Hainan's miserable diving scene

[BrianMered]

I visited Sanya in January 2015, and having read quite a few reviews didn’t expect much, after 30 years of diving I’ve learned that there is no such thing as a bad dive, only some that are better than others. That all changed when I went to China Dive Club.

My Chinese wife and I travel with all our equipment and only needed tanks and weights. The guys were pleasant enough and after explaining through my wife that I am a PADI instructor and I would like to try some real diving as opposed to the zillion ‘try dive’ outlets scattered along the shores of Hainan (all of which break the PADI rules on a daily basis). I asked about tanks with DIN connectors and he nodded and showed me that the shop used them. Considering that we had all equipment with us the diving wasn’t cheap coming in at RMB 440 ($80) per person per dive. He told us to give him a couple of days to organise a boat dive and he would call us. After 4 days nothing so we called back. OK be ready tomorrow morning at 07:30 hrs. we were told. That evening we received a call, pick up time changed, be ready at 08:30 hrs.

The following morning at 08:50 a mini bus full of tourists turned up and we were off on a one-hour journey from Sanya to Fenjiezhou Island. We then got on a boat with more tourists for a 10 minute transfer to the island. Little did we know that they considered that to be our boat dive! The island was mobbed with tourists, changing rooms were bursting at the seams, litter and rubbish scattered everywhere. We found a quiet corner behind an outhouse to change into wet suits. DM was another nice guy who introduced us to one more diver who would be joining us. We then had a 10 minute walk through the crowds carrying my camera rig and equipment and in the distance saw 6 tanks standing next to the oldest dirtiest smoking compressor you could imagine. DM explained we would kit up and do a beach entry. What happened to the boat dive? Checked the tanks and of course they were regular yoke connectors so my DIN regulator, integrated pressure transmitter and BCD would not fit. DM walked back to see if they had an adaptor and returned with a regular yoke type regulator. No go, so we both had to return to the dive shack and find a toolbox and swap my gear and hoses to the regulator first stage. DM accidentally dropped my 1^st stage pressure transmitter and that wouldn’t work again. It was turning into an expensive day. By now it was 11:00 in the morning and getting pretty warm with all the walking.

Kitted up and after buddy check and air quality checks got into the water. Visibility was 2 meters at best, barren rocks covered in mud and silt hanging in the water, possibly from land runoff due to thoughtless island development. Followed the DM to a small wreck at 18 meters, did a couple of rounds looking for nudibranchs and then headed back towards the beach into 5 meter water depth. The other less experienced diver was out of air but my wife and I continued our search for anything living. After 60 minutes we surfaced and headed back to shore. We couldn’t shower as the changing rooms were wall to wall with try divers changing out of wet suits and leaving them scattered on the floor. DM apologised profusely and we cancelled the second dive as being pointless. Following day we returned to China dive club and after much discussion he finally admitted that he didn’t have time to organise a real dive and had handed us over to a tour operator.

Never, ever again will I dive China.

 

[Keith.M]

My suggestion, hit return every once in a while. Too hard to read.

 

[diverkim]

Never, ever again will I dive China.

Sorry that you had to find out the hard way. I have never dived in China again either... well, I dived in Taiwan, and that was good.

 

[BrianMered]

Patience Grasshopper, formatting went south when I cut and pasted into Scubaboard, trust it's 'easier' to read now!

 

[kumimonster]

Hello,

I know this thread is old but I've read it all. Thing is, my friend has invited me on a trip so I'll be headed to Sanya in September of 2017. (Followed by Sepang and then Bentota, Sri Lanka).
Has anything improved or worsened? Is it all still the same?
Hoping that there's a glimmer of a semi-decent dive that can happen!

 

[Schwob]

I visited Sanya in January 2015, and having read quite a few reviews didn’t expect much, after 30 years of diving I’ve learned that there is no such thing as a bad dive, only some that are better than others. That all changed when I went to China Dive Club.

