the people who say they do good customer service.
At one point in the morning I thought it had all been a horrible mistake, and complete waste of time. But by lunchtime I was much happier, and still am - even with the £25ish for petrol to get up there, I think I got a good deal. And if it turns out to be leaky or whatever I can always sell it for a profit on ebay.
So, anyway, here I am - bit of a wrench for the old Visa card, but I've got some stuff I've been needing - the next challenge is working out what to do with this pony thingy. I've already had a go at rigging it up. I think the technical term for the configuration I've devised is "clusterf*ck" - expect many questions over the next few weeks...
Bloody hell, haven't I typed a big old load of nonsense. Blame the sleep deprivation, and the Heineken...
Tom
