Scuba diving Cambodia

phuketrichard · Post by **phuketrichard** » Mon Feb 13, 2017 9:07 pm

I spent a month back in 1988 exploring the Similans,the Burma Banks and the The Mergui Archipelago, we were the first foreign boat allowed in and we had the Burmese Navy with us. saw some fantastic places and had some great dives
have also done these dives and seen these amazing creatures while working as a dive master back in the late 80's

go dive in the Similans and see huge Manta rays>>>>amazing

You can often see whale sharks off of Hin Daeng ( near koh Lanta ) and at Richelieu Rock in the Similains

walkjivefly · Post by **walkjivefly** » Mon Feb 13, 2017 10:26 pm

phuketrichard wrote:I spent a month back in 1988 exploring the Similans,the Burma Banks and the The Mergui Archipelago, we were the first foreign boat allowed in and we had the Burmese Navy with us. saw some fantastic places and had some great dives
have also done these dives and seen these amazing creatures while working as a dive master back in the late 80's

go dive in the Similans and see huge Manta rays>>>>amazing

You can often see whale sharks off of Hin Daeng ( near koh Lanta ) and at Richelieu Rock in the Similains

I'd love to have dived the Similans 30 years ago. Even though they're protected I'm sure they were more amazing then than they are now. I've seen a few mantas at Koh Bon in the Similans and some whale sharks around Koh Tao. Best place for whale sharks is Yucatan between about May and September. One day...

Raybull · Post by **Raybull** » Tue Feb 14, 2017 12:00 am

walkjivefly wrote:
phuketrichard wrote:I spent a month back in 1988 exploring the Similans,the Burma Banks and the The Mergui Archipelago, we were the first foreign boat allowed in and we had the Burmese Navy with us. saw some fantastic places and had some great dives
have also done these dives and seen these amazing creatures while working as a dive master back in the late 80's

go dive in the Similans and see huge Manta rays>>>>amazing

You can often see whale sharks off of Hin Daeng ( near koh Lanta ) and at Richelieu Rock in the Similains

I'd love to have dived the Similans 30 years ago. Even though they're protected I'm sure they were more amazing then than they are now. I've seen a few mantas at Koh Bon in the Similans and some whale sharks around Koh Tao. Best place for whale sharks is Yucatan between about May and September. One day...

Would have loved to dive over there back then aswell in my diapers. For the most part, the good stuff is gone. Unfortunately, protected doesn't mean much out here, and the Similians were nothing compared to the dives of Mergui in the mid 2000s and I can't imagine they've gotten better this decade. Spent four months living on Koh NangYuan in '04, then the next year on liveaboards in the Andaman and Mergui Arch and the Banks, and the year again in Koh Lanta. Hin Daeng/Muang were the most memorable Thai spots and those are probably the only ones I would go back and dive, mantas and whale sharks were pretty consistent. I would jump on a boat back to Burma too if it didn't spend much time in the Similians.
Spent the next half year living in Mabul diving Sipadan, deep diving for hammerheads and black tips, on off days doing macro. Rented a small wooden boat for a month or so and just did macro around Mabul and the islands, sometimes hour and half solo dives just shooting pygmies and stuff. The dynamite fishing was insane though, as it was in some parts of the Phils.
The next year was in Lembeh where the whale sharks had already been killed off by the locals but the macro is good...then macro at the north of Bali, Nusa Lambogan had lots mantas and moon fish not far off, and the liveabords to Komodo and Raja Ampat were easily on par with Burma.

Seasquatch · Post by **Seasquatch** » Tue Feb 14, 2017 8:00 pm

Raybull wrote:
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!

Did you use to work in the dive industry? I spear fish(with a 5' pool spear not a gun,) mostly take out the invasive lion fish here in the Atlantic at the moment but I'll get a snapper or jack every once in a while for the grill(I eat the lion fish too, makes great ceveche,) I've had bulls come up on me, if I just have lions I just let them have them but I'll shoot a bag for a nicer fish, the bulls are big and scary but they at least they come up and circle around you, it's the smaller reef/blacktips that can be super aggressive and can come on you quick. I also had an eel come from behind and shoot through my legs to get my fish while I was trying to get a lobster, scared the shit out of me! Bit clean through it.

bolueeleh · Post by **bolueeleh** » Tue Feb 14, 2017 11:10 pm

lion fish yum yum

Raybull · Post by **Raybull** » Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:48 am

Seasquatch wrote:
Raybull wrote:
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!