My Chinese wife and I travel with all our equipment and only needed tanks and weights. The guys were pleasant enough and after explaining through my wife that I am a PADI instructor and I would like to try some real diving as opposed to the zillion ‘try dive’ outlets scattered along the shores of Hainan (all of which break the PADI rules on a daily basis). I asked about tanks with DIN connectors and he nodded and showed me that the shop used them. Considering that we had all equipment with us the diving wasn’t cheap coming in at RMB 440 ($80) per person per dive. He told us to give him a couple of days to organise a boat dive and he would call us. After 4 days nothing so we called back. OK be ready tomorrow morning at 07:30 hrs. we were told. That evening we received a call, pick up time changed, be ready at 08:30 hrs.

The following morning at 08:50 a mini bus full of tourists turned up and we were off on a one-hour journey from Sanya to Fenjiezhou Island. We then got on a boat with more tourists for a 10 minute transfer to the island. Little did we know that they considered that to be our boat dive! The island was mobbed with tourists, changing rooms were bursting at the seams, litter and rubbish scattered everywhere. We found a quiet corner behind an outhouse to change into wet suits. DM was another nice guy who introduced us to one more diver who would be joining us. We then had a 10 minute walk through the crowds carrying my camera rig and equipment and in the distance saw 6 tanks standing next to the oldest dirtiest smoking compressor you could imagine. DM explained we would kit up and do a beach entry. What happened to the boat dive? Checked the tanks and of course they were regular yoke connectors so my DIN regulator, integrated pressure transmitter and BCD would not fit. DM walked back to see if they had an adaptor and returned with a regular yoke type regulator. No go, so we both had to return to the dive shack and find a toolbox and swap my gear and hoses to the regulator first stage. DM accidentally dropped my 1^st stage pressure transmitter and that wouldn’t work again. It was turning into an expensive day. By now it was 11:00 in the morning and getting pretty warm with all the walking.

Kitted up and after buddy check and air quality checks got into the water. Visibility was 2 meters at best, barren rocks covered in mud and silt hanging in the water, possibly from land runoff due to thoughtless island development. Followed the DM to a small wreck at 18 meters, did a couple of rounds looking for nudibranchs and then headed back towards the beach into 5 meter water depth. The other less experienced diver was out of air but my wife and I continued our search for anything living. After 60 minutes we surfaced and headed back to shore. We couldn’t shower as the changing rooms were wall to wall with try divers changing out of wet suits and leaving them scattered on the floor. DM apologised profusely and we cancelled the second dive as being pointless. Following day we returned to China dive club and after much discussion he finally admitted that he didn’t have time to organise a real dive and had handed us over to a tour operator.

Never, ever again will I dive China.

I know it's an old thread, but:
1. Oh man!
2. Now that I am a diver I am in constant danger of maybe wanting to dive somewhere in China (Chinese wife), but, knowing the various aspects of what could be encountered unless you know a backdoor, I was worried of the thought becoming reality some day. I think you pre-cured me. Not enough time left in my life for that...

3. (Disclaimer: skip that, lengthy reminiscing):
Sanya... haven't been there since spending a couple of days there in February or March of 89, when I was a poor student on a dime, yet rich compared to the general population. Hear it pretty much was "populated with resorts" in the 90s and after.

I spent (88/89) half a year in China, working in an internship, did not have the funds for a return ticket w/o saving some of the (very small) earnings and it turned out I was short on mone for the return ticket in the end, had to fly to a country near my home country and get home by land. The one place I thought I maybe should have skipped in hindsight (cost & cost and time to get there vs. experience) to save money was Sanya.

It still was a backwater then. No resorts yet. No tourist crowds. (I like it that way) Maybe a couple of old style apartment complex looking hotels mostly used by army or party functionaries and maybe some businessmen. Other than beer (or the unavoidable stuff at a banquet where everyone tries hard to get you drunk), I never drank drinks at that time. Just no budget for it. But I had my best drink, EVER on Sanya at that time.

There was an American backpacker making "a killing" (well, for a backpacker). On the road to a beach amidst a short row of very few tourist ware stands, he had a table. He had a cooler. He had a block of ice in that cooler (only one normal mortals could find). He had coconuts (plenty around). He seemingly had each and every foreign tourist waiting in line. He made Pina Coladas, by icepick, meat cleaver and shaker. They were cold. Best drink EVER. He was the busiest man on the island it seemed. I was there just a couple of days, but come to think of it, that son of a gun probably "robbed" me of the missing funds to fly all the way home. But those Pina Coladas were worth it.

