Korean Job Discussion Forums

mr. bojangles · Joined: 23 Oct 2009

For those of you who have tried it, how was the shark diving at busan aquarium?

http://www.scubainkorea.com/divedates.html

Worth the 90,000 won if you have your PADI open water?

I've heard there is a lot of waiting around and not much diving.

Would you recommend it?

Cheers.

jlb · Joined: 18 Sep 2003

I enjoyed it, but, yes, it does involve some waiting.

bbud656 · Joined: 15 Jun 2010

If you have never used SCUBA gear before its pretty cool, but you dont get to wear fins, so you just kind of moon walk around the tank. The fish kind of stay away from and wearing a mask and uncomfortable tank you kind of feel just as far away from the action as you would looking through the glass outside. MOD EDIT Anyway, a shark dive sounds like a cool story, but the real highlight was seeing some baby penguins hanging out on top of the tank.

diver · Joined: 16 Jun 2003

Mr. Bojangles,

I conduct dives at the aquarium. I can't tell you whether it is worth it or not as I am, of course, biased. I can tell you that I still enjoy the dive after doing so many I lost count. We also have several dive professionals 9with hundreds, if not thousands, of dives each) who have done the dive multiple times and they enjoyed it. There are also some, a small number (as far as I know) that felt the dive didn't live up to their expectations (whatever they may have been).

The aquarium sets a limit of six people in the tank at one time (including me). When we have upwards of ten people, we dive in two groups. While one group is diving/training, the other group is free to tour the aquarium (which is part of the admission). Once one group is done diving, we then switch. So, if there is any waiting, that is up to the divers. If you choose to take advantage of the time to see the aquarium, you may. If you choose to "wait", then that is up to you.

JIB,

Re: "waiting". See above. What you do with your time is up to you. You can use it constructively and tour the aquarium, or you can "wait".

bbud656,

MOD EDIT

The aquarium does not allow fins because non-divers and new divers (and even some experienced divers) do not have the best fin control. This results in the tank getting silted up as the fins stir up the bottom. Because the aquarium is a closed environment, that silt does not have anywhere to go. It results in a poor viewing experience for the divers and those outside as well as placing undue stress on the filter system.

As far as how close the animals get to you, we can't promise anything. That is up to the animals. If they didn't come close to you during your dive, that is just bad luck (sorry about that), but other divers can tell you that they do often get very, VERY close. Some people like that, some don't.

jlb · Joined: 18 Sep 2003

Busan bound · Joined: 17 Jun 2011

I did the shark dive about two weekends ago. It was a good experience, i've never dived before. A shark swam right over me so i wouldn't worry about not getting close to the animals, there are quite a few sharks.

Re the waiting issue, you arrive at 11 on a saturday, do some theory and complete a test. It isn't a test in the real sense of the word, you can't fail it. At this stage you break into the two sets of divers. I was group two, i'd have preferred to be group one as we had three hours to ourselved untill we would do our dive. As said before, you are free to see the aquarium, however stretching this out over three hours would be quite depressing.
We went and got some lunch in haeundae so we weren't waiting around as such, we just had some time off if anything.

When you go back you get straight into it. We got our suits and we went to the small training pool. This is essential so i wouldn't call it waiting around either. After training we hit the main tank, we got about 35 minutes in with the sharks.

Overall, i would say to go for it. I had never dived and it was a great experience, if you're group one the shark dive is over at half 3 also, so you're free for the rest of the day.

mr. bojangles · Joined: 23 Oct 2009

Thanks for all the info!

If I have dived before and have my PADI open water, do I still need to do the training in the mini pool? How long does this take?