THAILAND'S MAJOR DIVE CENTRES
PATTAYA:
Thailand's internationally famous beach resort is a comfortable two-hour road journey southeast of Bangkok. Pattaya offers every sporting an leisure facility, a comprehensive range of quality accommodation, and several well-managed and exceptionally experienced diving schools and centres. Beginners' and
advanced divers' courses are available, besides several day-trip and excursions.
Pattaya's coastal waters contain some thirty islands fringed with a broad variety of coral, including mushroom, lettuce, stag horn and brain coral. Reefs host colorful coral fish, angle fish, seabass, groupers, and white and black tip sharks in waters that can be enjoyed year-round. Depending on the weather, and seasonal currents, underwater visibility varies between 8 to 25 meters, with a maximum of 30 meters under the most favorable conditions.
Pattaya's nearest islands, Ko Larn, Ko Sak and Ko Kroh, are accessible within 45 minutes by boat. Each offers relatively shallow waters, ranging from 3 to 18 meters for relaxed dives. Deeper dives of up to 40 meters can be enjoyed off Ko Sichang, and Sattahip fishing village.
Several wrecks are located at depths between 18 and 27 meters, offering experienced divers even greater challenges and excitement.
Pattaya's professional PADI and NAUI instructors offer every form of diving tuition, and speak, collectively, a wide range of languages, including English, German, French and Thai.
PHUKET:
Phuket lies some 870 kilometers southwest of Bangkok in the Andaman Sea and is connected by regular air services with the Thai capital and Singapore. The road journey between Bangkok and Phuket takes some 14 hours by air conditioned coach.
Phuket is blessed with magnificent beaches, and offers excellent accommodation. Phuket offers superb diving in coastal waters and other island chains in the Andaman Sea.
Half-day tours are available to Phuket's west coast where coral reefs offer good shallow dives and numerous photographic opportunities. More popular full-day trips visit islands off Phuket's southern and eastern shores.
These include Ko Racha, Shark Point, Ko Dok Mai and Ko Phi Phi.
Ko Racha islands are some 2 hours south of Phuket by motorboat, and offer dives of up to 30 meters with underwater visibility ranging between 20 and 40 meters. Huge underwater rock formations, sloping coral reefs and steep drop-offs host varied marine life including, January through March, manta rays and whale sharks.
Shark Point and Ko Dok Mai are some 90 minutes east of Phuket by motorboat. Shark Point is a submerged reef and favourite sleeping point for leopards sharks and sting rays, where divemasters frequently hand-feed leopard sharks and sting rays, and morals eels. Underwater visibility is between 10 and 22 meters, with dives of up to 25 meters.
Ko Dok Mai offers a variety of coral, an impressive wall dive, and several caves dives of up to 30 meters with underwater visibility between 10 and 25 meters.
Ko Phi Phi is some 2 hours southeast of Phuket by speedboat and is one o the world's most beautiful tropical islands. Phi Phi waters offer hard and soft corals, cave dives and wall dives, and teeming marine life including white tip sharks, sting rays and moray eels. Dives are between 10 and 30 meters, with visibility from 15 to 25 meters.
Some 80 kilometers northwest of Phuket, nine tropical islands comprise the Similan archipelago, a pristine Marine National Park. The Similan islands offer Thailand's best diving waters, with a broad range of diving choices, including extensive coral gardens and adventurous drift diving in strong current conditions.
Major Similan dive sites include Ko Huyong, the archipelago's southernmost island which boast a magnificent coral garden in some 20 to 40 feet of water. Soft and hard corals abound with colorful coral fish. Visibility is some 30 meters.
The central Ko Miang is the sole inhabited Similan island. Several fine dive sites surround this and the neighboring islands, including one where huge leaning rocks form interesting tunnels and canverns. Small white tip sharks, rays, snappers and turtles number among abundant marine life. A sheltered, superb night dive spot nearby comprises a coral drop-off with depths between 10 and 20 meters.
Elephant Rock is one of the best known dive locations and provides excellent sites where channels and caverns are formed by leaning rock formations. Incrustations, anemones and coral provide colorful backgrounds for abundant marine life, including large rays, tuna and barracuda.
