Similan Scuba Diving Dive Sites – Koh Tachai
Koh Tachai
The Main site is located just off the Southern tip of Koh Tachai. located withing the boundaries of the Similan Islands National Park, but geologically separate.
As there are can be cold currents from the ocean tides that are quite strong here - divers are recommended to wear a proper wetsuit when diving in this spot.
This site features rock corals and sea fans with plenty of huge marine life cruising around.
Diving here requires the use of the guide rope connected to the buoys (there are two), as a strong current might sweep divers out of the intended target. This also means making sure you only dive with boats and staff that are safe and aware of diving conditions – please avoid untrained and inexperienced liveaboards.
Leopard Sharks, Manta Rays and even Whale Sharks are among the visitors to this site.
Always choose a dive center that has staff speaking your language, have insurance and are certified.
Khao Lak IDC – Instructor Courses in Thailand
It all starts with those first few breathes underwater!
This can happen while on vacation in the tropics and awakening to the reality of an alternative lifestyle!
Certain people find this experience as they swim over a coral reef and find themselves face to face with incredible marine life and realize that this is the real world – not the cubicle back home!
Some people decide to change their lives as they interact with dive professionals and see the rewards of such a lifestyle and how it can easily become a reality.
The international dive industry is an incredibly exciting lifestyle to be professionally involved in and has many unique career opportunities all over the world for people from all different cultures.The Khao Lak Instructor Training center (Khao Lak IDC) is one of these places. When considering a career as a dive professional you want to make sure that you get off to the best start possible! With your entire dive career in front of you – you should be looking for the right dive center and staff to share your Divemaster/Instructor Course.
You need to feel comfortable and confident with the team and the facilities. You should be looking at a center that does not claim or boast to be “the best” or “the biggest” – that usually means less attention, dozens of students and a great big pyramid scheme. There are other many massive commercial, business orientated dive schools to choose from. These are called factory schools – and you will soon know why!
If you have never dived before and can get instructor certification within 6 months – something is wrong. Instead why not look for an Instructor Training Facility that offers a more personalized, real world approach to instructor training?
Safety, standards and an eye to service is the real key to a good dive center! In addition look for a wide range of courses options – do these schools only offer basic courses or are there experienced divers too? Your experience should be applicable to the real-world. You will want to to actually work after the course is done!
A few questions to ask!
- “How fast is the course?” Wrong question – “How long is the Instructor course?” – that is the real question. As much time being mentored, trained and supervised as possible – that’s what you want.
- Are the staff all made up of other inexperienced instructors?
- How many dives do they have?
- What certifications do they have?
- Are courses taught in wide rage of settings How many students have they certified?
Khao Lak IDC offers these options to a wide range of students. Located near the Similan Islands – This is one of the best palces to become a professional diver!
Learn To Dive – Online!
With SSI Online Learning – Learning to scuba dive has never been easier! Whether you prefer to study at home or would like to save your vacation time for DIVING - you can now complete the academic portions of the Open Water course online with SSI Online Learning for FREE. Right now! Start your adventure today with the Open Water Diver course online and SSI Online Learning!
The Open Water Diver course is by far, the world’s most popular SCUBA diving certification course. Millions of people have started diving as certified Open Water Divers. Learning to scuba dive requires both knowledge development (facts, principles, concepts) and Physical training (skills, techniques, methods). The SSI Online Open Water Diver Course via provides the knowledge development portion you need. You develop the remaining skills by actually diving with an SSI Instructor. The Online Learning is FREE.
It’s Easy! Simply Login – then SSI’s Online Learning system presents you with interactive presentations that include videos, audio, graphics and reading. As you progress you can pause, and take some time off – or speed through. Short reviews let you gauge your progress – allowing you the opportunity to go back and correct anything you might happen to miss. This lets you move through the program efficiently and at your pace. At no cost to you!
