Favorite Dive Site

[dogblower]

For my 2 baht worth, I wouldn't come to Thailand just for the diving. IMHO it is not a destination for the hard-core diver; it is however, an excellent holiday destination and diving is a great activity to enjoy while you're here.

Equally, I believe that every dive is what you make of it. I did some diving in Pattaya not so long ago, and the dive staff were actually apologetic about the poor quality of the diving compared to what I was used to. I couldn't understand their attitude, and they were just as puzzled by mine when I came up raving about what a good dive I had just had. The main thing for me was that I was diving in a different area, with different marine life, and managed to spot 3 or 4 things that I had never seen before - which made it a great dive for me.

To go back to the original post here, I believe Racha Yai is over dived and by too many inexperienced divers and it would not be a recommended dive site for me. King Cruiser doesn't excite me particularly but I could still dive Shark Point or Anemone Reef every day and enjoy them. If you really want bottom time, then the west coast has some lovely, shallow dives available in season. Try Phuket Scuba Club, behind Montri's Boathouse on the road to Kata Noi for some very professional, knowledgeable (and enthusiastic) divers to guide you round their favourite dive sites.

[limbos]

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

Yabs,

What is it with you?

First you barge into the Samui forum, telling how bad Samui, and it turns out that you have almost next to nothing about actual knowledge about Samui, you visited a couple of times or so, the last time being 3 or more years ago.

Truelly amazing.

You hardly show your face in that forum anymore after you've been ripped to pieces there.

Now you go on about diving in Thailand and you've done all but 10 dives in Thailand. You do have some good points about Thailand possibly not putting as much back into tourism as they take from the tourists but what makes you think you're the authority about diving in Thailand or diving in general (or anything about/related to Samui for that matter) that you think you are?

Let's hear it out again.

[yabs]

I hardly recall being ripped to pieces

In fact i had many supporters

anyway I'm not going to get back into a flaming war.

I've done 10 dives so what

you get a good feel for the place and i would say i'm a very experienced snorkeller and swimmer

I know what i like and what I wnat to see when i snorkel and I havn't seen anything bar clear water in thailand to get me back. What makes you the expert?

I can post many articles if you wish which discuss how Thailands marine ecosystem has been

all but buried by the tourist trade if you wish. If you can find me ONE article

which points to how good thailands marine environment and diving is compared to the rest of the region

I would be very interested. Even Vietnam scores higher in the diving stakes than thailand.

If you want to eat great food, shag bar girls, see soke gold temples and drink expensive beer and experience

extreme tourist traps then thailand is the place, if not you are in the wrong place.

Only exceptions are Lanta and Koh Phaghan.

northern towns are also great for culture but for diving/snorkelling

please do me a favour

[H2oDunc]

Personally the best diving you can do is jump on a bus to Chumphon. The diving here is some of the best in Thailand. You get good coral, big fish and turtles etc and the best thing of all few or no other divers. Bottom times which suit you not the schedule of the dive boat. Dive with nitrox and stay as long as your profile allows. Its the hidden treasure of the south. Viz now getting excellent. Unlike Tao and Phuket we here do it for the love of diving not money. That makes the difference. Keep blowing those bubbles

[yabs]

Thats interesting to hear

don't spread it around too much if you wnat it to stay that way

are there islands off chumpon then or just from the beach?

[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.

Would that be classified as an illegal entry nowadays?

If one were entering the Kingdom as a tourist and not a retiree.............

[H2oDunc]

Yabs, There are lots of small islands off Chumphon which offer some great diving, also some divable wrecks. Having spent a few years on Koh Tao I just got sick of diving with lots of other divers and having to rush people back to the boat when they have 100 bar left.You pay top dollar for 30-40 mins bottom time. Here Chumphon has some beautiful beaches just outside of town and as said great diving. Thursday we did 2 good dives with NOBODY else around. Beached the boat on a smsll deserted island had a BBQ lunch another 2 good dives again no other divers but us 4 then back to base. Lots of big fish, 5 turtles and beautiful corals. You guys keep diving the king cruiser and anenomae reef and enjoy!!!!!

[limbos]

I hardly recall being ripped to pieces

In fact i had many supporters

anyway I'm not going to get back into a flaming war.

