Scuba diving

We made it a point to get a scuba trip in before school started. It was We got a recommendation for a dive shop

from a co-worker. Having a dive master that speaks English was very helpful for setting up an appointment and

getting a time and a place to be. Diving here had a few quarks that were new to us. We got our 5 mil wetsuits at

the dive shop, and after trying them on, I started to take them off, as you normally do not put a wet suit on until

you are ready to dive because they are hot. We were told to keep them on. The equipment was not great, but it

did work. We used weight belts and the only gauge we were given was an air gauge. I was very happy to have

my dive computer. We took a 5-minute drive to the boat and then were told to put our tank and BCDs together.

It has been a while since that was not done for me, but it came back to me quickly. The dive boat was actually

just a squid boat. We had to put our BCDs (Buoyancy Control Devices) and tanks on before we got on the boat.

It was a hot boat ride, but after 5 minutes we reached our wall. The dive was good. Visibility was not great, but

the soft coral and variety of fishes were nice. This was the first time I had seen soft coral like this. The lionfish

were also very impressive, and they were not invasive, which made them more enjoyable. We ended up diving

past a tourist submarine at about 70 feet. It was fun to be part of the show. Our second dive was a shipwreck

deeper than 115 feet. One of the most interesting parts of the dive was getting out of the water. Squid boats are

not made to take on passengers from the water, so they built an elevator in. They lowered the elevator below

the water, and we walked on with fins and all. The elevator then raises and we walked onto the boat. It definitely

was a different experience. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We landed on Jeju Island - Our New home!

Image
 As I write this, we have officially been on Jeju Island for 24 hours! We left the US on July 17th at 8:20am after my mom and her partner dropped us off at 5:40am - thank you!! We were some of 'those' people travelling with lots of luggage. Our first 'stressor' was trying to just use the outside bag check so we wouldn't have to go to far with all of our stuff.  (Why don't US airports have more luggage carts. They are always available everywhere else we travel around the world.) The staff person let us know we should have some form filled out which we had not heard of. Frantically we tried finding this form and filling it our online, The website was located in South Korea and kept crashing. Finally, we decided to lug everything inside and see if we could be helped there. Guess what? There was no form needed and we breezed through. Greg has a new policy, "If something seems to hard, stop and ask someone else first." The other 'stressor' at DIA wa...
Read more

Jeju Island's little erotic sculpture park

Image
Back in December 2022, when I let my dear brother know that we were moving to Jeju Island, South Korea, he replied back fairly quickly with a link to a rather erotic website of a sculpture park on the island. Today, Greg and I made it to Love Land! A little history from Wikipedia: "During the 1970s, Jeju Island became a popular honeymoon destination for Korean couples, due to the island's warm climate and Cold War-era restrictions on overseas travel. Many of the couples had wed because of arranged marriages, and the island also became known for being a center of sex education. According to an article in Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, in the late 1980s journalist and travel writer Simon Winchester reported that some hotel employees on the island performed as "professional icebreakers". In the evenings, the hotel would offer an entertainment program featuring erotic elements, to help newlyweds relax."   I'm not too sure how much 'sex education' ...
Read more

Learning To Make Korean Food

Image
 In our little kitchen, I've been starting to try my hand at Korean vegetarian recipes. There are these 5-Day markets here on the island, which happen roughly every 5 days. The one closest to us in Molsepo, which is the closest town south of us on the water and is open on days that end in 1 and 6.  It takes us about 15-20 minutes by bus to get to Molsepo. These markets are covered, open air and have vegetables, fruits, fish, meat, grains, clothes and other textiles. When buying there, it's quite a bit in quantity, so I've had to figure out how to use all of it with just two of us. Here are some of my culinary creations so far: I've made this a few times now. The left dish is a eggplant and mild chili pepper stir fry and the right dish is a Korean BBQ Potato dish. The market had a grain variety of different rice varieties, barley, and millet, which is the back dish. Greg and I have really liked all three. Vegan Kimchi! This is a cabbage, daikon version. Yummy! Sweet Pota...
Read more