introducing myself

[bruges00]

Hi all,
this to this forum. My wife and I just received the padi open water this summer (in seychellers) and did a couple of more dives. we loved it and are planning to do more.
we are, respectively, IT and DE and live in Brussels (BE)
have registered in this forum to get useful info and ask for advice
i am sure it'll be interesting to read from more experienced divers

Luca

 

[bruges00]

ouch, had written another post and lost it
why ?!
does this work?

 

[bruges00]

yes, it does, i must have cliccked the wrong button
sorry

 

[Quero]

Welcome Luca and Mrs. Luca! Jump right in--the SB water's fine!
And if you have any trouble navigating the Sea of SB, just ask a Staff member for help.

 

[bruges00]

i have a question for you and would greatly apprecite some views
we are now planning 8bit late, i know) some xmas holidays (10-11 days) and wld love to go to some exotic destination where we could also dive (but also do smng else, e.g. visting temples, old otwns, trekkking etc)
after looking at flight tariffs we chose 2 possible destinations
vietnam and oman
we find vietnam super interesting but have read that it is not ideal place for diving, in particular, it wld seem that dec-jan is low season for some of its best diving spots (e.g. nha trang, whale island)
is that true? could one dive in/near the ha long bay?
on the other hand oman seems to offer more opportunities to dive, but we find the country slightly less attractive than vietan, and sems also more expensive
re. diving in oman, my first impression is that one could spend some days diving in Moussandam and in Muscate (esp. to dive in iles daymaniyats, fahallisland and bandar khairan)
however, if one wants to visit some wadi it may be not enough time to be in both mascate and mussandam
would it be Ok to drop mussandam (since far from mascate) and concentrate the dives around the capital (daymaniytis, etc)? or is that a pity to miss mussandam (seems to have a nice fjord)?
any tip/advice/view from people that have been there or have some experience would be great
thanks in advance
luca

 

[bruges00]

thanks quero

by the way, i see you are in phuket
it was our first choice for this xmas, my wife really wanted to visit thailand, in splite of the floods (very sorry for that)
but plane tickets seem to be too expensive to come there over xmas
we tried via bangkok, singapore, kualalumpur etc - no way
only jet airways was it more or less reasonable (if mor than 1,000 eur can be called like that) but we had to change plane 2, which looks a bit too much for tzher little time we have and the price we pay for the flight
it'll be next time, i guess

 

[Quero]

Luca, it's a busy season on Phuket at the moment, and the airlines sell the seats at whatever price they can get for them... this year it seems people are ready to pay higher prices to come here. When you're ready to visit Thailand for a dive trip in the future, I'd be pleased to help.

Now as to your immediate questions--I can't offer any insight at all for Oman, but for Vietnam I can tell you that it's not a good time of year to go there as it's the monsoon season. First of all, when it's the dry season, Vietnam diving offers lower visibility and less prolific marine life than other nearby areas, and when it's monsoon season, poor sea conditions due to the northeast monsoon (which blows this time of year) make diving at Whale Island and Nha Trang difficult to impossible. While Halong Bayis beautiful topside and Phu Quoc sheltered from the northeast monsoon, I've never heard any raves about the diving in those places. My impression of Phu Quoc, specifically, is that it's more a place for try dives than for certified divers. Having said all that, there's a new operation on Con Dao that claims to have year-round diving, so that might be a possibility for you.

 

[bruges00]

thanks for the info quero
i'll have a look on the web re. con dao
but i take it that VN is not best spot for diving, especially this time of the year

 

[bruges00]

i hope someone will have some tips re. oman

 

[Quero]

thanks for the info quero
i'll have a look on the web re. con dao
but i take it that VN is not best spot for diving, especially this time of the year

VN is definitely more for topside tourism than for underwater tourism. If you're in VN anyway, may as well go diving! But it's not really a place to do it the other way round, planning a dedicated dive trip with a few topside days thrown in for good measure. Just make sure to ask careful questions about the weather. Even Rainbow Divers (a good op at Nha Trang and Phu Quoc) will tell you that you can dive year round.

There's a SB member who has an op on Con Dao, I think. tv135a or some strange username like that. (I'll look it up later and edit this post).

Edit: Here's the member's username: ti325v