With the latest round of Covid-19 relaxations announced by the government, private boat diving for up to four people is now allowed. Bags were duly packed, and off we went for our standard 0900 departure from Sai Kung.
The biggest decision of the day was exposure protection. Air temperature was hitting 30°C, even at 1000, but we knew the water was still going to be cold. Luckily, we got a bit of cloud cover (and some quite spectacular fog rolling down the surrounding hills) so the decision to go dry suit was vindicated. Heading up to Clearwater Bay for the first dive, we were welcomed by very calm, clear waters. It is obviously jellyfish season, with not only large numbers, but also some fairly large specimens (another tick in the box for dry suit selection!).
Dropping in at Clearwater Bay, it was a delight to have vis of up to 10m in places, but more like 5m on average. Within seconds, I’d had my first encounter with a jelly, but luckily spotted it in time just before I managed to swim right into him. After doing a bit of survey work (another story for another day) we meandered along at around 10m depth, greeted by some lovely snapper, and rather large moray, and the usual suspects of HK diving. Bottom temp was around 22°C, so still a bit chilly for this warm water diver.
Upping anchor, we made our way back towards Sai Kung and stopped off at Tai Pai. This can be a spectacular dive site, often with much better visibility than other HK locations due to being in the middle of a “deep” channel (around 20m or so). With the aid of our GPS to pinpoint the location, we dropped in but, alas, the visibility was not so kind to us. Up to 5m in places, which is by no means the worst in Hong Kong, but mostly around 3m. Still, we enjoyed exploring between the boulders, and, quite frankly, loved being on a different dive site for what felt like the first time in ages.
It’s lovely diving off a small boat. You get to go to places the larger boats don’t reach. Even those sites the large boats can reach, going early, on your own, means you get the dive site to yourself. We took the advantage to do a recce of a sheltered site on the way back in. Especially towards the end of the season, winds can pick up and it can be difficult to find a quite spot for training dives. Hopefully we’ve found somewhere that gives us a different option, if needed later on.