Near the Similan islands' northernmost tip, an offshore reef rises to within 8 meters of, and drops off to over 35 meters. Tunnels, hollows and chimneys impress even the most experienced divers. Two large resident cod and a moray eel add color to the fascinating site where visibility is rarely less than 25 meters, and often more.
Similar exhilarating diving conditions can be found at the Surin islands, a further 30 kilometers north of the Similans, and in Tarutao Marine National Park, a 51-island cluster near the Indian Ocean's Thai-Malaysian maritime borderm though no regular trips to such islands are yet available.
Tours to the Similans generally last a minimum of five days. Divers can live ashore in beachside tents, dormitory bungalows, or on board their dive vessels. At least nine individual dives are organised, and all meals are provided.
Note: for tidal and climatic reasons, Andaman Sea and Indian Ocean waters are best visited between mid-November and mid-April.
CHUMPHON:
In recent years, Chumphon, some 460 kilometre south of Bangkok on the west coast of Gulf of Thailand, has become popular with local divers. Chumphon remains largely undeveloped. Offshore island waters are varied, yet remain largely unexplored.
Major dive sites are clustered around islands some 60 to 90 minutes by boat from the mainland. Between February and October, one- day dive trips are conducted around Hin Pae, Ngam Yai, Ngam Noi and Lak Ngam islands. Dive depths vary between 5 and 21 metres.
Colourful hard and soft corals include Gorgians, Antipatharians, Tabastrea or cup corals, fan corals and soft leather corals. Anemones, anemone fish, zebra fish, sponges, clams, cowrie shells, mantra rays, starfish and lobsters number among common underwater sights.
Drift dives through soft coral gardens are also popular, and whale sharks, green turtles and remora fish number among marine life sighted.
Chumphon is also a departure point for Ko Tao, an island 5 hours south by boat in Surat Thani province. Ko Tao boast an 8-kilometre long coral reef that enjoys an average width of 200 metres.
OTHER DIVE CENTRES
Numerous other fine diving opportunities exist in Gulf waters, mostly around Surat Thani's Ko Samui and Angthong Marine National Park, and the southernmost islands of Trat's Ko Chang Marine National Park. As yet, however, no fully qualified diving schools with bilingual staff operate in such places.
PATTAYA, PHUKET & CHUMPHON
FOR NON-DIVERS
Pattaya and Phuket offer a sufficient wealth of creature comforts, leisure, sporting and entertainment facilities, and sightseeing opportunities to enchant the non-diving spouses or friends of dedicated divers. Watersports above the surface include windsurfing, sailing, waterskiing, game- fishing and parasailng.
Land sports include golf, tennis and bowling -- and in Pattaya, motorcycle and motor-racing at Thailand's only Grand Prix circuit.
Pattaya's major recreation include Pattaya Park, an extensive beachside water amusement park featuring colourful water slides and whirlpools; Mini-Siam, a park featuring miniature reproductions of Thailand's major historical sites, and daily cultural shows; Pattaya Elephant Kraal where elephants display forestry and other skills; and the 600-acre Nong Nooch Village which combines orchid nureries, an arts & craft centre, and popular elephant and cultural shows amid artfully landscaped surroundings.
Major sightseeing opportunities include, to the north, Thailand's finest marine aquarium at bangsaen, and Bang Phra's 1200-acre hillside Khao Khiao Open Zoo which houses favourite Asian and African mammals and includes Thailand's most spectacular aviary. Rayong, Chantaburi and Trat provinces to the south and east are noted for forest waterfalls, marine national parks and islands, succulent tropical fruits and locally mined gemstones, particularly black sapphires.
Phuket also offers cultural shows, a marine aquarium and opportunity to visit a village producing cultures pearls, besides the choice of at least one dozen magnificent beaches. The major sightseeing trip entails a visit to the eerily mysterious Phang Nga
Bay, northeast of Phuket, where verdant limestone islands, honeycombed with caves and aquatic grottoes, soar perpendicularly, some nearly 300 metres, from almost perpetually tranquil waters.
Phang Nga Bay's scenic beauty has been featured in several Thai and foreign movies, most notably the James Bond adventure, The Man with the Golden Gun. Major bay attractions include a Muslim fishing village built on stilts, prehistoric rock paintings and several distintively shaped islands named after after animals, female antomy and everyday objects.
