Just got back from "diving" in Yalong Bay. I was introduced to the first dive site by the hotel guest relations officer as the "best dive site" in Sanya. It was a 15 min boat ride from the holiday Inn. I brought my fins and mask, but no BC nor Reg. When I reach the dive site, it was actually quite pleasant. Viz was about 10m. My BC and Reg was already rigged up. I have told them before hand to make sure I have an octopus and to my surprise there was one! However, on closer inspection I found that my octopus did not have a mouth piece and the it was not even working! So much for alternates! When I asked the "instructor" he told me they only dive with one reg as their boss thinks it is a waste of money to have additional regs. I strapped up and did a back roll into the water. After a 1 min wait, I grew impatient and decided to descend without the "instructor". 5 mins later he came in and had to ascend to get his weight belt!! I must the viz is Ok and the hard corals healthy. However, there were no fish! Since we did not have a banger, I had on one occassion tugged at the "ihstructors" eg to get his attention and to my horror, he nearly died in fear as though he is about to be eated by a white pointer. Since it is a shallow dive (13 m Max) with a inital air pressure of 2100psi, I decided to take it easy and dive as long as the air can take me (after all I spend about USD$60 for the dive)! After about 70 mins, the "instructor" ran out of air and had to ascend. Since we are in shallow waters (5m), I decided just to follow him to find the boat with him on the surface. 10 mins later I ascended.
All in all, I would say it is as good as it gets in China. After all the dive industry is very young. If you want to do ANY serious and safe diving. Forget it! They cater mainly for the first time divers and make money out of "discovery scuba dive"! They are not interested in catering to the serious diver as they do not make money here and they know that they will get lots of criticism, so why bother!
Jimmy
