I can attest that in1980 the diving off Jeju Island was spectacular. Some of the best in my life. And a fascinating culture, remote from modernized Seoul hopefully things have not gotten too commercialized since then.
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or hundreds of years the female Jeju Haenyo divers, hardier than Japanese Ama divers, supported their families by what they caught while free diving. The culture on Jeju stayed unique because jet service had only started in 1979. Before, it was a multi-hour ferry ride AFTER a long train ride from Seoul.
I was traveling all over Korea for a month making an in-flight promotional travelogue for Braniff airlines, but the Jeju excursion was on my own time, sans film gear and crew. Before I left Los Angeles, I researched diving in Korea via LA based Korean divers / instructors, and went loaded for bear with a letter of introduction written in Korean. I flew down from Seoul with an American missionary I had met who wanted to learn to dive, in exchange for his translation services and guidance. As it turned out Braniff went bankrupt 2 weeks later!
Back then the main honcho dive operator on the south side of Jeju owned gorgeous new compressors, hundreds of new tanks and shiny new boats, all to keep his discerning Japanese customers happy. They had no room for a Gringo, so he set me up with some kids who borrowed one of their dads 30-foot glub-glub-glub diesels for 3 days of shore-based boat dives on south Jeju. Nobody knows the hot spots like local fishermen! I have rarely been surrounded by such intense biomass on practically every dive. You need a 7 mm suit, kelp not as thick as California, and fantastic volcanic underwater forms / swim-thrus. One shallow dive was in the middle of a football-field-size volcanic bowl, packed with thousands and thousands of Trevallies. All the while the volcanic structure caused intense crackling sound felt like diving in a bowl of Rice Krispies.
Speaking no Korean, communication was mostly hand-signs. Of course I love kelp and dont mind cold-ish water, being from So-California. The visibility was superior to typical channel-island diving. Beaches were picturesque black lava or white sand with intense turquoise shallows.
