Nice Wall south of Po Toi
Diving on the south side of Hong Kong is a bit of an acquired taste. Visibility tends to be worse than other areas of the territory. There can be stronger currents and there is the potential for more depth. You tend to either have a very bad dive, or a very good dive, you very rarely have an average dive there. In fact for 10 years I avoided south side dives because I had too many bad dives there.
However I became a convert when I found that there is some extremely good soft coral, particularly on the north shore of the Beaufort Channel. Unfortunately this is often too exposed to dive, but on Saturday we may have found a reasonable alternative. On the south coast of Po Toi is an exposed bay with a muddy bottom of around 25 metres. Not so promising so far, but close the island the cliffs continue down into the sea and things are much better. However the real bonus is a little wall that starts at around 12 metres. I’m not sure how far down it goes, because I hit it swimming in towards the island at around 16 metres. I couldn’t see the bottom, but in Hong Kong waters that’s not saying much! However there was a profusion of fans and colourful soft coral on it, and shoals of fish, nudibranchs, crabs, and even a moray. The coral may not be quite as good as the Beaufort Channel, but in my one dive there, the fish life seemed better.
And the real bonus – it’s only 10 minutes from the Po Toi Seafood restaurant. Not a site if the wind is coming from anywhere in the south, but otherwise this is definitely somewhere we should go back to.
Tags: Dive Sites