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Scuba diving in Korea
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LCFrigon

Joined: 25 May 2008

Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:59 pm Post subject:

sojusucks wrote:

Could the dive operations/clubs on Dave's tell us when they are planning their first dive trips or next dive trip(s)?

Your best bet to find out is take a browse over to www.scubainkorea.com or www.deepbluequest.com

DeepblueQuest posts all thier up comming tours and courses on the calender and message board while other clubs also post thier courses on scuba in Korea.

Cheers

toonchoon

Joined: 06 Feb 2009
Location: Gangnam

Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2009 12:20 am Post subject:

toowise wrote:

over 100 dives under my belt, cold water arctic dives, Poor visibility, cold water, limited wildlife, perhaps I had a poor guide?

did a dozen dives in Korea and wasnt impressed with any of them!

they surely must have been better then your cold water arctic dives, no?

on the other hand, i'll hopefully be in Seoul in a week, to teach. i'm bringing all my dive gear, minus the tanks. so here goes my question, and i hope somebody knows the answer...

can i rent the tanks at a dive shop (or buy them), and just go dive around Korea, wherever I feel like it? or am I required to go diving with a "tour".

Reason I ask is because I'm used to going diving with my buddy, doing shore dives, without any tour groups or such. Just the two of us suit up, jump in the water, dive, get out, dry off and drive off. simple. can I do that in Korea?

also, at some point in my dive "career" i will be interested in more advanced courses, such as the DM course. also interested in maybe some OMS or DiveRite equip., and maybe getting into more "technical" diving. Any shops/outfits selling such gear in Korea, and/or offering advanced classes?

mnhnhyouh

Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Location: The Middle Kingdom

Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2009 6:21 am Post subject:

toonchoon wrote:

also, at some point in my dive "career" i will be interested in more advanced courses, such as the DM course. also interested in maybe some OMS or DiveRite equip., and maybe getting into more "technical" diving. Any shops/outfits selling such gear in Korea, and/or offering advanced classes?

I dont do much diving anymore, but have over 800 logged dives.

I did an advanced open water, because I knew it meant that tour operators would let me do more difficult dives.

I could not see the point of doing any more training, but that is because I became interested in biology, eventually getting a masters in marine biology.

Many others I have dived with started getting more training because they loved diving but were getting bored doing the same thing. They are "divers" and diving is the main aim when they go diving, so to keep that up that needed more challenges. Deeper diving, penetration diving on wrecks and in caves etc.

I trained a young scientist before she started her research project. She had 20 dives under her belt, but was still thinking about diving when she was underwater. My job was to get he to the point where she didnt have to think about diving, but could do all that automatically. Then she could concentrate on her work, deploying an insane oxygen logging system with more hoses and cables than Medusa had snakes on the walls of a 20 m deep cage housing 1000 tuna.

Eventually I reached my fieldwork used-by-date. I didnt want to climb into a wet wetsuit for the third time in the day, easing it over my boat bruises, for yet another cold dive counting stuff, measuring stuff, deploying stuff or retrieving stuff.

It has been years since I did that, and maybe I am ready to do more diving again, but not like that.

h

laserprinter

Joined: 18 Jun 2008
Location: Seoul, South Korea

Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2009 8:50 am Post subject:

I didn't have a great experience with Deep Blue Quest either, if you want more info let me know. The most exciting thing I saw on my 2 or 3 ocean dives (ever) was a sea slug around Sokcho. I am a beginner and I'm fairly reluctant to waste my money doing more dives there. People talk about Jeju quite a bit here, I'm debating whether I should get more training in Jeju or fly off to Thailand or the Philippines.. at least I have my Open Water.

toonchoon

Joined: 06 Feb 2009
Location: Gangnam

Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2009 11:01 pm Post subject:

mnhnhyouh wrote:

toonchoon wrote:

i understand where you're coming from. diving for the sake of diving has already gotten pretty stale, and i'm roughly at 90 or so dives, currently getting my advanced ow. unless there are some great things to see underwater, i'm thinking i'd like to do some wrecks, and eventually caverns / caves. that would be pretty exciting.

i'm still down to go for a leisurely dive though... it's just nice to get away and blow bubbles underwater for an hour.

Catscuba

Joined: 01 Feb 2009

Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:46 pm Post subject:

laserprinter wrote:

I didn't have a great experience with Deep Blue Quest either, if you want more info let me know.

The most exciting thing I saw on my 2 or 3 ocean dives (ever) was a sea slug around Sokcho. I am a beginner and I'm fairly reluctant to waste my money doing more dives there. People talk about Jeju quite a bit here, I'm debating whether I should get more training in Jeju or fly off to Thailand or the Philippines.. at least I have my Open Water.

I was on the tour with Peter. I had a fine time and enjoyed every minute of it. Except for one person who never stopped complaining...hmmm I wonder who that was? I'll let you figure that one out. The other funny thing is I remember doing 3 dives on Saturday and one on Sunday. I count four...but once a complainer always a complainer.

As for seeing stuff. We were in a training area with a bunch other classes going on. I am amazed that the sea slugs didn't run away also. They probably were trying to, but they are just slow:)

I have been out to Mun Am resort (the one in Sokcho) after that training, and went on some boat dives. I also dove a wreck with DBQ at Kyung Po Dae (spelling could be wrong). I laugh when people judge their entire experience on a couple dives done in training areas.

I will be joining DBQ in April for my Advanced and will be diving the wrecks again...I can't wait!!!

One last thought...I find it curious that people who didn't have a good time and almost ruined it for others are always the first to comment while the majority of people who have a great time often don't post a thing.

