Presentation
Here we are in Koh Tao Island Thailand most famous for diving. This reputation is due to several reasons:
- is one of the cheapest places in the world to learn to dive;
- Sometimes you can see whale sharks (there are about 5 places in the world can see, including Australia);
- There is the Triggerfish, a territorial fish can be violent if they are approached too;
- Lots of clown fish (Nemo) live near Koh Tao.
So here we are armed with our PADI open water in search of a diving school where we can get our advanced diploma. The hardest thing is not to find but to choose a diving school, the island is invaded by amateurs and professionals of the seabed. For the choice we made it very simple because when we were on the boat to Koh Tao there were already some diving schools represented and the quality / price was inconclusive. Here we parties for "Coral Grand Resort and Others".
School / Dive Resort
Once arrived at the resort we have to negotiate prices because there is a big difference between what was presented to us on the boat and what we propose to arrival. Not to mention the room that bears no resemblance to what we had shown in photo. After an hour of serious negotiation we can get what we want and emménageons. We begin our PADI advanced two days later.
PADI Advanced
This new diploma We are spending five specialty dives. We choose from a list of specialization. In this list some specialties are not available in the diving school and other needs to pay extra so. So there were only 6 or 7 specialties available on the possible fifteen.
Among the five dives are required to make two specialties: deep diving and underwater navigation. A third is strongly advised, the mastery of buoyancy. We then selected the fish identification and naturalist (the observation and understanding of marine life). The program is loaded.
Until school starts, we were able to swim at a beautiful beach on the first night. Despite the clouds we felt that the water is turquoise as the sun comes out. The second day was a day rain. So we read our books to prepare for the dive.
first day of diving
We are fortunate to have a French instructor, even if the German student who had accompanied us to feel alone at times. We review the contents of the book quickly and start to do 3 dives in the afternoon: navigation, mastery of buoyancy and naturalist. We jumped at Mango Bay.
The first two dives were mainly composed of exercises under water. We still saw a Triggerfish. The visibility was not great, only 10 meters. The dives lasted about forty minutes each. Many fish and coral but nothing to do with Australia.
The third dive was more free, just observation, by cons it lasted only 20 minutes. We were frankly disappointed by the duration of the dive, due to constraints of time use the other student and optimization of working time of the monitor. We still saw beautiful corals, different from those of Australia.
2nd day
Depart 6am direction Chumphon Pinnacles, one of the best sites in the area. That's where we can see the whale sharks and shark gray. We send our deep dive to 30 meters. Again, visibility 10 meters only. Many urchins were placed on sand or coral. We have not had the chance to see sharks, but the site was rich in coral. We "flew" the fields of anemones.
last dive at White Rock, a shoal of barracuda waiting for us under the boat. We crossed a lot of fish and especially a beautiful moray eel swimming at the bottom. Here we
graduates of our PADI Advance.
We are forced to compare what we saw in Thailand with the sites of Australia. There is no contest, the Great Barrier Reef is much better. Here we mainly observed the coral and some fish at the bottom, scattered. In Australia we were faced with walls of coral with an incredible diversity of fish. It must be said that visibility was not terrible in Thailand, because of poor weather (rain and wind) and the site of Chumphon Pinnacle should be fantastic with clear water.
One last regret, we have not crossed Nemo ... We go still happy to have our diploma.
The following photos are not related to days spent diving but give you a preview of Koh Tao.
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