Favorite Dive Site

[SoiSong]

I was wondering about people favorite dive site.....Lets limit it to reachable from Phuket and excluding the "Patong Beach-Similans trip, which I have never been able to book.

I have made a few runs out of Patong Bay for the two tank morning tirp and we were back at 11am... within view of Patong. I forget the names they were using that day but it was a shallow reef dive, no current and good engough vis! It was especially grand in that it didn't take all day for limited bottom time.

I have stopped doing the King, Shark, & Anenome dives as they are all about 20 min bottom time. I ALWAYS dive on 36% Eanx and have plenty of air and about 20 more min on my computer when the DiveMunster heards all back at the first diver to hit 1200 psi......

I do like Racha Ya and Racha Noi as you get some bottom time and the water is mostly clearer there. My best dive is Koh Doc Mai at night. I prefer my night dives to be where there is no bottom for people to chun and DESTROY the VIS.

SO..............what about the fav site of the divers on board?

[smartecosse]

its unfair not to include the similans (elephant head, koh bon pinnacle, deep six, snapper ally )

anyway i am not quite sure who you go diving with that you get a 20 min bottom time on the KC trips. the norm is 50 minutes

why not charter your own boat (8500 baht) for the day and then you can have as long as you like on the bottom

you can fit 6 to 8 divers and just share the cost ................

[smartecosse]

actualyy for shore diving my favourite two sites would be ao sane and the island off ya nui - both nice sites for shore diving and nice for snorkling as well

kata beach i suppose is the most used for shore diving by dive schools and so forth but that perhaps more due to convenience than anything else

[Chantal]

Actually the local dive sites off Kata, Kata Noi and Karon beaches surprisingly have a lot to offer. The sites Koh Pu (East and West), Karon Rock, Coral Gardens and Kata Noi South Point are ideal for those who do not want to spend the entire day out on a daytrip. Nice easy relaxing dives to max depth 19 meters. There are also shore entry dives from these beaches to their respective house reefs. The beauty of these shore and longtail boat dive sites during the high season months is that there are very few divers in comparison to the daytrip sites. The night dives are also very pleasant. For example last week at Karon house reef a Black Tip Shark as well as a 2 meter Jenkins Whipray not too mention giant Barracuda and a huge school of Parrotfish! Admittedly this does not happen often - but then it is always nice to have a surprise.

My favourite daytrip dive off Phuket? Not inc the Similans and Southern Islands - Racha Noi South Point without a doubt. Anemone Reef a close second.

[smartecosse]

Actually the local dive sites off Kata, Kata Noi and Karon beaches surprisingly have a lot to offer. The sites Koh Pu (East and West), Karon Rock, Coral Gardens and Kata Noi South Point are ideal for those who do not want to spend the entire day out on a daytrip. Nice easy relaxing dives to max depth 19 meters. There are also shore entry dives from these beaches to their respective house reefs. The beauty of these shore and longtail boat dive sites during the high season months is that there are very few divers in comparison to the daytrip sites. The night dives are also very pleasant. For example last week at Karon house reef a Black Tip Shark as well as a 2 meter Jenkins Whipray not too mention giant Barracuda and a huge school of Parrotfish! Admittedly this does not happen often - but then it is always nice to have a surprise.

My favourite daytrip dive off Phuket? Not inc the Similans and Southern Islands - Racha Noi South Point without a doubt. Anemone Reef a close second.

i know what you mean ! Its nice to be able to see the reef and marine life rather than ofther divers fins and bubble trails

[yabs]

thpught these dive sites were ok until i went to Malysia and then when I returnbed to Rach yai

I couldn't belive the difference. Diving in Thailand is crap

[jdinasia]

thpught these dive sites were ok until i went to Malysia and then when I returnbed to Rach yai

I couldn't belive the difference. Diving in Thailand is crap

5555 troll much?

[yabs]

why is that a troll?

diving apart from in the Similians in Thailand especially around Rach yai is crap

[SoiSong]

its unfair not to include the similans (elephant head, koh bon pinnacle, deep six, snapper ally )

anyway i am not quite sure who you go diving with that you get a 20 min bottom time on the KC trips. the norm is 50 minutes

why not charter your own boat (8500 baht) for the day and then you can have as long as you like on the bottom

you can fit 6 to 8 divers and just share the cost ................