Did you use to work in the dive industry? I spear fish(with a 5' pool spear not a gun,) mostly take out the invasive lion fish here in the Atlantic at the moment but I'll get a snapper or jack every once in a while for the grill(I eat the lion fish too, makes great ceveche,) I've had bulls come up on me, if I just have lions I just let them have them but I'll shoot a bag for a nicer fish, the bulls are big and scary but they at least they come up and circle around you, it's the smaller reef/blacktips that can be super aggressive and can come on you quick. I also had an eel come from behind and shoot through my legs to get my fish while I was trying to get a lobster, scared the shit out of me! Bit clean through it.

Good stuff, where abouts? Those lion fish are invasive everywhere it seems now! Never spear fished myself but I can imagine some sharks get aggressive with the temptation.
Just did divemaster, never wanted to be an instructor, had friends that owned some diveshops and some that were instructors in Thailand and Indonesia at that time so got to dive a lot for cheap, free tanks for beach dives, freedom to grab my camera gear and just max out tanks on solo dives, and really cheap liveaboards when the boats weren't filling up, just helped bring up the pack once in a while.
Yeah the bulls are not super aggressive but I'b be scared diving around them in low viz. The couple times it happened they would circle and come in and prod the BCD at the hip (the tank crew would wear BCDs out when they went fishing off the rocks and stuff bait and small catch in the pockets, sometimes forgetting fish so that's when the fun happened the next morning). They were never on me cause I had my own gear, and it never seemed the situation was out of control, freaked out the clients though.
Scarier was an encounter with a tiger shark off of Molokini crater in Maui, 40m viz and it was doing zig zag passes as getting closer, also being swarmed by a group blacktips on a night dive near that same crater, also fractured a rib when I accidentally ran into and spooked a huge 1.5m turtle on a night dive in Mabul, getting deco like symptoms while still thirty meters into a cave dive in Sipadan, also sadly saw a newbie divemaster get taken in a down current there, when the tide is going out the downflow at certain parts of the island it's impossible to fight, easy to die if you don't know the dives, many more sketchy moments.
Lots of good tamer stuff too, doing bounces off 50m to see schools of hammerheads in Layang Layang and Sipadan, so many whale sharks and mantas you get bored of them in the Phils, Bali, Thailand and Honduras, humpbacks when they migrate in a Hawaii, etc. Kind of burnt myself out diving so much but I've still got my gear, couple cameras setups and a few Ikelite strobes, so might get back into it soon, dunno where though, but somewhere less commercial, maybe some more remote stuff in the Phils. Also the Malaysian Ringgit has devalued so much, you could dive Layang Layang and Sipidan and the islands around there for cheaper than ten years ago! Tempting

willyhilly · Post by **willyhilly** » Wed Feb 15, 2017 4:27 am

I had a friend who went on one of those boat trips out of Snooky years ago to three islands. He went snorkelling and saw a dead rat on a reef, typically Cambodian i suppose.

frank lee bent · Post by **frank lee bent** » Wed Feb 15, 2017 8:45 am

classic!

Seasquatch · Post by **Seasquatch** » Wed Feb 15, 2017 8:18 pm

Raybull wrote: ↑Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:48 am
Seasquatch wrote:
Raybull wrote:
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!

Did you use to work in the dive industry? I spear fish(with a 5' pool spear not a gun,) mostly take out the invasive lion fish here in the Atlantic at the moment but I'll get a snapper or jack every once in a while for the grill(I eat the lion fish too, makes great ceveche,) I've had bulls come up on me, if I just have lions I just let them have them but I'll shoot a bag for a nicer fish, the bulls are big and scary but they at least they come up and circle around you, it's the smaller reef/blacktips that can be super aggressive and can come on you quick. I also had an eel come from behind and shoot through my legs to get my fish while I was trying to get a lobster, scared the shit out of me! Bit clean through it.

