I just got back from a few days in Thailand in the Ko Samui area. I had high hopes from Thailand from a scuba prospective, and did indeed see beautiful fish, but a couple details got me a bit unhappy with the whole Ko Samui diving experience. Firstly, there are no dive spots in Samui… which means that in order to go diving you have to do a 1,5-2hrs speed boat ride to Ko Tao where the real fun is (and since I tend to get sea sick and the sea wasn’t really calm the ride was bumpy and not really super fun for me). The visibility at that time of the year is fairly average and I couldn’t get a real clear status regarding the rest of the year, so it may not be much better. The spots aren’t really deep, Sail Rock and Chumphon Pinnacle are the deepest dives around. Also as surprising as it sounds heavy fishing and industrialization kinda messed up the ecosystem : no more turtles, very little big fishes (didn’t see any of the reef sharks and apparently there are no more mantas…)!

Still there is a plethora of smaller fish (and a few really huge groupers) that make the dives really fund and enjoyable! If you’re in Ko Samui in the Bophut area I recommend you dive with www.bophutdiving.com, they’ve got they’re own boat (unlike lots of the other dive clubs around) and really made the 2 dives I did with them super enjoyable (and their prices are very reasonable).

Pascal is wrapping up his FFESSM N2 today (AOW+), so the whole Diveboard team should be back delivering cool new updates in the next few days !

Check out Ksso’s scuba dive in Ko Tao: Hin Ngam & Aow Leur – Diveboard : Track and share your scuba diving experiences – Explore new spots and destinations

Depth: 11.4m Duration: 60mins – Nice and long dive. Lots of xmas-tree tubeworms, sea cucumbers and a big density of colorful and playful fish. A school of small baracudas followed us a while. Dived wi… read more

 

 

 

Check out Ksso’s scuba dive in Ko Tao: Chumphon Pinnacle – Diveboard : Track and share your scuba diving experiences – Explore new spots and destinations

Depth: 32.7m Duration: 27mins – Deep morning divem unfortunately few pics as I struggled with the camera flash not firing up. Dive started with 2 huge groupers (male/female ?) chasing/biting each othe… read more

 

 

 

Check out Ksso’s scuba dive in Ko Tao: Sail Rock – Diveboard : Track and share your scuba diving experiences – Explore new spots and destinations

Depth: 19.4m Duration: 36mins – Second dive on Sail Rock, this time we started by going down a chimney from 6 to 15m, limited visibility ~10m and more sea sick than ever Beautiful schools of jacks … read more

 

 

 

Check out Ksso’s scuba dive in Ko Tao: Sail Rock – Diveboard : Track and share your scuba diving experiences – Explore new spots and destinations

Depth: 25.6m Duration: 30mins – Beautiful dive but awkward experience (high fever, shaky sea…). First time with a new camera setup, took some time to find the right settings and start getting a few … read more