What is unfair about my right to post a question.....If you posted the question including the Similans you would likely get little info on Phuket and everything about the Islands.... M<Y question is about Phuket and I tqake offense to your badgering me abnout my questions.....

Firstly, do you see my point as the discussion is about day trips from Phuket and Secondly it is MY RIGHT post htat question and it is totall fair to do so!

[SoiSong]

why is that a troll?

diving apart from in the Similians in Thailand especially around Rach yai is crap

I think it unfair to call thai diving..compared to Malaysia, sure but Malaysia compared to the Bastera and Tubutaha in the Sulu Sea Malaysia is of little import. Diving the Med in the winter or the "Mud Holes of Texas is far poorer that Phuket on its poorest day! So.....It is all realtive but my problem with the Saark, King, & Aneno is no qualithy of the dive it is the number of oats, how they operate those baots and the number of divers they put on the dive site...Look, I saw a day where there wer FIVE boats at King....I thought I was in Big C at the fresh fish counter!

[SoiSong]

Actually the local dive sites off Kata, Kata Noi and Karon beaches surprisingly have a lot to offer. The sites Koh Pu (East and West), Karon Rock, Coral Gardens and Kata Noi South Point are ideal for those who do not want to spend the entire day out on a daytrip. Nice easy relaxing dives to max depth 19 meters. There are also shore entry dives from these beaches to their respective house reefs. The beauty of these shore and longtail boat dive sites during the high season months is that there are very few divers in comparison to the daytrip sites. The night dives are also very pleasant. For example last week at Karon house reef a Black Tip Shark as well as a 2 meter Jenkins Whipray not too mention giant Barracuda and a huge school of Parrotfish! Admittedly this does not happen often - but then it is always nice to have a surprise.

My favourite daytrip dive off Phuket? Not inc the Similans and Southern Islands - Racha Noi South Point without a doubt. Anemone Reef a close second.

Who books these dives......I have never seen them offered...Where can I sign up. I, for one, find that the 7am to 5 pm day for about 1 hr bottom time max for 2 dives when I use only about 1000psi per dive, and run off my Nitrox Comnputer which gives me about tripple the bottom time allowed by the DiveMunster and have more that enought air for the excursion!

[yabs]

welcome to thailand Soi

sonce when have they cared about the experience of the tourist or about protecting the environment?

Thye only care about getting maximum baht so more people diving equals more baht

I thought after taksin left that the situation may improve but obvioulsy not as the TAT are now going for 17 million tourists. Thailand is on the verge of being an environmental disaster bought about by mass tourism.

greed is all Thai know

[smartecosse]

why is that a troll?

diving apart from in the Similians in Thailand especially around Rach yai is crap

and you are basing that on exactly how many dives in each region exactly

one dive

one weeks worth of dives

????????????????????

You cannot compare the Similans to Malaysia -they each are famous for different things

Diving at Racha Yai is crap? Well I will agree that its not quite the same as diving at other sites but I would hardly say it was crap. Then again I suppose when some people see a black tip they think thats a great dives whilst for others seeing the elusive nudi that they have been on the look out for for months makes a whole dive trip

diving is like any other sport - you get put of it what you put into it. Go to a site already having made up your mind that its crap and you probably wont have a great dive - go there with an eye out for the usual and you might be suprised.

Then again some people just love diving and whether its in 2 meter vis at silt'd up dosthill in tamworth ( god thats a horrible place to dive!!) or at hairball in lembeh they can still get pleasure out of it

you neglected to say where in malaysia you were diving, pretty sure that a day off the beach in tioman in the low season would have made racha yai seem fantastic

[smartecosse]

its unfair not to include the similans (elephant head, koh bon pinnacle, deep six, snapper ally )

anyway i am not quite sure who you go diving with that you get a 20 min bottom time on the KC trips. the norm is 50 minutes

why not charter your own boat (8500 baht) for the day and then you can have as long as you like on the bottom

you can fit 6 to 8 divers and just share the cost ................

What is unfair about my right to post a question.....If you posted the question including the Similans you would likely get little info on Phuket and everything about the Islands.... M<Y question is about Phuket and I tqake offense to your badgering me abnout my questions.....

