Situated on South Korea’s largest island located in the Korea Straight just 80kms (50miles) southwest of the mainland, lies Jeju Island also known as Jejudo or Jeju Special Autonomous Province. Jeju Island is a volcanic island, dominated by Halla-san (Halla Mountain): a volcano 1,950 metres (6,397ft) high and the highest mountain in South Korea. The Island is divided into two provinces the Northern half known as Jeju City and the southern half Seogwipo.
Until recently the Island was known primarily as Korea’s premier Honeymoon destination, with couples drawn to the island which is a true garden of Eden with its scenic beaches, stunning waterfalls, cliffs and caves. But this tiny island is also perhaps one of the world’s top untapped Scuba Diving destinations. The secret of Jeju as a dive destination is known only to the Koreans and a smattering of International divers, which makes the destination far removed from the international dive map, but is slowly gaining popularity.
Most divers visiting this island for the first time are totally taken aback by the diving here which boils down to one main reason: The island’s unique location offers a mixture of both tropical and temperate climate. The flora and fauna found on Jeju is truly remarkable as and one can find a diverse variety of both tropical and temperate flora and fauna inhabiting the slopes of the volcanic mountains which receive heavy tropical rains in the summer, and are snow covered during the winter . However this remarkable co-existence of tropical and temperate doesn’t just terminate on land, but extends into the sea as well. The shores of Jeju Island enjoy a subtropical climate due to warm water currents from the East China Sea. Jeju s rainy season lasts from mid June to mid July when the island gets heavy monsoon rainfalls giving it its tropical climate. Scuba Diving off Jeju has been compared to diving in both Norway and the Red Sea at the same time! There are large black volcanic rocks and giant kelp forests underwater, which are usually found in temperate Atlantic and Pacific waters; and then there is the colorful abundant tropical reef fish and rainbow colored soft coral that seem totally out of place in these waters and never cease to amaze divers.
Most of the scuba diving takes place off the southern coast of Jeju known as Seogwipo, where there are excellent vertical walls covered in highly colorful soft coral. These walls are peppered with exciting caves and lava tubes. In the cold season there are sites with 18m-high kelp forests to swim amongst and a rare combination of Octopus, lionfish, scorpion fish, grouper, jack, butterfly fish, angelfish, boxfish, and many others can be spotted while diving. The occasional Dolphin turning up at the dive site to see what the divers are up to is not unheard of here.
There are several uninhabited islets off Sogwipo City which are popular boat dive day trip dive spots, and offer divers a variety of sites, ranging from rocky reefs, walls, sandy patches and soft coral gardens.
Diving in Jeju Island takes place all year round, and owing to its unique mild climate, there are always different things to sea underwater depending on the season. Perhaps the most popular dive operator on the island is Big Blue 33 that is run by English speaking Ralf Deutsch, and offers daily dive trips to all of the best sites as well as NAUI certification. The Island is easily accessible by air, from Seoul which is a 1 hour flight to the Jeju Island Airport, and there is abundantly available hotel accommodation of all sorts to chose from.
Special thanks to Lucas Groenig who wrote to us suggesting we feature this destination.
