all right, I'm not going to be able to list all the places where you can dive in China as of 2014, but let me start by saying that this is one of the quickest growing sports in China for the "nouveau riche"... as the Chinese have a little more disposable cash, they are getting out to the places like the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and finding out that diving is pretty cool... they come back all enthused, and are definitely a country with people looking to be affiliated with 'clubs'... so there are diving clubs popping up all over.
An example is this one: ????_???????_??????-????????????? ("qianshui" means diving in Chinese) This particular club is located in Qingdao on the southern tip of the Shandong province... north of there is the closest point in Shandong to Korea at Weihai... both of these locations have cool clear waters, and some of the best seafood in China, so I trust that 50 years of not much diving going on has left something to see on the narrow reefs around these areas, I'll report back later this summer after I make a couple dives.
Anyway, the basic truth is that they aren't restricting much of the shoreline of China any longer. There are still stretches the Chinese navy watches and will keep people out of (like around their navy bases), but otherwise, it is the wild west, if you dare brave the sea, you are golden.
That said, some key areas I expect will have some cool diving are:
Weihai
Yantai
Qingdao
Tianjin
Dalian
(all of these on the borders of the large gulf above Shandong province)
Other places you might hear about
Underwater Great Wall (a section of the wall submerged under a dam reservoir
Lion City (a town flooded 50 years ago by a dam in a large reservoir, dates back nearly 1500 years, and the city wall and buildings are still relatively intact)
DuAn cave system - think of Florida here, only perhaps twice the area of those underwater caves... this was first explored by a team of world class cave divers invited by the Chinese... they have a tech cave training center here
Sanya - of course, the Hawaii of China (literally - much like an Oahu), Yalong Bay is what you'd expect with 50,000 people a week visiting, and hundreds of Chinese wanting a souvenir poking around on the reef, it's not so pristine.. and the dive companies are factories, they just load them up, dive, haul them home... they aren't looking for new, pristine dive sites... There is also Dadong Sea, where I first dived in 2003 with my family, nothing but a sandy bottom and 3 meters vis...
The point here is that the list of locations is going to grow, there is going to be some good new locations come up, and I'm sure there are a lot of them that people will not want to talk about (at least in China) to keep people from going there and ruining it.
If you are ever over this way, give a dive buddy a call...
An example is this one: ????_???????_??????-????????????? ("qianshui" means diving in Chinese) This particular club is located in Qingdao on the southern tip of the Shandong province... north of there is the closest point in Shandong to Korea at Weihai... both of these locations have cool clear waters, and some of the best seafood in China, so I trust that 50 years of not much diving going on has left something to see on the narrow reefs around these areas, I'll report back later this summer after I make a couple dives.
Anyway, the basic truth is that they aren't restricting much of the shoreline of China any longer. There are still stretches the Chinese navy watches and will keep people out of (like around their navy bases), but otherwise, it is the wild west, if you dare brave the sea, you are golden.
That said, some key areas I expect will have some cool diving are:
Weihai
Yantai
Qingdao
Tianjin
Dalian
(all of these on the borders of the large gulf above Shandong province)
Other places you might hear about
Underwater Great Wall (a section of the wall submerged under a dam reservoir
Lion City (a town flooded 50 years ago by a dam in a large reservoir, dates back nearly 1500 years, and the city wall and buildings are still relatively intact)
DuAn cave system - think of Florida here, only perhaps twice the area of those underwater caves... this was first explored by a team of world class cave divers invited by the Chinese... they have a tech cave training center here
Sanya - of course, the Hawaii of China (literally - much like an Oahu), Yalong Bay is what you'd expect with 50,000 people a week visiting, and hundreds of Chinese wanting a souvenir poking around on the reef, it's not so pristine.. and the dive companies are factories, they just load them up, dive, haul them home... they aren't looking for new, pristine dive sites... There is also Dadong Sea, where I first dived in 2003 with my family, nothing but a sandy bottom and 3 meters vis...
The point here is that the list of locations is going to grow, there is going to be some good new locations come up, and I'm sure there are a lot of them that people will not want to talk about (at least in China) to keep people from going there and ruining it.
If you are ever over this way, give a dive buddy a call...
