Over the last couple of years, I've been very happy with the way Gitzo tripods have performed with the exception of one aspect : the accelerated death in sea water exposure.
Last year, Marianne and I had to replace both tripods we had after several years coincidentally. We replaced one with a normal gitzo which was used only on dry land and tried a gitzo safari tripod which I took out to all seascape shoots (where often the tripod and I would be submerged to varying degrees).
After a year of use, the carbon fibre wore out and the bottom leg frayed to extent where cracks have appeared and the footing is loose (despite cleaning it after every outing)
I've come to the conclusion that with constant immersion in salt water, no claims of super duper resistant tripods are really going to hold up and so , I'm looking to downgrade for use in the sea.
From what I've heard, Benro equivalents of Gitzos work just as well and are half the price which seems to suit my purposes very well!
Do any of you have any practical experiences with Benro durability and quality? Especially seascapers there who like to go swimming with their tripod.