Scuba diving Cambodia

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bolueeleh
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Re: Scuba diving Cambodia

Post by bolueeleh »

Seasquatch wrote:
I had to do all those things for open water, plus free ascent from 60 feet(18 meters?) and had to learn how to shoot a lift bag, like I said it all depends on the instructor, I got lucky and met a guy through my neighbor and payed a little more for private instruction, he came to my apt's pool, he had me down to 100 feet on my 2nd dive, wreck diving by my 6th and did a shark dive in nasty weather on my 8th so I whisked right along getting my advanced and nitrox, he sold me most of my first equipment and let me make payments. I've had a great group of experienced divers to dive with over the years. I've been thinking of getting tech certified.

My friend did a cheap groupon cert and damn near ruptured his eardrum on his first dive.
cool, i have never done those, only did night dive, shore dive, worked as commercial diver for a short period of time, scrapping barnacles of commercial freight, almost got into bell diving off oil rigs, thank god something better came up.
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frank lee bent
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Re: Scuba diving Cambodia

Post by frank lee bent »

I was a commercial diver in the oilfield too. first cert was british sub aqua club instructor. done in Plymouth at fort bovisand and much more safety oriented than the American certs due to the cold water and other hazards.

worked a season as an instructor for club med in guadeloupe ( lots of girls! ), then went on to a mixed gas school in wilmington california.

worked in the gulf of mexico doing weld inspection for hot taps in subsea weld habitats, then spent some time in the java sea for oceaneering working out of jakarta.

after that went onshore managing an ndt operation building production platforms at a brown and root fab yard.

saw more than enough of the oilfield by the time prices collapsed in 1982.

went to oz after that, and worked a little on a pearl farm and a giant clam farm- that was about the end of my diving career, but really enjoyed it.
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bolueeleh
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Re: Scuba diving Cambodia

Post by bolueeleh »

frank lee bent wrote:I was a commercial diver in the oilfield too. first cert was british sub aqua club instructor. done in Plymouth at fort bovisand and much more safety oriented than the American certs due to the cold water and other hazards.

worked a season as an instructor for club med in guadeloupe ( lots of girls! ), then went on to a mixed gas school in wilmington california.

worked in the gulf of mexico doing weld inspection for hot taps in subsea weld habitats, then spent some time in the java sea for oceaneering working out of jakarta.

after that went onshore managing an ndt operation building production platforms at a brown and root fab yard.

saw more than enough of the oilfield by the time prices collapsed in 1982.

went to oz after that, and worked a little on a pearl farm and a giant clam farm- that was about the end of my diving career, but really enjoyed it.
wow, i had friends who did bell diving for more than 10 -15years, they had serious respiratory problems after that, every morning they woke up they had to clear their nasal cavitity of yellow mucus, thats why i said i was lucky that something better came up
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Seasquatch
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Re: Scuba diving Cambodia

Post by Seasquatch »

Hey much respect guys :beer3:

Some of my dive friends were commercial divers back in the 70/80s, sometimes the best time of the dive is afterwards, having a couple drinks listening to their dive stories, it has saved my life before underwater listening to their experiences. I looked into going into commercial diving but I was already to old. I've yet to go to Guadeloupe, have been to Dominica Island right under it.

I night dive every week or two, usually offshore, it's when the lobsters come out. My favorite is a dusk dive and watching it gradually get darker, or the other way around, go out while it's still dark out and watch it get full light with the sunrise.
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Bitte_Kein_Lexus
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Re: RE: Re: Scuba diving Cambodia

Post by Bitte_Kein_Lexus »

bolueeleh wrote:
Seasquatch wrote:
Yeah unfortunately Padi has took over for the most part in the US, I have all my certifications from them but I'm not a fan how they run business, some of their specialty certs are ridiculous, I can understand having to get a cave diver certification(a lot of people die venturing into caves without proper training and equipment) but boat diving cert? It's just all about $$. Regardless of who you get certified with though a good instructor makes all the difference, especially if you plan on going deep/wreck diving.
i got my open water cert from BSAC, when i go diving i tell ppl i met that to get my open water cert i have to do ditch n dawn in open water, buddy breathing ascend, tow buddy for 200m on the surface, under water navigation, their jaws dropped :D
I also had to do all of that with PADI...
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frank lee bent
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Re: Scuba diving Cambodia

Post by frank lee bent »

no, i did not do any saturation diving, though i had offers. seemed way too dangerous to me.
plenty of deck oriented decompression though, on O2 in chambers.
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bolueeleh
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Re: RE: Re: Scuba diving Cambodia

Post by bolueeleh »

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote: I also had to do all of that with PADI...
but at PADI its call advanced open water :D
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Re: Scuba diving Cambodia

Post by walkjivefly »

Seasquatch wrote:I was wondering how the scuba diving was around Sihanoukville or the Islands off Cambodia, checking out youtube it looks like maybe there was some blast fishing going on over the years? Or is it just rocky with a little bit of coral and fish, couple places looked to have a good abundance of fish. Not expecting anything like Indonesia but thought maybe there are a couple cool coral reefs around, maybe still parts unknown? Over-fished? The reviews seem to be all over the place.

:hattip:
The diving around Koh Rong and Koh Rong Samloem is mediocre at best. Vis is typically 5m with quite turbid water, about 28C and mostly in the 5-18m depth range. You're unlikely to see an abundance and huge variety of fish but you stand a chance of seeing some of the "usual suspects". None of the reefs are spectacular. If you go with low expectations you might be pleasantly surprised but most likely you'll just think "Meh!"

If you get out to Koh Prins everything is supposed to be MUCH better but that's a lot further off the coast and the dive shops only do "liveaboard" trips out there, if they go at all. And their "liveaboards" are nothing like what you're used to if you've done Thai/Indo/Red Sea etc liveaboards.

Day trips depart from a couple of piers, mostly on converted fishing boats and take about 2 hours to get out to the islands. You get 2 dives with lunch on board. Cambodia Dive Group, The Dive Shop and EcoSea have "resorts" on Koh Rong Samloem if you feel like staying on the island for a night or two, not sure if Scuba Nation are affiliated with a resort or not. Koh Rong Divers use the fast catamaran ferry out to the islands and have a resort on Koh Rong. They were expanding onto Koh Rong Samloem a couple of years ago, I don't know how that turned out.
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Re: Scuba diving Cambodia

Post by Raybull »

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote:I've never been there, but I've heard Cambodia is nothing special. Way better diving in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand... Basically everywhere else is better, even out by the islands I was told it sucks.
This is all you need to know! Sad but true. Given the cost of dives don't vary that much and last minute liveaboards can be pretty reasonable, best to save up and buy cheap flights and make a trip out of it. If you're in Phuket or Bali, you can easily inquire about cheap last minute liveaboards to the Andamans/Burma, or Komodo/etc/Raja.
I dove nearly every spot between Burma to Raja (those on liveaboards), Borneo, and two trips to the Phils, 1000+ dives between 2004-2012...The only good diving in the Gulf nowadays is stuffing a rotten fish in you BCD pocket and dropping down to 35m off the pinnacle near Koh Tao and waiting for the bull sharks. Good times!
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Re: Scuba diving Cambodia

Post by bolueeleh »

best visibility i ever encountered was in phuket, it was in a cove of some sort, went down to the bottom at abt 30ft, looked up and saw the bottom of the boat clearly

best creature i ever encountered was in trengannu malaysia, saw some green turtles, amazing creatures
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