Dive Review of The Dive Shop, Sihanoukville in
General Travel/Other Locations/Cambodia

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The Dive Shop, Sihanoukville, Mar, 2012, by Elizabeth Crapo, ID, US ( Sr. Reviewer 9 reports). Report 6634.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	The Dive Shop is based in the coastal city of Sihanoukville, Cambodia, but they operate mainly on Koh Rong Island, which is a 2.5 hour ride on a slow boat across a channel that can be subject to swells. Some people on the boat got seasick during the crossing. Most people stay on Koh Rong for at least one night rather than make the round trip in one day. If you are diving with The Dive Shop on consecutive days, you can stay in their dormitory overnight for free. Otherwise, there's a backpacker party resort called Monkey Island and a somewhat-quieter place called Paradise a short walk down the beach. There's a few $5-10 places in the village too. I stayed in The Dive Shop's dorm and ate mostly at Monkey Island. Both were good, especially for the price. As far as the diving, it's OK. You'll see a decent variety of small tropicals. There's a good variety of nudibranchs if you're into small stuff. The Dive Shop also runs a small live-aboard that goes to some of the more distant offshore islands for 2 or 3 days. It's not 5-star (accommodations are mats on the top deck, which is covered by a tarp) but the Cambodian family who ran it was really nice and helpful, and the local-style food was good. The diving was pretty similar to Koh Rong. Sadly, there has been a lot of dynamite fishing going on in the area where the live-aboard went. We heard blasts in the area while we were in the water. We had to abort one dive about 10 minutes early when it was way too close. There was lots of gray coral rubble, so the highlight ended up being unusual critters like nudibranchs and pygmy octopuses. Every once in a while there would be a spectacular patch of reef, such as a patch of amemones about 50 feet in diameter, and a half-football field of untouched green coral interspersed with white bracnhing corals - a cruel tease that showed what this place must have looked like before the fishermen got to it. So, Cambodia is definitely not the latest undiscovered dive destination. Those new to tropical diving will probably find it more interesting than veteran divers. Don't come here if you require five-star accommodations. If you are in the country anyway (it does have all kinds of great topside attractions) and want to get a unique stamp in your logbook, I'd definitely recommend The Dive Shop. The DMs (from Europe and South Africa) were all a lot of fun and spoke good English. Koh Rong was a nice, away-from-it-all place with nice beaches that I often heard compared to Thailand as it was 20 years ago. Definitely worth checking out if you're in the area.
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	251-500 dives
Where else diving	Guam, Palau, Yap, Chuuk, Bali, Hawaii, French Polynesia, Fiji, Manado, Sipadan, Thailand, Dominica, Bay Islands, San Diego, South Carolina
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm
Water Temp	-°F / -°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	60-100 Ft/ 18-30 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	?
Enforced diving restrictions	[Unspecified]
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	N/A
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	1 or 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish	N/A
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter	N/A	Boat Facilities	N/A
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	[None]

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Dive Review of The Dive Shop, Sihanoukville in General Travel/Other Locations/Cambodia

The Dive Shop, Sihanoukville, Mar, 2012,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of The Dive Shop, Sihanoukville in
General Travel/Other Locations/Cambodia