Once again pm me if you want to hear about my fantastic times.

Catscuba
"I may be a tiny girl, but I hit the punch machines like a champ!"

echobelly

Joined: 11 Mar 2009

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 4:58 am Post subject:

Didn't get on well with Deep Blue Quest either. Would find it hard to recommend them at all. [/quote]

diver

Joined: 16 Jun 2003

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 5:02 am Post subject:

Catscuba wrote:

laserprinter wrote:

Maybe we'll meet up (if we haven't already). I told R.K. I'd try to get out and dive with him this year. Just have to find the time...

LCFrigon

Joined: 25 May 2008

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 6:39 am Post subject:

Catscuba wrote:

laserprinter wrote:

Thank you for the positive reviews Cat, but don't let this stuff get to you. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. While most of us have a great time, others won't, and like you said, you'll always hear a hundred negative comments about anything. Just look at this board. It usually starts off from someone usually interested in a subject and asking questions, but in the end, ends up as one long rant. I am just amazed that this discussion hasn't switched to a PADI, NAUI, GUE, etc debate yet like you will find on every scuba forum out there.

Just come out and dive and have fun.
See you in April! The wrecks are waiting!

laserprinter

Joined: 18 Jun 2008
Location: Seoul, South Korea

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 5:23 pm Post subject:

Catscuba wrote:

laserprinter wrote:

I didn't complain verbally to anyone, I kept my mouth shut the whole time and tried to avoid being yelled at again for failing to do something I wasn't taught properly. That is not good training in my opinion. They do have extra patience for women though, I could recommend women for DBQ.

Darashii

Joined: 08 Jan 2008

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 9:06 pm Post subject:

I'm new to diving - a whopping 7 under my weight belt! - but I plan to head down to Jeju to do some more once it starts getting balmy. I already have dive buddies there I didn't know were into diving, but we randomly met each other in Indonesia when I was getting certified.

diver

Joined: 16 Jun 2003

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 9:14 pm Post subject:

Darashii wrote:

I'm new to diving - a whopping 7 under my weight belt! - but I plan to head down to Jeju to do some more once it starts getting balmy. I already have dive buddies there I didn't know were into diving, but we randomly met each other in Indonesia when I was getting certified.

Jeju, eh? Then you're in for some pretty good diving. There is a lot of nice stuff to see there. I worked there in the dive business for a year (in Seogwipo).

It doesn't always have the vis (but sometimes it does) of the Philippines or Thailand, but it is easily as colorful as any of the dive sites I've seen in either of those two countries.

madowlspeaks

Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Location: Somewhere in time and space

Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 9:47 pm Post subject:

jlb wrote:

Just a quick warning about Deep Blue Quest. I had an extremely bad experience with them, as did 2 other people on my same Advanced Open Water Course. I have a coworker who did a rescue course with them and wasn't happy. If you need more details or convincing as to why you shouldn't dive with them, please PM me.

You are either a huge hypocrite or have changed your mind about your experince -seeing this is posted on your blog.

9.20.2008
Scuba Diving!
So this weekend, I cruised off to the East Coast of Korea for some scuba diving fun...hoping to do my advanced open water course, which means I can basically go deeper (up to 30 m) when I go diving on holidays or whatever.

Friday night, I came to Seoul and stayed at the sauna near Seoul Station. It was my first time staying overnight, although I've gone many times during the day. It was a pretty uneventual experience...it was like this huge dorm room and you each get your own little space with a mat, blanket and pillow. For $11! Plus, you can make use of all the amazing sauna stuff.

An early morning it was, meeting up with my crew at 5:00 to go to our first dive resort in Gangneung for 3 dives to 2 different wrecks. Dive #1 was chaos and I ended up going up early. A couple other people had issues too with equipment and other stuff. It was a very, very different experience than the conditions I trained in. In terms of number of people, (dis!) organization, the speed we had to do everything, how deep we were going, equipment, visibility. Dive #2, the instructor guy helped me out and all was well. Dive #3 was really cool! Wrecks are really amazing! There wasn't much wildlife though...the Koreans are usually pretty good at killing most of it, on land and in the water.

Last night, we had a post-diving BBQ, which consisted of a lot of meat! With a token serving of veggies. And copious amounts of alcohol. Of which most of the newbies (and some of the oldies) were coerced into drinking. I don't mind drinking, but I loathe feeling forced into it, as is so often the case with people (Koreans and expats) in Korea. So anyway...I would possibly dive with Deep Blue Quest again, now that I know what to expect. I might save my money though for bigger and better in other countries.

Now we're in Sokcho, heading out for 2 more dives pretty quick. More later!

madowlspeaks

Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Location: Somewhere in time and space

Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 9:58 pm Post subject:

jlb wrote:

Might I add, Deep Blue Quest is the best diving organization in Korea, IMO. People who simply don't pay attention or mess up during a dive are always too ready to point fingers. They can't deal with their own failure so they try and make other people look bad. This is what insecure people (who have issues) do. They point out faults and shortcomings of others instead of focusing on their own. I suggest you focus on your own self improvement instead of badmouthing like you do all over the internet.

sojusucks

Joined: 31 May 2008

Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 6:17 pm Post subject:

There is an organization in Seoul that seems to have a few classes, and a few dive operations somewhere around Daegu. Places near Tongyeong are good. One place could be really murky while a few hundred meters away, the diving can be very clear. I could see perhaps nearly 8-9 meters during the clearest dive there. As for fish, you might see something.

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