SSI Online SCUBA Dive training is designed to be easy, straight forward and always fits YOUR schedule. Access the Online Learning center anywhere you have an Internet connection. Feeling stressed? Don’t be – complete the Online Learning entirely on your own schedule. eLearing will keep track of your progress, and you can begin again where you left-off last time.
The FREE Online SCUBA training system has many features…
- Interactive Multimedia content – pictures, video and presentations
- Links to more-detailed explanations of relevant information
- Instant feedback on quizzes and tests – correct as you go!
- An online dive buddy to talk you through the training
- Access to background information
- Links to equipment knowledge and understanding
Why not start your FREE online dive training course today!
Similan Scuba Diving Dive sites: Koh Bon
Koh Bon
Located just between Mu Koh Similan National Park and Mu Koh Surin National Park, Bon is a small island that features underwater sharp rock walls. Technically it is part of the Similan Islands National Park – but it is geologically separate.
The Wall on the inside of Koh Bon Bon is covered with soft corals that are shorter in size but more colorful than normal, which is their uniqueness at this site. Great place for seeing small critters.
Turn around and look into the deep and look for Manta Rays and Whale Sharks. They can Occasionally be found here at around 25 to 30 meters deep.
Always choose a dive center that has staff speaking your language, have insurance and are certified.
Breath holding and diving animals
Nature has shaped through evolution they way animals behave. This means that some animals have adapted to feed in places where the rest of the animal kingdom living around them cannot go. This naturally then eliminates a large part of the competition from the food chain.
The Similan Islands have whales, dolphins, turtles, birds and many other non-aquatic species that dive under water
So how are they able hold their breath for so many minutes without losing consciousness or dying? First, let’s revise some other physiological principles in order to understand more clearly what is happening.
Oxygen (O2) and CO2 are carried around the body by the blood in two different ways. One is simply the fact that both O2 and CO2 can dissolve in the blood. This will account for a small fraction of the whole transportation process. The other method uses the haemoglobin, a protein present inside red blood cells. Both O2 and CO2 molecules have the ability to attach themselves to the haemoglobin, but the carbon dioxide has a much greater affinity to do this. Therefore, whilst haemoglobin can carry up to four molecules of O2 it carries a much larger amount of carbon dioxide, normally about 23 percent is transported in the blood. However. The main point is that in most animals the O2 reserve is solely in the lungs and the blood. Once this reserve is depleted, the animals will need to breathe again to exhale CO2 and inhale new O2.
Breath holding diving animals have the advantage of an additional mechanism which, relies on another very similar protein called myoglobin. This protein is located inside muscle cells. In humans it makes up for only a very small percentage of the muscle mass. This percentage changes drastically in the animals with the need to hold their breath and it goes up to 45% of the muscle mass in sperm whales, animals that can hold their breath for up to two hours.
How does it work? Simply the blood will carry O2 to the tissues and the extra oxygen that is not used “immediately” will be stored in the myoglobin more or less in the same way as in the haemoglobin. Once the animal is under water and can no longer breath, the O2 stock of the blood will become depleted, the myoglobin will then release its O2 in to the blood that will carry it around where it is needed. At the same time the myoglobin will “catch” the excess CO2 in the blood restoring to a level that does not trigger the need to breath. When eventually the animal returns to the surface to breath air, the myoglobin releases all of its stored CO2 and replaces it with fresh O2. The amount of myoglobin present in the animal muscles will determine the maximum time the animal can spend underwater.
The more the animal wants to stay under water, the longer the period it has to stay at the surface for the gas exchanges to take place. A dolphin needs to breathe a few times (about two to four minutes) to stay submerged 20 to 30 minutes. A sperm whale will breathe 4 or 5 times per minute for up to 15 minutes at the surface to stay two hours under water. Sea birds normally dive for 3 to 10 minutes according to the species they belong to and need to breathe for about 2 to 3 minutes before diving.
Why I love Diving in Thailand
I Asked Marcel from Similan Diving, “Do you ever get bored of diving the same dive sites each day?”