I've done 10 dives so what

you get a good feel for the place and i would say i'm a very experienced snorkeller and swimmer

I know what i like and what I wnat to see when i snorkel and I havn't seen anything bar clear water in thailand to get me back. What makes you the expert?

I can post many articles if you wish which discuss how Thailands marine ecosystem has been

all but buried by the tourist trade if you wish. If you can find me ONE article

which points to how good thailands marine environment and diving is compared to the rest of the region

I would be very interested. Even Vietnam scores higher in the diving stakes than thailand.

If you want to eat great food, shag bar girls, see soke gold temples and drink expensive beer and experience

extreme tourist traps then thailand is the place, if not you are in the wrong place.

Only exceptions are Lanta and Koh Phaghan.

northern towns are also great for culture but for diving/snorkelling

please do me a favour

So what are you still doing here than?

BTW, my experience is over a 1000 dives just in Thailand.

I do agree with you about Thailand not putting in the ecological efforts to maintain their reefs and plenty of more issues that you didn't even mention.

What I don't agree with is the way you seem to bash everything Thai related without any real experience in the fileds that you talk about and without coming up with solutions. Bashing is easy.

[smartecosse]

armchair expert comes to mind

you have 10 dives and are stating what is good / bad about diving in Thailand versus other parts of the world - hey but hang on you are an experienced snorkler right?

Thats pretty much like just having passed your car test and starting to wax lyrical on how drivers should drive in formula one, and then when challenged on your lack of expertise saying "but hey, I have ridden a bicycle for years"

[Chantal]

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

Yabs - with 10 dives under your belt in Thailand it quite clearly indicates that you have not done much in order to slate Thailand and the diving so badly. Also if you did a "few dives" and snorkelled at The Similans as you say you did - you must have gone on 1 of those cattle market boats that only go up for a couple of days and then only go to the most convenient sites in order to save on Diesel. In other words I bet you did not dive at all the sites and you could not have gone further up north to The Surin Islands which most of the Liveaboards do. With these cattle market operations unfortunately you get what you pay for. If you did a proper Liveaboard diving cruise you would have done at least 15 dives up there alone. Not to even mention the other sites around Thailand which I am sorry to say sounds like you have not been well informed about.

[yabs]

chantal

first impressions last i guess

First trip there was a snorkelling cattle market tour from phuket to donald duck bay.

don't get me wrong very beautiful but not much coral and the boat i was in flushed its toilet straight into the bay. Second tim e was with a dive boat from khao lak and we went to three sites, none of wish were

breathtaking unlike Malaysia and Bali.

Limbos when The boat i mention emptied its tanks i complained to fall on deaf and aggressive ears.

Also when I've been On Koh samet a supposed national park and found jetskies there, resorts emtying their septic tanks straight out to sea at night and snorkelling boats leaking gasoline eveywhere

I took it up with the national park guards. I said I didn't mind paying 1000 baht if they managed to properly protect it. When I metioned about the resort which I named illegally emptying its tanks the response was

"they are not the only ones". well thats alright then.! I spent over 1 hour on three seperate visits trying to get them to do something but it seems their only role is to collect money from foreigners. I thought after I gave them this info they could go directly to said resort with the police and arrest them but no

nothing , di nada, only after three visists, the final response was "we will talk to big boss in Rayong"

That was it. Don't get me wrong Thailand is exceptionally beautiful but its being ruined by the thai people

who obvioulsy don't give a toss about their own environment even if its said environment which provides their bread and butter but if you complain or give advice they just look at you as just another stupid foreigner

and i shoud mind my own buisiness even though its my buisiness that gives them their jobs in the first place.

I also complained to a long tail boatsmen on Koh Kai for anchoring right on the coral

and alsmost got physically assualted for the trouble. The list goes on but nothing gets through to them

not even a Tsunami.

what have you done?

[smartecosse]

donald duck bay hardly represenst the similans

its been beaten to death by thousands of boats mooring there

[yabs]

then why isn't there some restrictions on the boats mooring there in one if thailands last few pristine national parks

[smartecosse]

because idiots like you that go on the "cattle boats" over the years haven't given a care in the world.

your looking at Thailand with blinkers on, you obviously dont like it that much - especially as you say the "Thais" are ruining it so why are you here, and in a forum posting about it??

where are you from btw?

