Any Hong Kong divers in here???

[pakman]

OK...

It's just been a year since I moved out to Hong Kong from the States. Just started to get back into diving earlier this year and have done various trips to the Philippines and Indonesia. But I am finding myself itching to get some diving in locally while waiting for these overseas trips. I've heard the local diving is far from stellar, but I wouldn't mind getting into the water over the weekends just for the sake of practicing some skills or just to play around with some new toys...

Well if any of you locals or expats go out frequently, I'd love to tag along. If not, I'd appreciate it if you could point me to any English speaking diving clubs in Hong Kong? Unfortunately most of the dive clubs I've seen online are chinese speaking.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[buksida]

I believe there are a couple of dive clubs in Hong Kong, the South China Diving Club is one of the more popular ones. Their website it here: http://www.scdc.org.hk/

For info on dive sites in Hong Kong have a look at this one:
http://www.asiadivesite.com/hong-kong-dive-sites/

 

[pakman]

Buksida,

thanks for the link. Found another dive club called Hong Kong Underwater Club and might try to see if I can tag along on their upcoming weekend dive trip.

thanks for the link.

 

[nightcat]

Hi,

I'm a newbie diver in HK, just finished my OW course last week in fact. This diving school also arranges dives every weekend till end of December each year as far as I know.

If you're interested you can pm me for more detail.

Alan

 

[pakman]

Nightcat, congrats on finishing your OW. Out of curiosity, which dive school did you use and do they have english speaking instructors? Yes I noticed that most of the dive shops have almost weekly local dive trips but to be honest I'd rather not go on a boat where I am the only non chinese...

In fact I had a quite amusing trip on Sunday. I ended up tagging along with the South China Divers Club for their Sunday dive (nice mix group of local chinese and expats). Went to a place near Rock Island early morning. No boats around, nice shallow dives around some regenerating coral. Noticed a lot of boat traffic noise from underwater but just assume it was boats passing by. We surfaced and too our surprised there were over 20 dive and leisure boats in the area! If it wasn't so dangerous in how some of the captains were ignoring the dive signs, I would have laughed cause it was comical in a way. I've never seen so many boats try to anchor so close to each other. Some of these boats (and they are not small) would just power up right next to us and drop their anchor while some of our divers were surfacing nearby! Everybody on our boat were shouting (both in Cantonese and english) at their captain and he just seemed to be oblivious.

 

[nightcat]

Nightcat, congrats on finishing your OW. Out of curiosity, which dive school did you use and do they have english speaking instructors? Yes I noticed that most of the dive shops have almost weekly local dive trips but to be honest I'd rather not go on a boat where I am the only non chinese...

In fact I had a quite amusing trip on Sunday. I ended up tagging along with the South China Divers Club for their Sunday dive (nice mix group of local chinese and expats). Went to a place near Rock Island early morning. No boats around, nice shallow dives around some regenerating coral. Noticed a lot of boat traffic noise from underwater but just assume it was boats passing by. We surfaced and too our surprised there were over 20 dive and leisure boats in the area! If it wasn't so dangerous in how some of the captains were ignoring the dive signs, I would have laughed cause it was comical in a way. I've never seen so many boats try to anchor so close to each other. Some of these boats (and they are not small) would just power up right next to us and drop their anchor while some of our divers were surfacing nearby! Everybody on our boat were shouting (both in Cantonese and english) at their captain and he just seemed to be oblivious.

The school I went was Ocean Sky Diving in Tsim Sha Tsui. The boat is nice and big, and I think a lot of ppl there can speak english but i'm afraid you'll be the only non-Chinese on board.

As for english speaking instructors, I know there's one working for Pro-Dive in Wan Chai. You can check out more details here www.prodive.com.hk.

I'm sorry to hear what you encountered during your live-board. Just have to be extra careful as HK is a very crowded place. Took me quite a while to get use to it after I studied abroad.

 

[chip104]

congrats on getting your OW night cat! Spent 10 years of my life in HK. Great place to be. Boy, do I miss the life there. Just curious, how much do dives usually cost there?

 

[pakman]

Chip - let's swap... you can have all the fun here in HK (langkwaifong,wanchai, etc) and I'll go over to Philippines and enjoy the great diving every weekend...

I think the local shops charge around HK$300-400 (US$40-$50) maybe less for a 2 dive trip including lunch/bbq in a nice boat. Going with a dive club is cheaper. For our 2 dive trip, it was basically HK$220 but 120 of that was for the 2 tanks (we were on a smaller chinese junk).

nightcat - don't feel bad... the trip was still enjoyable and the visibility was actually OK. I'll just remember to use my SMB before surfacing next time... We did see a scorpion fish just after it caught a fish in its mouth. First time I've seen them actually eating... Then on the 2nd dive, visibility wasn't as good but out of nowhere comes this 1.5-2m reef ray almost right into my face before turned away. Kicking myself for not bringing my camera gear with me... Would have loved to have gotten some photos of that scorpion fish enjoying its meal.

And you were right about prodive having an english speaking dive instructor. Spoke to him earlier today and I'm going to sign up for a rescue class with him end of next month.

 

[chip104]

lol! sure, but can I get to keep your salary? The exchange rate will kill me!

Thanks for the info! Next time I go I might check out the dive club. Purely out of curiousity since some of my friends' Dads were part of them.

Chip - let's swap... you can have all the fun here in HK (langkwaifong,wanchai, etc) and I'll go over to Philippines and enjoy the great diving every weekend...

I think the local shops charge around HK$300-400 (US$40-$50) maybe less for a 2 dive trip including lunch/bbq in a nice boat. Going with a dive club is cheaper. For our 2 dive trip, it was basically HK$220 but 120 of that was for the 2 tanks (we were on a smaller chinese junk).

 

[pakman]

lol! sure, but can I get to keep your salary?

ok just as long as you give me a daily allowance to cover my diving and drinking in the PI...