As a dive instructor I have made over 2000 dives all over the world. Most of the dives were in Thailand, but I have also dived a lot in Holland, Indonesia and the Caribbean.This question is quite simple to answer: NO, I never get bored of diving and it doesn’t matter if I do the same dive sites over and over again. First of all, compared to the office I used to work in day in – day out, the underwater world is much more exciting. Second: conditions are never the same and you never know what you can expect underwater. And third, the people we teach or take our diving are different each time. So it doesn’t matter how many dives you make, no dive will ever be the same.
OK, you don’t see whale sharks, mantas, sharks, turtles or seahorses on each dive. And visibility is not always 30+ meters, it can be 2 meters as well. It can be cold and there can be currents or you have to share the dive site with 200 other divers right in front of you. Your mask might be fogging up or your buddy can be quick on air. In fact, I think that on most of the dives there has always been something, but that just comes with diving. I remember one dive in Holland where the only living creature I saw during the whole dive was in fact my dive buddy. But it all doesn’t matter. Give me some dive gear and water and I am happy. Being submerged in the water, breathing and weightless calms me down and gives me a great feeling, over and over again. So anything you experience on top of it, is just a bonus.
And next to that, there are many different things you can do, to make each dive even more interesting. If the visibility is “less than ideal” (3 meters), you can practice your navigation. If you can find the boat back in these conditions, you can find it back anytime. Or when there are no big fish to be found, you start looking for the smaller stuff. Everyone can spot a Manta Ray, but you have to be very good to find a tiny Nudibranch or a Frogfish. And if I do find yourself with more divers than fish in the water, I just start watching the divers, they too come in all colors and shapes! What if your buddy is quick on air? Well, then we just go a bit shallower and maybe we can do some bouyancy exercises to improve the air consumption for future dives. And if you feel you are running out of options, well why don’t you try out Technical Diving? Or under water photography? Or even Freediving? There are so many possibilities and so many dive sites all over the world that you can spend a lifetime under water without getting bored. Once you become an Instructor it’s even better! You can share your passion for diving each day!
Another interesting thing is the choice of the dive ites. I really don’t mind doing a certain dive site twice on the same trip, especially if conditions are good or let’s say there is a whale shark hanging around there. I also don’t mind doing exploratory dives, jumping in at new places. This is great fun, it can be all or nothing. And a good site doesn’t only depend on what’s written in the guidebooks. It depends on the conditions at that moment, how may other boats you see there and also on the interest and experience level of the other divers in your group. But again, in the end it doesn’t really matter for me where we jump in, as long as I can be under water… in a safe way of course!
Marcel is an Instructor Trainer in Khao Lak. There are Instructor Courses starting in October of 2009!
Thanks Marcel
-Similan Diving
Phuket Airport Grows
The AOT (Owners of the Airport) finally approved a budget of almost $200 Million to expand the airport, increase capacity and hopefully hire another Immigration officer or two (or 50). The airport capacity is expected to reach 12 million passengers by 2012. It currently handles about 6 million passengers per year.
The expansion in Phuket will address crowding at Thailand’s second busiest airport and meet the expected rise in air traffic demand over the next decade.
AoT now expects the expansion, including constructing a new terminal for international passengers, improving the existing terminal, upgrading the jet fuelling system and building new taxiways, to commence by the end of next year.
Meanwhile, AoT has embarked on an in-house study on building a terminal dedicated to private jets at the Phuket airport, part of a bid to further enhance the southern resort island’s growing reputation as a destination for the internationally rich and famous and for jet-setting businesspeople. Conceptually, the terminal, the first of its kind in Thailand, would be built separately from the expanding main terminal under a build-transfer-operate contract.
That means private companies would invest in and run the facility but AoT would own it.
However, hidden in this news is that the construction is expected to begin by the end of this year. We fear this may lead to major delays and confusion as “the end of this year” is in fact peak season. However it means that development in this area will continue and that capacity will grow.