[yabs]

Moderators please look into this abuse.I am not an idiot my taking a trip out there. I also complained to the captain

and didn't take it again. I belive its Thais who run these trips and they are thai boats in thai controlled waters

so how can this be the fault of anyone else? I'm just a customer and to say i'm an idiot who doesn't care is offensive as i care a lot more than most. Ican categorically say that i really do leave nothing but bubbles

I never touch or break anything

[Wolfie]

play nicely please gentlemen and keep the name calling out of the forum.

[limbos]

It's your holier than thou attitude that gets you in trouble all the time, as far as I observed, Yabs.

Don't start yelling on the top of your lungs on top of the highest roof how bad everything is (or perceived by you) about various things in Thailand, when you have no more or less than average knowledge about the issues you want to berate people about.

Another point is, if things are so bad in Thailand, according to you, why do you still live here, in BKK if I remember correctly. Maybe you should consider moving on? Far away from Samui, far away from inferior Thai dive sites and far away from those bad Thai people.

[Chantal]

chantal

first impressions last i guess

First trip there was a snorkelling cattle market tour from phuket to donald duck bay.

don't get me wrong very beautiful but not much coral and the boat i was in flushed its toilet straight into the bay. Second tim e was with a dive boat from khao lak and we went to three sites, none of wish were

breathtaking unlike Malaysia and Bali.

Limbos when The boat i mention emptied its tanks i complained to fall on deaf and aggressive ears.

Also when I've been On Koh samet a supposed national park and found jetskies there, resorts emtying their septic tanks straight out to sea at night and snorkelling boats leaking gasoline eveywhere

I took it up with the national park guards. I said I didn't mind paying 1000 baht if they managed to properly protect it. When I metioned about the resort which I named illegally emptying its tanks the response was

"they are not the only ones". well thats alright then.! I spent over 1 hour on three seperate visits trying to get them to do something but it seems their only role is to collect money from foreigners. I thought after I gave them this info they could go directly to said resort with the police and arrest them but no

nothing , di nada, only after three visists, the final response was "we will talk to big boss in Rayong"

That was it. Don't get me wrong Thailand is exceptionally beautiful but its being ruined by the thai people

who obvioulsy don't give a toss about their own environment even if its said environment which provides their bread and butter but if you complain or give advice they just look at you as just another stupid foreigner

and i shoud mind my own buisiness even though its my buisiness that gives them their jobs in the first place.

I also complained to a long tail boatsmen on Koh Kai for anchoring right on the coral

and alsmost got physically assualted for the trouble. The list goes on but nothing gets through to them

not even a Tsunami.

what have you done?

[smartecosse]

ok, sorry for saying idiot but if thats what you think is abuse you should wake up and smell the coffee in the real world :

anyway, you never answered by question Yabs about where you were from, its just that you seem so annoyed that the "thais" have ruined thailand by having mcdonalds etc here that I was pretty sure that you came from the easter islands or somewhere similar that haven't been delveloped

had a quick look on the samui forum at a couple of your posts after another member mentioned them. as you sates in one that you have "hundreds and thousands " of pounds tied up i property there I will surmise that you are from there - perhaps you are merely an inverstor in that country.

anyway, so is there mcdonalds, cinema's etc in your neck of the woods in the UK, i bet that sewages is pumpled right into the sea, waht about all the chemicals that the farms use killing of the local life as they leach trough the soil into the water system, what about cancer clusters that have "nothing to do" with the power plants / transformers that they are near?????

I think you really need to go back home ( to the UK or wherever) and put your own country in order before you start spouting off on forums about how the thai's are ruinign there country. Personally i prefer thailand over the UK any day of the week, if you don't maybe you shouldn't be here.

If you genuinely want to do some good about educating the Thai's into looking after the ecosystem that they have then pm me your thoughts. maybe you can fund a campaign to take local thias out and see what all the "farang" come here to see marine wise and hopefully educate them into presrving ot both for them, their children and also toprotect the tourist dollar that drives the economy

[yabs]

have hundreds of thousands of pounds invested in property in the Uk where I'm from

and to be frank as the Uk doesn't make 6 percent of its GDP from beach realted tourism and as

the water is too cold to swim in I care not for the state of english beaches.

