Umutgae Beach is a pretty long stretch, with the Haenyeo divers performing at the section that’s at the foot of Seongsan. We caught the 2PM performance today, and didn’t expect it to be this well attended. There were large groups of visitors already gathered at the beach itself by 1:30PM, so additional arriving visitors – including us – had to contend with observing from the flights of steps leading down to the beach. The performance started punctually at 2PM, and four women divers came out, suited up, and performed their pre-dive activities, including a dance routine for good luck and a safe, bountiful harvest. The divers then proceeded to swim around the coast, each diving numerous times to harvest underwater, before coming back up 15 minutes later to show their catch to the very impressed audience at the beach.
Pictures!
My general advice: if you want to see the divers’ performance up close, you’d have to arrive super early. The parking situation was pretty bad too, with a lot of vehicles trying to find parking lots.