It also bodes well for Khao Lak and the area. As Phuket Island has already reached capacity and suffers from horrible decay in both infrastructure and culture – Khao Lak is the natural choice. In additionto the long beaches and lack of sex tourism – the great diving is so close at hand! More details can be found here…. http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/aviation/19230/aot-okays-b5-8bn-for-phuket
When is the best time to visit the Similan Islands?
November to May is the Best time to visit the Similan Islands
The great weather lasts from October until May and is high season on the Similan Islands and in Khao Lak. The weather is generally calm, the diving is great and getting here and awya is very easy. During this time, since the wind is blowing from the northeast, behind our protective mountains – the West Coast of Thailand is in their monsoon season!
All dive sites are accesible and the seas are calm. And it gets better! The months of February, March, and April bring the very best weather of the eyar! The seas are flat, the visibility gets phenomenal. It gives you the impression you are on a lake rather than an ocean or sea. This is the “hot” time and it gets warm, 36 is not unusual.
The Similan Islands are not accessible during June – September
The southwest monsoon weather takes over and this means lots of waves & wind. These come from the southwest and since the Similans face the west, the weather has nothing to stop it! The waves, storms and wind are hitting the Islands directly and make the whole Andaman Sea unsafe.
The region records it’s rain in Meters, and during this time of year – you will know why! On the other hand – that’s why it’s a jungle!
Advanced Diver – Training In Thailand
If you would like to continue with your training, this is the perfect opportunity to learn about some of the special and exciting types of dives available. The Advanced Diver Course builds experience and understanding of diving, and is designed to be taken directly after the Open Water course.
The term “Advanced” is often mis-interpreted, as this course is simply advanced training for Open Water divers. What will I learn? You may want to look for lost items, take pictures under water, or visit your favourite reef at night. Your Advanced Course with Reef 2000 will give you the experience of some of the most popular diving activities, as well as developing skills that will allow your dives to be safer and more enjoyable.
This course improves your under water skills, providing you with a sample of specialty diving activities, however the extent and term of each differs to accommodate your interests. Prerequisites You must hold the Open Water certification and be at least 15 years of age.
What’s involved? Three “core” dives – a navigation dive, a deep dive and a night dive – and two “elective” dives which you will select with the help of your PADI instructor. These elective dives are based on specialities as diverse as Wreck Diving, Underwater Photography, and Drift Diving. You can complete this course in as few as 3 days. This is ideal for open water divers who want to continue their training during their holiday break. With Dahab’s world famous Canyon and Blue Hole dive sites, this is the perfect place for the PADI Advanced adventure.
Learn to Dive – Start online today!
| Start your diving career right now!!! |
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| Expensive?
FREE!!! In general an Open Water Diver course consists of 3 parts: Academics - You can complete them online FREE when you sign up for SSI’s Online Training program, or you can attend classroom sessions at your favorite SSI Dive Center. Whatever best fits your needs. Pool Training – you will learn all the skills you will be using in the open water in the safety of a pool. Open Water Sessions – You will complete at least 4 open water dives and have the chance to experience everything you learned in the pool hands-on. (Open water can be defined as an open body of water such as a lake or the ocean). After successfully completing the Academics, the Pool and Open Water Sessions you will be certified as SSI Open Water Diver – It’s your global license to dive! |
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| How much does it cost? | |
| SSI’s Online Training – the scuba diving academics – online are free!! If you decide to continue your education and want to become a certified diver, you will need to sign up for an SSI Open Water class
The SSI Dive Center you choose will have additional training material (such as a DVD, Total DiveLog, etc.) that you will need to purchase inorder to complete your academics. They will have a variety of class times and course fees available for you to choose from. You can pick what best fits your schedule and pocket book. |
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| How to Have the Best Online Training Experience: | |
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| Let’s Get the Adventure Started! | |