I;m saying that it is the environement which makes the money in thailand

they can't continue to rape it. Incidentally the UK beaches have hada massive clean up

in the last few years and the UK does actualkly have proiper waste water treeatment plants

unlike thailand. It wouldn't take much to put the thai house in order by just investing a but of money to keep the tourism sustainable but they aall seem blind to this. I had an apartment in bangkok for a while and now have moved permanently out of thailand due to the very things I mention

All i ever wanted was to find a nice beach with clear water that i could swim in and do some snorkelling

with a few rsutic beach bars. I thought thats what most people imagine that Thailan d will be like

instead we have jetksies, pollution and dead coral.

Of course its farangs that contribute to this by renting jetskies etc but if they weren't on offer in the foirst place...

limbos i happen to know a lot about marine environments and know what i'm talking about.

I happen to love the thai food and in mnay respects its culture. They can be truelly proud of their healthcare and many other aspects of their infrastructure but its just a crying shame that each and every island has to be developed to oblivion. 5 years ago each islands had its own unique character menaing every taste was catered for. Since taksins rule every island has gone mass market

[smartecosse]

yabs dont you understand that it is because TOURISTS such as YOU come to thailand that it gets developed. yes a rustic beach bar is nice but when there are too many people coming it get expanded etc etc

i have to wonder why if you have moved permanently out of thailand you are frequenting a Thai forum?

Anyway, back to one of the subjects - there is a very nice beach near where I live and it could do with some cleaning up. There is no development on the beach except one rustic restaurant run by locals.

Would you like to contribute towards the clean up costs of the beach?

[yabs]

where would that be?

also its the TAT who OVERpromote with package tours etc

they set their own rediculous targets.

if they hadn't of advertised and killed off each goldeb goose then we wouldn't be in the situation we are in

Do you think Thailand would be overdevloiped if it was just indenedent travellers who come here

instead of the thomson cook its? Of course not

[donna]

big sister is watching kids. please refrain from name calling and try to stay on topic. i am reminding you ALL to stop the name calling and keep it nice. we are all adults here and i would like to keep this thread open.

having said that:

i did a dive over phi phi way last week or so when the water was 'red'. what a beautiful dive it was. sure, the vis wasnt so good, but it put a completely new perspective on things. at one stagei looked up and the water was a rust colour but the silhouette of thousands of fish just over my head with the suns rays behind them was something i will not forget.

in the past i have been lucky enough to be at anemone reef at about 8am before the hoards get there. lovely. a beautiful dive.

but then, i learnt to dive in melbourne in september! 7mm wetsuit with hood and gloves. freezing cold, but from that i learned that you have to see every dive through new eyes. i could dive the same place over and over and not tire of it. some days you may see a gorgeous little seahorse. another day an anemone you havent seen before. to enter the water and be thinking 'ho hum, been here hundred times, here we go again' is a real shame.

my first dive after being qualified was a drift dive at the heads of port phillip bay surrounded by nautilus. stunning. something i will not forget ever.

my second ever dive was a night dive and i loved it. i used to night dive around 3 sites in melbourne on a rotation basis, and each dive was completely different. (not bangla road, SoiSong. that comment does NOT belong here thankyouverymuch).

i have done many dives out by ko hong in krabi and that is a very lovely (unexploited) site with swim throughs, pretty coral and many different species of marine life.

so, whether its good or not is purely a personal choice. some of us have different definitions of good and bad, but we must remember that its not a 'im right and youre wrong' thing. you may find your partner adorable but that doesnt mean that everyone does, surely.

[limbos]

have hundreds of thousands of pounds invested in property in the Uk where I'm from

and to be frank as the Uk doesn't make 6 percent of its GDP from beach realted tourism and as

the water is too cold to swim in I care not for the state of english beaches.

