Hon Mun Diving

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Anticipation of the diving ensured we were well awake by the time our alarm clock was due to go off at 0630.

Breakfast was a damn good spread. A buffet of mixed Western and Vietnamese cuisine with plenty of good coffee. Jo had scrambled eggs with bacon and potatoes whilst I had a really good mushroom, bacon and tomato omelette.

We arrived at Sailing Club Divers at 0745 and were on the bus with two danish girls and an american by 0800.

The port was only a ten minute drive away so we were on the boat and being introduced to our Welsh dive master soon after.

Hon Mun Island was a 45 minute boat trip away on a wooden, two deck vessel that would comfortably have held 30 divers so we were stoked to have just the five and plenty of room to move.

We pulled up at the first site Tri Minh Treat alongside three or four other boats and geared up.

I’d only had my four training dives previously so I was a little nervous prior to hitting the water. I calmed down immediately on entry, mainly due to the balmy 25c water temperature and the nice thin 3mm wetsuit we’d been provided. My training dives had been at Leigh in October – in a 7mm wetsuit at 14c.

Most of the dive was nice and shallow – around six to eight metres but we did get down as far as 12 metres. Under the surface we saw a huge array of coral and fish of all sizes and colours. A moray eel, clownfish (think Nemo) and a huge prawn that woud have probably been enough for me for lunch were the highlights. Luckily for the prawn and unluckily for me the area was a marine protection zone so lunch would not be quite as exciting. I only managed 30 minutes before my tank got down to 40 bar. We were very close to the boat and only four or five metres deep so we surfaced. Jo, being much more experienced and calmer than me, continued with Lucy for a further 20 minutes in which time they spotted a puffer fish.

Lunch was provided on the boat and was a very basic chicken noodle stir fry. We waited for everything to settle and headed to Moray Beach, just around the point, for our second dive.

This time I managed 39 minutes under and was a little more confident in my breathing. An extra kilo of lead helped also as I’d struggled to stay down on the first dive. We were greeted by Angelfish and even more varieties of coral. This dive was a little shallower at 9.1 metres but there was more than enough to keep us interested. One of the more interesting sights was a spiky black bottom feeder that looked more like an anemone than anything. Lucy made the sign for “dangerous” so I kept a little distance but it was one of the most intriguing creatures I’ve seen under the water. Once again, I surfaced and left Jo and Lucy to it for another 20 minutes.

We got changed, reviewed a few of the photos I’d taken on the rental camera and headed back to Nha Trang, arriving at 1300 feeling pretty bloody good about life.

Lunch was at Veranda – we’d decided the chicken stir fry qualified as a snack. The seafood hot pot consisted of shrimps, squid and fish in a tomato and chilli broth. The waitress helped us with the servings and ensured everything was cooked suitably. Once again, The Veranda had delivered although the staff were visibly mystified that I was picking at the raw green beans prior to their entry to the hot pot. That’s just how I roll.

We got back to Happy Light Hotel at 1500, having said no to over half a dozen cigarette sellers on the 300 metres that we had walked.

I hit the bed and was asleep within a couple of minutes – waking at 1630 with travellers guts. It wasn’t food poisoning, just the travel and food differences catching up on me. It was cleared in a three minute session best not described on the internet – there’s plenty of that stuff on other sites.

We headed back to Sailing Club Divers and booked ourselves in for an advanced diving course for the next few days and in return for the USD$250 each we were presented with a 379 page study book. This was meant to be a holiday!

Dinner was what I’ve always found has been the best medicine for travellers guts – a cheeseburger at Why Not Bar. It went down a treat. For the second night running I was surrounded by the wait staff who were all intrigued by my bluetooth keyboard for the iPhone and as I typed the previous paragraph I had three people watching over me wanting to know how it all worked. The only downer was that a rat scuttled up a drainpipe – anyone that knows me knows rats and mice are my biggest fear… I type this paragraph with my legs around my ears, perched up on the small table leaner in case the little bugger comes back.

We walked back around the tourist block of Nha Trang, complete with it’s backpacker bars and restaurants, under constant harassment from touts and hawkers. All place names were in English and Russian as there are two flights daily direct from Russia on offering brief, prepackaged respites from the winter snow.

We spent an hour or so studying for our advanced diving course but I lost it around 2100 and slept well.

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