BrianMered
Contributor
I visited Sanya in January 2015, and having read quite a few reviews didn’t expect much, after 30 years of diving I’ve learned that there is no such thing as a bad dive, only some that are better than others. That all changed when I went to China Dive Club.
My Chinese wife and I travel with all our equipment and only needed tanks and weights. The guys were pleasant enough and after explaining through my wife that I am a PADI instructor and I would like to try some real diving as opposed to the zillion ‘try dive’ outlets scattered along the shores of Hainan (all of which break the PADI rules on a daily basis). I asked about tanks with DIN connectors and he nodded and showed me that the shop used them. Considering that we had all equipment with us the diving wasn’t cheap coming in at RMB 440 ($80) per person per dive. He told us to give him a couple of days to organise a boat dive and he would call us. After 4 days nothing so we called back. OK be ready tomorrow morning at 07:30 hrs. we were told. That evening we received a call, pick up time changed, be ready at 08:30 hrs.
The following morning at 08:50 a mini bus full of tourists turned up and we were off on a one-hour journey from Sanya to Fenjiezhou Island. We then got on a boat with more tourists for a 10 minute transfer to the island. Little did we know that they considered that to be our boat dive! The island was mobbed with tourists, changing rooms were bursting at the seams, litter and rubbish scattered everywhere. We found a quiet corner behind an outhouse to change into wet suits. DM was another nice guy who introduced us to one more diver who would be joining us. We then had a 10 minute walk through the crowds carrying my camera rig and equipment and in the distance saw 6 tanks standing next to the oldest dirtiest smoking compressor you could imagine. DM explained we would kit up and do a beach entry. What happened to the boat dive? Checked the tanks and of course they were regular yoke connectors so my DIN regulator, integrated pressure transmitter and BCD would not fit. DM walked back to see if they had an adaptor and returned with a regular yoke type regulator. No go, so we both had to return to the dive shack and find a toolbox and swap my gear and hoses to the regulator first stage. DM accidentally dropped my 1st stage pressure transmitter and that wouldn’t work again. It was turning into an expensive day. By now it was 11:00 in the morning and getting pretty warm with all the walking.
Kitted up and after buddy check and air quality checks got into the water. Visibility was 2 meters at best, barren rocks covered in mud and silt hanging in the water, possibly from land runoff due to thoughtless island development. Followed the DM to a small wreck at 18 meters, did a couple of rounds looking for nudibranchs and then headed back towards the beach into 5 meter water depth. The other less experienced diver was out of air but my wife and I continued our search for anything living. After 60 minutes we surfaced and headed back to shore. We couldn’t shower as the changing rooms were wall to wall with try divers changing out of wet suits and leaving them scattered on the floor. DM apologised profusely and we cancelled the second dive as being pointless. Following day we returned to China dive club and after much discussion he finally admitted that he didn’t have time to organise a real dive and had handed us over to a tour operator.
Never, ever again will I dive China.
My Chinese wife and I travel with all our equipment and only needed tanks and weights. The guys were pleasant enough and after explaining through my wife that I am a PADI instructor and I would like to try some real diving as opposed to the zillion ‘try dive’ outlets scattered along the shores of Hainan (all of which break the PADI rules on a daily basis). I asked about tanks with DIN connectors and he nodded and showed me that the shop used them. Considering that we had all equipment with us the diving wasn’t cheap coming in at RMB 440 ($80) per person per dive. He told us to give him a couple of days to organise a boat dive and he would call us. After 4 days nothing so we called back. OK be ready tomorrow morning at 07:30 hrs. we were told. That evening we received a call, pick up time changed, be ready at 08:30 hrs.
The following morning at 08:50 a mini bus full of tourists turned up and we were off on a one-hour journey from Sanya to Fenjiezhou Island. We then got on a boat with more tourists for a 10 minute transfer to the island. Little did we know that they considered that to be our boat dive! The island was mobbed with tourists, changing rooms were bursting at the seams, litter and rubbish scattered everywhere. We found a quiet corner behind an outhouse to change into wet suits. DM was another nice guy who introduced us to one more diver who would be joining us. We then had a 10 minute walk through the crowds carrying my camera rig and equipment and in the distance saw 6 tanks standing next to the oldest dirtiest smoking compressor you could imagine. DM explained we would kit up and do a beach entry. What happened to the boat dive? Checked the tanks and of course they were regular yoke connectors so my DIN regulator, integrated pressure transmitter and BCD would not fit. DM walked back to see if they had an adaptor and returned with a regular yoke type regulator. No go, so we both had to return to the dive shack and find a toolbox and swap my gear and hoses to the regulator first stage. DM accidentally dropped my 1st stage pressure transmitter and that wouldn’t work again. It was turning into an expensive day. By now it was 11:00 in the morning and getting pretty warm with all the walking.
Kitted up and after buddy check and air quality checks got into the water. Visibility was 2 meters at best, barren rocks covered in mud and silt hanging in the water, possibly from land runoff due to thoughtless island development. Followed the DM to a small wreck at 18 meters, did a couple of rounds looking for nudibranchs and then headed back towards the beach into 5 meter water depth. The other less experienced diver was out of air but my wife and I continued our search for anything living. After 60 minutes we surfaced and headed back to shore. We couldn’t shower as the changing rooms were wall to wall with try divers changing out of wet suits and leaving them scattered on the floor. DM apologised profusely and we cancelled the second dive as being pointless. Following day we returned to China dive club and after much discussion he finally admitted that he didn’t have time to organise a real dive and had handed us over to a tour operator.
Never, ever again will I dive China.
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