Best city to live in and dive from?

[Kevrumbo]

Hey all thanks for the huge amount of replies! Lots of food for thought!!

Just to give a bit more background: I'm from the UK and did most of my learning and diving in Scotland ... actually all of it for the first 10 years of diving. Then spent a few years living and diving in Spain and now living in Thailand. The problem is that, while this is perfect for me (working in diving), it sucks a bit for my partner since she doesn't really dive.
Well, I say 'sucks' ... it's beautiful but after a few months it's now mind-numbingly boring for her since there's not much else to do here, so it's a rubbish long-term place for us unfortunately.

On the plus side, I have over 20 years IT experience (my 'real' job which I go back to regularly between diving jobs), so we're thinking a city where I can make good IT money (or rubbish dive center money) and she can work within her fields (teaching / recruitment and social work), but getting to the water's easy-peasy for me.

To be honest, the water can be cold (I'm very comfortable in a drysuit and very easy to please as long as I'm underwater), but we want a warm climate outside the water.

Cozumel and Australia sound good, but so does Singapore (bit of a surprise in this list) - could be good for an IT job for me, is it easy to get to the diving in Singapore?

The most active tropical Scuba Club in the Pacific:
Kwajalein Scuba Club

If you have the job qualifications and are a US Citizen (and have an active Security Clearance or can undergo a background investigation to obtain one) --you won't have to live like a Scuba Bum:

https://www.krsjv.com/Pages/CareersNew.aspx

. . .If you are hired in "Unaccompanied" status you are provided with a single status Bachelor Quarters room similar to a dorm room or small studio apartment, with a private bathroom. You are also provided a meal card which allows you to eat at the island dining hall at no cost. If you are hired in "Accompanied" status you typically receive housing for you and your pre- approved dependents, but no meal card. There are no charges to the employee for housing utilities. Your only fixed monthly cost for living on Kwajalein is for your basic telephone service. Most employees work a standard 5 day/40 hour work schedule. . .

For the British Indian Ocean Territory of Diego Garcia, there might be similar job opportunities for UK Nationals. . .

 

[anakkuta]

Singapore.

I dont think Singapore have a great spot dive in there. How about Bali, Indonesia? Almost anything tourist wanna do, they have it, of course great dive spot too.

 

[Louis Thompson]

Wow. This sounds like a great idea! How is the cost of living in Singapore? Can Americans get visa for an extended period (not to work)? We might like to move there for a year. Might be really hot & humid though.

Bill

Hi Bill, I live in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Singapore is nice but quite expensive. Malaysia equally has excellent low cost connections to all the great places in SE Asia but is a fraction of the cost of Singapore to live in. Unfortunately , as with singapore there are no good dive locations locally to KL and a short flight is required ( e.g 1 hour to dive the phi phi islands in Thailand- filming location of the movie "the beach")

 

[CarcharodonCarcharias]

That sums it up pretty nicely.

A 1,000 sq. ft. apartment in town starts at about $4,000 a month. (A bargain by HK standards.) A Toyota Camry will set you back about $140,000. Dining out, consumer items, etc., are all expensive, even by New York City standards. But if you are willing to live in the outskirts (the whole country is only about 30 miles from east to west, so you're never too far from anywhere) without a car (you don't need one—public transportation is cheap and excellent) it's much more manageable.

The visa situation would be easy if you wanted to stay in a hotel. You could just get a series of tourist visas (good for 90 days). But you need a long-term visa to rent an apartment, and there are fairly narrow criteria to qualify. An employment visa might be easier, strangely enough. But there has been some public backlash against the influx of foreigners, so it's not as easy as it used to be.

Yes, it's hot and humid. It's typically between ~84º and 92ºF during the day, with over 90% humidity, but we have been having a nice little cool spell here lately (rainy season). The whole city is air-conditioned.

Singapore is one of the most expensive places to live in the world.

Housing is expensive, food is expensive, and medical care is expensive.

EP (employment visa) is pretty tough to get now. I've seen MNG's trying to move their executives to Singapore and getting turned down.

If you don't have an EP, it will be pretty tough to rent long term apartment.

If you like Singapore and got some money that you can park in Singapore (few mil), the PR (permanent residency) route is the way to go.