OK, here goes the story of a colleague of mine who right now lives in Vietnam. He dived from the island Phu Quoc. Vietnamese are claiming that they will make it second Phuket, but as till now without much of a success. The place is still rather wild with kilometers of absolutely empty sandy beaches, no hard roads and few fishermens villages. There is only one diving centre there Rainbow Divers
www.divevietnam.com
One day diving costs 75 US$ - and it includes all gear, boat 2 dives with DM, fruits or lunch depending on the length of the diving day. If using your own gear and diving for minimum 3 days then you get 10% discount
Rainbow Divers exists for 3 years and as far got the permission to dive in 5 spots. Phu Quoc is on the border of Cambodia and there are quarrels with Vietnam over the ownership of the place. So the island is mainly military area.
Out of 5 diving spots 3 are worth recommendation. 2 of them are coral gardens, beautiful places full of huge hard corals. Everything at the depth of 6 meters so also full of sun and light. 3rd spot was in the current with vis up to 6 meters only but a place full of animals. During all dives the best was searching for fishes traps. Traps are 1,5x0,8x0,8 meters big and illegal. So divers are asked to destroy them.
One of the interesting thing that although there is a rule of not touching anything still the DM caught an animal and killed it. It was Acanthaster planci leaving of the alive corals destroying corals with the enormous speed. In fact in Egypt there were several time special actions undertaken for killing this animal.
As I wrote at the beginning this is not my story but from a person who lives in Vietnam and will stay there I think for another few years. He is a pilot and works for Vietnamese Airlines.
Mania
