The link u gave, r they the only ones going to dive with the hammerhead sharks then ? From Green island or Thailand are they leaving for the dive ?
Diving in Taiwan
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Ok, do u have the website of this operator and from where ? Green island ?
It's a bit too late to be of use to the original poster, but some of y'all might be interested in this: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/general-asia/314792-taiwan-green-island-trip-erport.html
Cheers,
(A)
Cheers,
(A)
Hi Everyone, I will pop into this discussion very late as I have only just noticed this thread. A lot of misconceptions about Taiwan diving voiced here and just plain wrong information. I have lived in Taiwan for the past 26 years dived here since 1988 and have been an active dive instructor here since 1991. I have dived all over Taiwan and know most of it's dive sites pretty well, logging well over 2000 dives in Taiwan alone. In fact I was the first foreign diver ever to dive on the Scalloped hammerheads on Green Island back in 1992 when they were unknown by the majority of divers, even the Taiwanese. I have taken groups to see the hammerheads almost every year for the past 14 years. Both quotes from websites above come from me. Eddie the South African guy of Green Island Adventures copied my whole website when he wanted to promote his sharks tours, thankfully he has now written his own. As far as I know Eddie has never dived on the sharks despite what he might say, in fact he only learned to dive a few years ago and certainly does not have the experience required to dive there. Greg (Shellback) is quite right when he says Eddie is a middleman and what he says about GI is generally correct. BTW Shellbackdiver1 has now left Taiwan and lives in the USA with his wife and beautiful little daughter. There is only one operator on Green Island who will take divers to see the hammerheads Mr.Hu, who is BTW the original dive operator on both Orchid Island and Green Island, the other operator who has been there along time and is also a Tech IANTD instructor and CCR and SCR instrutor is MR. "Sunny' Yen. CF Diving or 'Blackman' came quite a bit later to the GI scene... Other dive operators may say that they will take you to see the hammerheads but in my experience they all back out at the last minute.
If you wish for up to date info on the hammerheads I can give it to you as I still do lead dive trips to see them every winter. This year we saw small groups of hammers totalling about 30+ passing within a few meters of us. Check out You Tube for the video. The hammerheads 'visit' Green Island only in winter time as far as anyone can tell. The earliest anyone I have spoken to has seen them is one cold late December and the latest is early one cold March. The optimum time to see them is January or February during a full moon or new moon when the currents are running. It is a fairly safe site to dive if you know what you are doing and follow the dive briefing exactly. It is not a dive for novices. Mr. Hu does not like to take people to the dive site who have less than 100 dives experience. There are surface currents and U/W currents the dive bottoms out at 32m and you can not go deeper it is a big ledge. The sea state can change rapidly in winter from a fairly calm condition to vicious chop or big swell. Getting back onto a dive boat when the dive boat is 2m~4m above you can be challenging. Bad conditions are not the norm but what I am saying is that conditions can change rapidly at this site and if you can not deal with it you may have a problem. All my divers dive with EANx and everyone has redundant signalling devices and you must know how to do negatively buoyant entries. If you are interested in going to see the sharks and you think you have the experience drop me a PM I will be there in 2012.
If you wish for up to date info on the hammerheads I can give it to you as I still do lead dive trips to see them every winter. This year we saw small groups of hammers totalling about 30+ passing within a few meters of us. Check out You Tube for the video. The hammerheads 'visit' Green Island only in winter time as far as anyone can tell. The earliest anyone I have spoken to has seen them is one cold late December and the latest is early one cold March. The optimum time to see them is January or February during a full moon or new moon when the currents are running. It is a fairly safe site to dive if you know what you are doing and follow the dive briefing exactly. It is not a dive for novices. Mr. Hu does not like to take people to the dive site who have less than 100 dives experience. There are surface currents and U/W currents the dive bottoms out at 32m and you can not go deeper it is a big ledge. The sea state can change rapidly in winter from a fairly calm condition to vicious chop or big swell. Getting back onto a dive boat when the dive boat is 2m~4m above you can be challenging. Bad conditions are not the norm but what I am saying is that conditions can change rapidly at this site and if you can not deal with it you may have a problem. All my divers dive with EANx and everyone has redundant signalling devices and you must know how to do negatively buoyant entries. If you are interested in going to see the sharks and you think you have the experience drop me a PM I will be there in 2012.
chemdog
Registered
Hi Everyone, I will pop into this discussion very late as I have only just noticed this thread. A lot of misconceptions about Taiwan diving voiced here and just plain wrong information. I have lived in Taiwan for the past 26 years dived here since 1988 and have been an active dive instructor here since 1991. I have dived all over Taiwan and know most of it's dive sites pretty well, logging well over 2000 dives in Taiwan alone. In fact I was the first foreign diver ever to dive on the Scalloped hammerheads on Green Island back in 1992 when they were unknown by the majority of divers, even the Taiwanese. I have taken groups to see the hammerheads almost every year for the past 14 years. Both quotes from websites above come from me. Eddie the South African guy of Green Island Adventures copied my whole website when he wanted to promote his sharks tours, thankfully he has now written his own. As far as I know Eddie has never dived on the sharks despite what he might say, in fact he only learned to dive a few years ago and certainly does not have the experience required to dive there. Greg (Shellback) is quite right when he says Eddie is a middleman and what he says about GI is generally correct. BTW Shellbackdiver1 has now left Taiwan and lives in the USA with his wife and beautiful little daughter. There is only one operator on Green Island who will take divers to see the hammerheads Mr.Hu, who is BTW the original dive operator on both Orchid Island and Green Island, the other operator who has been there along time and is also a Tech IANTD instructor and CCR and SCR instrutor is MR. "Sunny' Yen. CF Diving or 'Blackman' came quite a bit later to the GI scene... Other dive operators may say that they will take you to see the hammerheads but in my experience they all back out at the last minute.