I;m saying that it is the environement which makes the money in thailand

they can't continue to rape it. Incidentally the UK beaches have hada massive clean up

in the last few years and the UK does actualkly have proiper waste water treeatment plants

unlike thailand. It wouldn't take much to put the thai house in order by just investing a but of money to keep the tourism sustainable but they aall seem blind to this. I had an apartment in bangkok for a while and now have moved permanently out of thailand due to the very things I mention

All i ever wanted was to find a nice beach with clear water that i could swim in and do some snorkelling

with a few rsutic beach bars. I thought thats what most people imagine that Thailan d will be like

instead we have jetksies, pollution and dead coral.

Of course its farangs that contribute to this by renting jetskies etc but if they weren't on offer in the foirst place...

limbos i happen to know a lot about marine environments and know what i'm talking about.

I happen to love the thai food and in mnay respects its culture. They can be truelly proud of their healthcare and many other aspects of their infrastructure but its just a crying shame that each and every island has to be developed to oblivion. 5 years ago each islands had its own unique character menaing every taste was catered for. Since taksins rule every island has gone mass market

Yabs,

May I ask why you know a lot about marine environments. Is this your line of work or is it something you're very interested in?

What needs to be changed in your opinion in Thailand, so the local Thais can be educated about preserving their marine environments.

IMHO the Thai government needs to start to teach children in schools much more about being aware of their environment, wether this is marine or anything else.

On a local level, as much as possible needs to be done to educate the local fisherman and again, start at schools.

In Samui there are a few volunteer organisations who actually do clean up beaches. Once they start, its interesting to see that sometimes/most times, the local Thais help out, unfortunately they don't keep it up without outside stimulances.

Over to you.

[smartecosse]

Would you like to contribute towards the clean up costs of the beach?

where would that be?

Any beach at all that you care to pick on Phuket. Help with the funding and I will organise a cleanup

Do you think Thailand would be overdevloiped if it was just indenedent travellers who come here

instead of the thomson cook its? Of course not

I don't know how much time you have spent in Thailand and how hard you have looked at what goes on when you are here BUT its not just the "Thomas Cook Hoards" that leave a trail of destruction behind them

Some of the "local" beaches that really only have Thai's going there with the odd farang are littered with broken singha bottles, plastic rusbbish etc etc. Not to mention all the cast of fishing hooks and broken "cooler" boxes that litter the rocks where the Thai's like to fish

I think you need to have another look at the double standards that you are expecting. For instance, I have yet to see a Tesco ( or any other ) shopping trolley lying in the local river after so little <deleted> has nicked it from the local shopping centre.

There are shutters on just aboout every business here and they don't appear to be covered in graffiti which would take all of 3 seconds in the West.

I do agree that the cavalier attitude to the environment isn't that great and that even those that work closely with the marine habitat in the tourist industry need better training but the fact remains that the west is just as polluted if not more so.

Anyway, if you could enlighten us with your marine qualifications that would be good. How about giving a talk about marine tourism sustaneability or something before or after a sponsored beach cleanup?

Or, we could come to some arrangement that Project Aware course were subsidised or something. Perhaps even paying to take a group of school children to the Aquarium? None of those would cost much at all, especially to someone with deep pockets such as yourself, and would have much more of an impact than being an archchair warrior on the internet.

[jdinasia]

Yabs ... If you were actually here in Thailand you would know FAR better than to make silly statements like "all the islnds etc"

In fact if you had been to Thailand recently and had come to Phuket (if ever) you would know what Phuket is like

[SoiSong]

About that favoirte dive site

[bsacbob]

My first post to the forum, looks like things are getting a bit heated.

To get some the best of the diving phuket has to offer why not get a mini liveaborad trip to Hin Daeng, just as good as the similans but not so many divers, good viz - corals- caves etc, and on the way back stopping at phi phi for a couple of dives early in the morning before all the tourist divers get out and kick up the viz.

try booking with alistair of sea king divers based in chalong, top bloke and great crew on the boat.

cheers

[dogblower]

Good advice there bsacbob. I worked the liveaboards for too many years and it's no longer my idea of a holiday so I tend to forget the longer range trips. Hin Daeng, Hin Muang and Ko Rok Nok are gorgeous and well worth the visit.

Welocme to the board by the way.

[limbos]

Guys,

Hin Daeng and Hin Muang have severe (soft) coral problems right now and word is that all the coral died.

The water was extremely red a few dasy ago and after that the problems started.