Firstly, do you see my point as the discussion is about day trips from Phuket and Secondly it is MY RIGHT post htat question and it is totall fair to do so!

setlle down a bit ..........................

its called a "turn of phrase" and wasn't a criticism - i assume that english isn't your first language then

[yabs]

well when I'm diving in tropical placed my first thing I want to see is coral

i assume thats quite high on most peoples list in the tropics otherwise theres no point travelling all that way.

Rach yai for that had dire coral cover, patchy staghorn with hardly any fish and was the east side

which was supposed to be the best. The "reef" was basically non existent.

As fir Malaysia i went to the Perhentians and the coral was amazing even off beach in that you didn't need to go diving

snorkelling was all that was needed. Try and find anywhere in thailand like thaT

[SoiSong]

a BETTER dive site can always be found. Please, remember that talking dive sites is like comparing apples and oranges...They are different. Codel Banks well offshore in N. Calif or Even some of the deep dives about the Monterey area. Those are beautiful but you can compare that to Cozumel or even the Marine Park in Montego Bay or the great wall of N. Grand Cayman and don';t forget Bonaire!. Diving PNG with a Mike Ball trip is not to be comparet to a Chlong Boat for the day. Don' t compare the Sulu Sea with Alaska........Or the Lava flows on the big Island of Hawaii to the Wreck Dives of Oahu....... Shall I go on and on, and don't forget the Sea of Cortez or how could I have not mentioned the Santa Barba Channel Islands...I'lll stop now

The thing I heard here that I like is what ruins a dive is too many bubbles and too many divers...I find that to be the case at Shark, King and Aneno....... I'm soon to get over full time, and then I'll stage myself to Indonesia and the Malay coasts.......... I cannot forget that an area I return to most of all for night dives is Soi Bangla...

BTW, whom ever said some rubbish about me not knowing Thailand and S.E. Asia....I have been making 6 stays per year for a six years but most of all parachuted into Cambodia in 1967.....Now that was S.E. Asia.

[davidjtayler]

Easy boys (and girls) ... We are all in the same boat here and we all enjoy diving so lets have a good time....

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and as Smarty has rightly pointed out we can have a good dive wherever we go if we want ...

I shall be jumping in at Ratcha Noi and Yai next month and then we shall be heading to Phi Phi for a few dives before sailing south to Hin Daeng and Hin Muang to check out the Mantas.

After that its up to the Similan and Surin islands (beautiful corals here yabs) for 7 days of bliss.

It's all good ! Happy diving !

[limbos]

a BETTER dive site can always be found. Please, remember that talking dive sites is like comparing apples and oranges...They are different. Codel Banks well offshore in N. Calif or Even some of the deep dives about the Monterey area. Those are beautiful but you can compare that to Cozumel or even the Marine Park in Montego Bay or the great wall of N. Grand Cayman and don';t forget Bonaire!. Diving PNG with a Mike Ball trip is not to be comparet to a Chlong Boat for the day. Don' t compare the Sulu Sea with Alaska........Or the Lava flows on the big Island of Hawaii to the Wreck Dives of Oahu....... Shall I go on and on, and don't forget the Sea of Cortez or how could I have not mentioned the Santa Barba Channel Islands...I'lll stop now

The thing I heard here that I like is what ruins a dive is too many bubbles and too many divers...I find that to be the case at Shark, King and Aneno....... I'm soon to get over full time, and then I'll stage myself to Indonesia and the Malay coasts.......... I cannot forget that an area I return to most of all for night dives is Soi Bangla...

BTW, whom ever said some rubbish about me not knowing Thailand and S.E. Asia....I have been making 6 stays per year for a six years but most of all parachuted into Cambodia in 1967.....Now that was S.E. Asia.

Would that be classified as an illegal entry nowadays?

[Chantal]

well when I'm diving in tropical placed my first thing I want to see is coral

i assume thats quite high on most peoples list in the tropics otherwise theres no point travelling all that way.

Rach yai for that had dire coral cover, patchy staghorn with hardly any fish and was the east side

which was supposed to be the best. The "reef" was basically non existent.

As fir Malaysia i went to the Perhentians and the coral was amazing even off beach in that you didn't need to go diving

snorkelling was all that was needed. Try and find anywhere in thailand like thaT

Without being funny Yabs - Racha Yai - IMO - is probably the worst daytrip dive site off Phuket. Largely due to the amount of Open Water students and beginner divers going there everyday. Be it high season or low season. There are plenty more worthwhile dive sites off Phuket to visit.

