Scuba Diving Koh Phi Phi

09 May 2010

Having booked a Padi Discover Scuba Diving course yesterday I made sure I got a good early night and woke up excited and ready. As instructed I was at the shop just before 8am and ten minutes later we were carrying our weights down to the dock. We had two instructors between the three of us, one of the instructors was from New York, the other from Australia. Doing the course was a Belgium guy, a Chilean girl and myself. Our dive boat was roughly forty feet long, wooden and comfortable. We had a captain and a deck hand, so overall there were four people taking the three of us for a dive!

On the way out we went over diving basics like hand signals and were shown the gear.

We did two dives each approximately 50 minutes long, the dives were separated by an hour stopover in Maya Bay, where the movie The Beach was filmed. We had lunch here and I went for a quick swim; the area has an amazing landscape, but the number of boats and people on the beach was ridiculous – no longer the remote island paradise depicted by the movie.

Our first dive was on a gradual slope, after initially getting in we ran over some skills on the surface such as clearing your mask, recovering your regulator and buddy breathing. We then descended and repeated the skills in about 3m of water.

The maximum depth we were allowed to go was 12m (give or take a metre or two). I wouldn’t describe the dive as amazing, but it was good. I don’t think I’ll consider it the best thing I did in Thailand as one of the shop guys had promised.

We saw a few turtles, probably closer than I’ve been to them before (we were in a protected marine reserve). I saw one black and white sea snake, two Scorpion fish, one Stonefish and one octopus intricately weaved up in its little hole. Plus there were Angel fish, Nemo’s (renamed after the movie), Trigger fish, and numerous small tropical fish. I guess what was lacking for me was anything big, with the largest fish we saw barely two feet long. Unfortunately the coral also seemed kind of dead to me; the water temperature is very warm (over thirty degrees) so this may be having a negative effect on the colours (health) of the coral.

Comments

  1. Hamish Buller says

    Samo, I’m enjoying your blog mate. It’s especially good because I recognise a lot of the scenery. One criticism I have regards your measurement system. I think that you should catch up with the times and start using the metric system buddy, haha.

    You should take JC on in a few Muay Thai fights at the Jamaican bar. You get free buckets and you get to punch/kick each other. Awesome. Also, there is a Restaurant which serves a mean Kiwi burger (beetroot, egg and all). Get JC to take you there, its run by an Irishman and he gives you shots with your meal too!

    Stay safe kiddo

  2. far out mish how come u were reading sam’s blog at 4:25am

  3. The diving was a cool thing to do. Finding those ‘amazing’ fish and coral areas is getting increasingly hard. Maybe you have been spoilt !! Both in New Caledonia and Vanuatu, I seemed to spend time with my head dangling in the water from the dinghy saying ‘drive on’ !! But still it’s peaceful underworld and interesting to check out.

    • Good times under the sea. I can recommend the west coast of Thailand, Similan islands if you get a chance. Bit late in the year for manta rays but maybe one or two around. They can be real big.

      Have a goodun

      Braddershttps://samsplayground.com/scuba-diving-koh-phi-phi/?replytocom=63#respond

  4. Good times under the sea. I can recommend the west coast of Thailand, Similan islands if you get a chance. Bit late in the year for manta rays but maybe one or two around. They can be real big.

    Have a goodun

    Bradders