Other than that, the weather was nice. T'was dusty. Beach was "meh", but after spending months in colder region it was nice. The town (not pretty in any way, but lively) and the people and some of the differences to what I encountered on the mainland were more interesting. But I left after a couple of days.

 

[helarno]

Hello,

I know this thread is old but I've read it all. Thing is, my friend has invited me on a trip so I'll be headed to Sanya in September of 2017. (Followed by Sepang and then Bentota, Sri Lanka).
Has anything improved or worsened? Is it all still the same?
Hoping that there's a glimmer of a semi-decent dive that can happen!

Haven't dived there myself, but from speaking to other divers in China - avoid it like the plague. No knowledgeable divers or even tourists go there. It's mostly for the super rich or people taking advantage of tourists who don't know any better. Above water, much better value for money can be found elsewhere. Below water - it's all dead and operators are still unsafe.

 

[kumimonster]

Well, I'm going to be there so that's why I posted in here.
I'm traveling to other places as well, but I'm also going to end up here.

So again, hoping for some info!

 

[DeepDan]

I visited Hainan with zero expectations. Honestly, I feel like a lot of the criticism people have is less to do with diving and more to do with Chinese tourist culture. Yes - it's a sh*tshow but it's a sh*tshow everywhere. Rubbish thrown everywhere, bad changing rooms, terrible open-plan toilets, people pushing in front of you in queues and people trying to scam you everywhere you go. Welcome to China.

Anyway, Hainan diving. Yalong bay is home to one of the largest PLA Navy bases and houses a vast number of soldiers including the Navy Special Forces, a number of intelligence units and some nuclear submarines. The ship traffic in that area is extensive and it's where other branches of the PLA SF do their dive training. The visibility is so terrible they end up with almost impeccable navigation skills (minus sometimes boarding the wrong boat on training ops).

Further out to sea and closer to the outer islands isn't much different. Visibility is extremely poor too. Let's not get ahead ourselves though. Avoid going in the water. Now that's said I'll explain why.

Dive shops in Hainan aren't really dive shops and are more like a few guys with some gear who cater for hundreds of tourists a day. I have literally seen boat loads of tourists (locals) arrive, strapped up with the kind of weight you'd use to sink a ship and thrown in the water. No mask clearing drills, no talk about equalising or anything that could resemble safety at all. They all surfaced and complained about having pain in the ears. I remember coming away thinking "well you know, nobody died - a great success".

The real problem often spans from the language barrier combined with lack of knowledge and desire to make money. If you ask your trusted tour guide or hotel reception about diving they'll phone and friend who will phone a friend who will phone their mate Bob who will give them a response like "oh diving? why would they want to do that? i think there's a place at boundary island that does it. i'll take them to the bus stop for 100RMB". That's then translated into "we have what you want. a driver will take you to the boat tomorrow morning". Then that's your diving trip all nice and booked, all obligations complete and your 15 minutes in the water with a regulator that literally just came out of some other guy's mouth.

The take away here is that if you want to book diving (or anything) in China you have to research it (using the Chinese language) before you get to the destination. Everyone is happy bullsh*t you for money. Don't use taobao - those cheap trips are what us foreigners consider to be a scam. Seriously. Don't use the internet to book things. Phone them, grill them. If they can't answer some basic questions about oxygen percentage in the tank then don't go with them. I didn't find anyone there who could answer anything. Alas, no diving in the nuclear-water for me. Even as an observer I was pretty shocked.

Long story short? China is China. People are used to be funneled in and out of everywhere they go and it's no different in Hainan. If you want to do anything there you'll have to research it extensively.

As an side, like all places in China 99% of people who approach you and speaks English wants your money and nothing else.

 

[kumimonster]

Old threads can be helpful sometimes!

Thanks for the updates.
For this next trip I'm going to skip Sanya. Instead I'll meet my friend in KUL for a few days before we fly to Sri Lanka.
Unfortunately the spots we are staying are the off-season side (He didn't research well enough). So I'm going to learn how to enjoy a non-dive-centric trip. Really looking forward to Sri Lanka which is going to be for 11 days. Maybe if the weather permits, I might get a west coast dive in during my September visit.