[yabs]

Soi song

I totally disagree

if you are comparing different areas of the world in particular different latitudes then ok but when

I say the diving is crap I'm comparing to tropical regions and in particular SEA. Because of mans indelible footprint

in this increasing small and degraded (in the name of "progress") world we now live in, pristine spots are hard to find.However I think we can all agree that if these areas were left to their natural devices they would have large coral cover

high fish numbers and large pelagics in gyn clear water. SEA is in the area with the highest biodiversity on the planet

unyet all the dives in thailand i've had apart from the clear water I've never seen any of the obove things I mention.

Coral cover is less than 10 percent and I've seen bigger fish in garden ponds.

Compared to the rest of the region Thailands diving is sh*te, period.

This is all due to excessive unregulated tourism as well as the usual destructive fishiong methods

but overdevelopment in an unregulated way is the main source of the problem.

The only areas which are ok are the ones around Koh lanta, ie Koh rock hin Daeng etc

[smartecosse]

Yabs , some of what you say is correct

we do spoil what we go to see

however, what makes you think that "gin clear" water promotes healthy large pelagics??

ever been to donsol to look at the whale sharks in April, or madagascar in November for whale sharks one of divers miost favourite encounters??

Its like diving in pea soup. Loads or large fish in crap vis. Its the very thing that spoils the vis that brings them to the regions. Fish don't care if the vis is 2 meters or 40 meters

[yabs]

well yes its the plankton

that attracts them, i meant totally unpoillted waters which would during the right season

be crystal clear. My point is that thailands environmental policies suck.

Most of asia isn't much better but conseidering Malaysia gets more tourists apart from Penang it takes care of its islands and eco systems much better and use tourism to boost its economy so they can diversify into other areas. Tourism is not the

main dealk in Malaysia. Thailand seems to put 200 percent into tourism, take everything the foreign tourist gives and gives nothing back in return, not to their environment or even their own people. Its only helped the rich get richer and the corrupt get more corrupt. Anyway thats getting off topic a bit. In answer to your question from what I remember Phukets best was probably anemone reef due to lots of fish and colour.

I'm wondering what the other littel islands off chalong are like and what about the big island adjacent to Phuket which always

seems to be off the tourism radaer. I hera they are opening resorts here now. Whta is the diving around here like?

[Chantal]

Yabs

It would be very interesting to know what dive sites you have dived in Thailand?

[smartecosse]

and your total number of dives as well

I'm guessing that both are limited

[yabs]

well i'll, tell if you tell

have you been outside of thailand?

[Wolfie]

I think Chantal has forgotten more about diving that most of us will ever know...

(for the non english speakers i will translate: Chantal is a very experienced diver)

[smartecosse]

Yabs

i have been didivng since 1989, have done over 3000 dives, and have my own dive shop as well

would you like to compare log books & diving experiences

[yabs]

I don';t bother with log books and its not the number of ives so much as the variety of place you've been

so if you have your own dive shop where is it?

I've not met anyone who has experience of world class destinations say much aboutr Thailand with the possible exception of the Similians. I've had a few dives and snorkelli g trips in the Similians and whilst the topside scenery was gorgeous and the water really was clear as gyn I was not that impressed at all with the coral or indeed the marine life. My snorklling trip To Koh Rock was far superior in my opinion. I hear Hin Daeng is also good . maybe I got unlucky with the site I did in the Similians.

I can't remember offhand where what the sites were called

[smartecosse]

so roughly have you done 10, 100, 1000, 10,000 dives

have you done

quarries in the uk

fjords in norway

springs in the US

caves in cozumel

caribbean

thailand

Myanmar

canaries

red sea

maldives

indonesia

gbr

sydney

madagascar

galapagos

fiji

pulau

yap

cook islands

all we are trying to find out is what level of experience and expertise you are basing your opinions one.

my shops in thailand - wanna do a course

[yabs]

ok you have more experience than me

total dives in thailand are around 10 I suppose and i've snoreklled all over

iu've dived/snorklled in Indo, malaysia and the Phils

best was Malaysia I'd say. I'm a coral freak and thats why Thailand dissapointed me

only place i've seen decent coral was at Koh Phaghan and Koh chang but the visibility was crap so you couldn't really see it that well