Diving in Vietnam

Diving in Vietnam is available in a few spots: Nha Trang (a place we were told to skip by just about everyone including a Vietnamese man who grew up there), the remote Con Dao Islands (not within our time/financial budget if we wanted to see the rest of Vietnam), and the Cham Islands off Hoi An. As in Cambodia, the macro life is what diving off Hoi An is all about. In addition to the great stuff Jen caught on camera, I saw the best-looking crab I’ve ever seen. Alas, I had no camera and by the time I got Jen to look away from the anemone she was shooting, the crab had scuttled away.

Our day of diving was a reminder of why we choose small outfits for diving whenever possible. I’m not going to use this blog as a forum for my personal negative review of a dive operator, that’s what Trip Advisor is for. But I will say this: being herded like cattle around a boat, having questions such as, “which gear will I be using?” ignored or laughed at, and being literally pushed around by staff does not a good day make. Fortunately, we spent the day with two new friends so we had good company both in the water and above. The sun shone, the fish came out to play, and in the end everyone made it back to Hoi An without incident.

That said, let’s face it. There’s only so much I can write about diving. I’m fairly certain the real reason anyone looks at our diving posts is for Jen’s photos. Since studying under the fantastic Karl of Roatan Divers, her photos have only improved. One of these days, she’ll start using a better camera and when that happens, I won’t bother with words, we’ll just put her photos up for you.

Even with a dive operator that we weren’t thrilled with, we were lucky: visibility was decent and our divemaster was great (and to all the DMs out there who have been brainwashed to believe this isn’t possible, yes, she’s a DM working as a DM). If you want to know more about our experience and don’t just check out our diving posts for Jen’s incredible photos, let us know in the comments. Otherwise, the next one will almost certainly be 95% photos and 5% text!