Jejudo - Seogwipo and ScubaDiving

One of the highlights of the trip was going Scuba Diving for the first time. Chad has his Dive Masters, or Open Waters or something, and he really wanted to go. I was a bit hesitant as I am not the strongest swimmer, but I loved it.

We went through Ralph, who runs BigBlue33 (www.bigblue33.co.kr). I did a Discovery Dive which basically meant I am just along for the ride.


On Little Munsom


We caught a boat from the harbour which took us out to a rocky island (Little Munsom) that had lots of Korean divers preparing. Ralph did a safety talk with me and told me what to expect, and then helped me gear up. The gear was really really heavy, but luckily I didn't have to wear it on land for much time at all.

We went in the water, did some test breathing and then started to descend. It was totally disorienting as I really seemed to have no control at all of my body. So Ralph REALLY helped me out with everything. In the meanwhile, Chad was around swimming near us, and probably laughing to himself and how awkward I think I was. We hit about 3 meteres down and then I got some ear issues. It took me a long time to "pressurize" but finally I did it and we were underway.

It was AMAZING how much life there is below the surface. I felt like I was living a BBC Planet Earth show...and Chad told me that the visibility wasn't even that great! But I loved it. We saw lots and lots of fish, a few schools, some coral, seaweed. All sorts of crazy things that I don't even know the names of.

The total dive was 26 minutes, and we went down to a depth of 12 meters which is about all a new person is allowed/should go down to. Chad and Ralph then did another dive after mine, where apparently it got very cold, but they saw lots of cool sea life.

If anybody ever has the chance to go diving, even just the discovery dive I did. DO IT! Really really amazing. I was so worried about the breathing, and things like that, but I had such an amazing time with no problems at all.

Unfortunately, no pictures underwater.








Chad taking the plunge