Poseidon's Parlour: Jade Green Seas

Leaving Port

So with another holiday, this time to Viet Nam, I was presented with the opportunity to go SCUBA diving at the Cham Islands just off the coast Hoi An.

The vast majority of Viet Nam's diving can be done south of Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City near Viet Nam's border with Thailand and away from the endless series of river deltas that punctuate much of the Vietnamese coast. As the area wasn't on my itinerary I made do with Cham.

Cham is a developing destination with just two dive operators, but it has recently been designated a UNESCO protected biosphere for the number corals that exist around the islands.

The guys at Cham Island diving were pretty relaxed, taking everything I said at face value and didn't bother to check my log book or certs. According to the owner, "people don't lie in diving". I certainly didn't.

All the gear was on the boat waiting and seemed in average condition. A-clamp, basic Cressi regs, Mares basic BCDs and decent mares 3mm steamers and 2.5mm shorties. With the water temp being a little above 20c I doubled up and took both.

It was still cool, but tolerable enough for a 30-40minite dive.

For the dives I was teamed with Myrthee from Montreal and Ian (our guide) an instructor from Ontario. Myrthee was pretty inexperienced but once properly weighted coped admirably.

Dive one was down to 20m to a garden of what the guide described as Cauliflower Coral - although it looked suspiciously like a variety of plumose anemone to me. In addition the dive was punctuated by the odd parrotfish, anemonefish and a selections of nudibranchs. It was fun, but the vis was like an average day back home and without a torch photography was always going to be challenging.

The second dive threw up much of the same, but with a nice scorpionfish, but by that time I was getting cold so I cut my dive short (30 minutes) while the other two pottered about at the bottom of the line.

Afterwards, we headed to a very decent beach for lunch before the boat trip home.

Now, I wouldn't discourage anyone from diving anywhere, but I wouldn't come here to dive. Instead, if you have a day to kill in Hoi An and fancy getting wet then give it a go.