Good stuff, where abouts? Those lion fish are invasive everywhere it seems now! Never spear fished myself but I can imagine some sharks get aggressive with the temptation.
Just did divemaster, never wanted to be an instructor, had friends that owned some diveshops and some that were instructors in Thailand and Indonesia at that time so got to dive a lot for cheap, free tanks for beach dives, freedom to grab my camera gear and just max out tanks on solo dives, and really cheap liveaboards when the boats weren't filling up, just helped bring up the pack once in a while.
Yeah the bulls are not super aggressive but I'b be scared diving around them in low viz. The couple times it happened they would circle and come in and prod the BCD at the hip (the tank crew would wear BCDs out when they went fishing off the rocks and stuff bait and small catch in the pockets, sometimes forgetting fish so that's when the fun happened the next morning). They were never on me cause I had my own gear, and it never seemed the situation was out of control, freaked out the clients though.
Scarier was an encounter with a tiger shark off of Molokini crater in Maui, 40m viz and it was doing zig zag passes as getting closer, also being swarmed by a group blacktips on a night dive near that same crater, also fractured a rib when I accidentally ran into and spooked a huge 1.5m turtle on a night dive in Mabul, getting deco like symptoms while still thirty meters into a cave dive in Sipadan, also sadly saw a newbie divemaster get taken in a down current there, when the tide is going out the downflow at certain parts of the island it's impossible to fight, easy to die if you don't know the dives, many more sketchy moments.
Lots of good tamer stuff too, doing bounces off 50m to see schools of hammerheads in Layang Layang and Sipadan, so many whale sharks and mantas you get bored of them in the Phils, Bali, Thailand and Honduras, humpbacks when they migrate in a Hawaii, etc. Kind of burnt myself out diving so much but I've still got my gear, couple cameras setups and a few Ikelite strobes, so might get back into it soon, dunno where though, but somewhere less commercial, maybe some more remote stuff in the Phils. Also the Malaysian Ringgit has devalued so much, you could dive Layang Layang and Sipidan and the islands around there for cheaper than ten years ago! Tempting

I live in Fort Lauderdale, I know Florida is a running joke(maybe more on tof) and yeah it has it's problems, but the diving is great, I have shore diving across the street, deep reefs/ledges up North, the Keys down South, probably 130 or so wrecks from Jupiter to Key West, then you have the Dry Tortugas from there. We do a lot of wreck diving, I've dove a wreck called the Hydro Atlantic a couple times, a real wreck that sits at 175'(54 meters?) on a single tank so it's a bounce dive too. Found a gopro chasing a hogfish off a wreck at 100' deep last year.

The Lion fish are a big problem in the Atlantic, 6 years ago I could go out and get a garbage bag full of them, they've been trying to get the divers to take them out before they eat everything off the reef as the indigenous fish are already overfished, it's somewhat worked as you have to go out deeper to find them but you still see the babies all over the place, still all over the deeper wrecks, I think they're here to stay. Never been hit by one of their spines but have seen people that have, seen a couple hands swell up and turn black. I cut their spines off with shears, always fun in ripping currents.

I'm ready to dive Asia, I've dived a good bit around the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America over the years, and while I love my "home reef," Asia and the South Pacific looks so exotic underwater, like to get to those WW2 wrecks before they totally fall apart.
I dove a 145' deep cenote down in Mexico last year, I have to say it exceeded my expectations, the halocline is where the fresh water meets the salt water around 60', I guess this goes down and opens up into another cave about 350', here's my video-

bolueeleh · Post by **bolueeleh** » Wed Feb 15, 2017 9:48 pm

lion fish is good eats, i bet chinatown would pay good money for these pest fish, white soft flesh of lion fish is good for steaming
same goes for those carp in michigan lakes, someone shld do a commercial fishing operation there and sell to chinatown, pretty sure will clear out once money can be made from them.

Scuba diving Cambodia

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