If you wish for up to date info on the hammerheads I can give it to you as I still do lead dive trips to see them every winter. This year we saw small groups of hammers totalling about 30+ passing within a few meters of us. Check out You Tube for the video. The hammerheads 'visit' Green Island only in winter time as far as anyone can tell. The earliest anyone I have spoken to has seen them is one cold late December and the latest is early one cold March. The optimum time to see them is January or February during a full moon or new moon when the currents are running. It is a fairly safe site to dive if you know what you are doing and follow the dive briefing exactly. It is not a dive for novices. Mr. Hu does not like to take people to the dive site who have less than 100 dives experience. There are surface currents and U/W currents the dive bottoms out at 32m and you can not go deeper it is a big ledge. The sea state can change rapidly in winter from a fairly calm condition to vicious chop or big swell. Getting back onto a dive boat when the dive boat is 2m~4m above you can be challenging. Bad conditions are not the norm but what I am saying is that conditions can change rapidly at this site and if you can not deal with it you may have a problem. All my divers dive with EANx and everyone has redundant signalling devices and you must know how to do negatively buoyant entries. If you are interested in going to see the sharks and you think you have the experience drop me a PM I will be there in 2012.
Ambertiger,
I was wondering if you could provide any information on the hammerhead diving for the winter season this year. What month(s) does the diving for the sharks usually happen? Thanks!
Hi, The sharks are there every winter from Late December to the 1st week in March. But it all depends on the weather, the colder it is the more they make their appearance and they like strong currents so you can only dive on them with a good chance of seeing them at full moon or new moon.. I always take a group of divers over at Chinese new year when it is new moon and dive the day before the new moon on the NM and the day after. The currents are ripping and the sharks come by swimming into the current. We had Hammerheads and Mantas this year. Unfortunately there are fewer and fewer sharks every year as they are all getting fished out for their fins. :depressed: We were seeing groups of 150~200, 10 years ago, this year we saw groups of 20 or 30. Magnificent animals a good 3 meters long! Next year, 2012, I will be leading a dive group over to Green Island on Jan 21st to the 27th. As it's difficult to get to GI I will only take over groups of 12+ divers.
Wantonmien
Contributor
chemdog, we dived at Longdong earlier this year right ?
If you do decide to head over to GI for the HH dives, be aware the conditions are NOT easy, it's a hard and fast swim directly down in fierce current, you have to hook on to the seabed/rocks, and on a couple of dives last year current was so strong it could take your mask off your head, make holding camera still pretty impossible, and for sure the toughest dives I've done to date - don't think about going unless you would be confident in very difficult conditions - but it was so awesome seeing so many sleek & powerful hammerheads - I'll be going there again in CNY 2012, as will my buddy (in the pink BCD !) and the other buddy of mine that you met.
cheers
If you do decide to head over to GI for the HH dives, be aware the conditions are NOT easy, it's a hard and fast swim directly down in fierce current, you have to hook on to the seabed/rocks, and on a couple of dives last year current was so strong it could take your mask off your head, make holding camera still pretty impossible, and for sure the toughest dives I've done to date - don't think about going unless you would be confident in very difficult conditions - but it was so awesome seeing so many sleek & powerful hammerheads - I'll be going there again in CNY 2012, as will my buddy (in the pink BCD !) and the other buddy of mine that you met.
cheers
chemdog
Registered
chemdog, we dived at Longdong earlier this year right ?
If you do decide to head over to GI for the HH dives, be aware the conditions are NOT easy, it's a hard and fast swim directly down in fierce current, you have to hook on to the seabed/rocks, and on a couple of dives last year current was so strong it could take your mask off your head, make holding camera still pretty impossible, and for sure the toughest dives I've done to date - don't think about going unless you would be confident in very difficult conditions - but it was so awesome seeing so many sleek & powerful hammerheads - I'll be going there again in CNY 2012, as will my buddy (in the pink BCD !) and the other buddy of mine that you met.
cheers
Yup, thats right! Saw your FB photos of the GI trip. What are the average water temps in late April/ early May? I'll be heading back and looking to do some diving.
Wantonmien
Contributor
Hi Chemdog,
I'll start another thread with some pics from GI at CNY this year - alas I didn't see any HH this year, albeit a few of the guys did.
April/May - Up North coast, should be 23 C + ... Down Kenting, probably 25 C + . Drop me line when here, and if I'm in Taipei maybe will try show you better sites than last time !
Cheers
I'll start another thread with some pics from GI at CNY this year - alas I didn't see any HH this year, albeit a few of the guys did.
April/May - Up North coast, should be 23 C + ... Down Kenting, probably 25 C + . Drop me line when here, and if I'm in Taipei maybe will try show you better sites than last time !
Cheers
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