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Scuba Diving Thread - mini forum


Brink15

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Thailand has some incredible diving and world class dive sites. Between the incredible Andaman Sea and the warm waters of the Gulf of Thailand there is something for every diver's skill level and tastes.

 

Thailand's waters have walls covered with brilliant soft corals, underwater plains of hard corals, ship wrecks, and mysterious salt water caves. The waters teem with exotic marine life such as lionfish, moray eels, huge triggerfish, gentle leopard sharks, sea snakes, cuttlefish and such large pelagics as manta rays and whale sharks.

 

Whether you want to learn to dive, practice underwater photography, get certified in a specialty like wreck diving, or take the ultimate step and become a dive professional; Thailand has it all.

 

This thread will serve as sort of a mini forum for discussions about the Thai dive scene. You can use it to ask questions of our resident experts, find a dive class, hook up with other divers, or learn about diving in Thailand. We will have articles about dive sites - sort of diving trip reports - to give you a virtual tour of Thailand's undersea world.

 

I'm Brink, one of your two co-moderators in the Sports and Leisure forum. I am a PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) Master Instructor with over 15 years of teaching experience. I taught for two years in Thailand from 94' - 96' on Koh Phi Phi, Phuket, and Koh Tao.

 

Along with me we have two board members who are currently working in the dive industry in Thailand. In the Andaman Sea we have Racha, who owns Raya Divers on Raya Yai Island just off the coast of Phuket. In the Gulf of Thailand we have Limbo who is also a PADI Master Instructor and works for Samui International Diving School (SIDs) on Koh Samui. Gentlemen, would you like to tell the board a little about yourselves?

 

As with any other part of the board the usual rules apply.

 

Welcome to the world of scuba diving in Thailand! :)

 

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Brink,

 

Nice idea to start a diving thread !!

 

As you say there are great dive spots all over Thailand and I will be only to happy to help out other posters and put them in the right direction for advice about scuba diving in Thailand if they are interested, also if anyone wants advice on the islands around Thailand on the Andaman sea.

 

As Brink mentioned I am owning a Padi Scuba Diving Center on Raya Yai island that is located 23 kilometers off Phuket island, I started it to live my dream , A life living on a tropical island going fishing and scuba diving everyday, This is a very long story that started 17 years ago and I will find time to write about it one day and post it here in this thread.

 

I also have a Dive center in Khao Lak which is 1 hour south of Phuket, Khao Lak is very close to the Similan islands and we make daily dive trips there by using fast speed boats, We also arrange 3,4 & 5 night trips to the Similan islands for people wanting to stay on a liveaboard style boat,

If any one is interested to see some info of my diving operations take a look at my web site http://www.rayadivers.com

.

 

If you want to go scuba diving in Thailand there are so many great places to choose from, there are places to go for all levels of divers, calm shallow bays for beginners, Deeper water and fast moving currents for the experienced divers,There are some good wrecks to visit, The variety of the marine life is just amazing as well, Diving with Whale Sharks that get to over 10 meters in length and also Giant Mantra rays are some of the special things to be found here,

 

For the beginner who has never been diving before you can go diving right from the beach in the calm water that has great visibility and see corals and fish swimming around you on the very first breath you take underwater, Many people after there first dive tell me its the second best thing they ever did in there life,

 

 

Once again nice one Brink for making an effort to get a scuba diving thread going,

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Over a year ago I had posted some virtual dives, kind of like trip reports on Thai dive sites. A recent PM exchange has got me thinking about this again. With the advent of our new dive thread, this seems like the perfect place. I have changed the subject line and I think given that this thread will serve as sort of a mini forum, posters should feel free to change the subject lines to better describe their post. Since so many dive related subjects are available you can't really highjack this thread, as long as we stay on topic, that being scuba.

 

Let me first preface this with a warning: Salt water caves, or caves of any kind, are inherently dangerous. Diving in these caves without proper training can and has resulted in diver fatalities. Before you decide to venture into any type of underwater cave get the proper training.

 

The Temple of Doom

 

The islands of the Andaman Sea are made up of limestone karst, a very soft porous rock. As a result they are riddled with salt water caves. Some of these caves are simply shallow caverns where the diver is never out of the light zone, or the area where natural light enters the cave. Others are deep and lined with off shooting passages ready to claim the life of the untrained adventurer. The Temple of Doom falls somewhere in-between these two categories. Although deeper than a cavern at roughly 30 ? 40m deep, there are no separate passages. It is a relatively safe dive if the diver has either cavern or cave training and plenty of experience.

 

I first heard about the Sea Snake cave while I was sitting one evening having a chat with some of the other instructors and dive masters on Koh Phi Phi. It was a subject that caused voices to be lowered to hushed tones lest it catch the interest of the uninvited. You see this dive was reserved for the staff of the dive shops. A rare fun dive to be enjoyed without paying passengers. Even being an instructor or a dive master didn?t guarantee you?d be invited. Those who had been before were sort of the gate keepers and it was they who decided which diver made the cut. Too little experience or too much of a risk taker and you would never be included.

 

I started to get the feeling that I was being let in to a secret circle. John, the manager of the shop where I was working, was holding court. He explained that the information given in this meeting and acquired on this trip was not for public consumption. I guess I?m breaking that now, but so much has changed. He explained that the cave was about a 20 minute ride by longtail boat from Ton Sai Bay. Each diver would need at least two dive lights and to make sure their tanks were well filled. This would be a one tank dive as the time spent would be quite long. It was decided that John would be the dive leader as he was the only person in this group who had been before. His girlfriend Karen, a dive master, would go as well as two instructors from another shop and myself.

 

The following day came with great anticipation. I had been on dozens of cavern dives and hundreds of wreck dives. I was a wreck diver instructor and had my caver diver certification, but I had never been on a dive quite like this.

 

We loaded the longtail boat with our equipment and double checked to make sure nothing critical was left behind. Everyone got into their wetsuits, there is no room to change on a longtail boat loaded with people and dive gear. John and I pushed the boat into the water and pulled ourselves up and in. The longtail motor roared to life and we were off.

 

There are few things I can think of as beautiful or moving as the boat ride out of Ton Sai Bay. Limestone cliffs on the right, beautiful beaches on the left. The noise of the motor and the smell of exhaust only added to the experience. I?ll add more stories of Phi Phi diving later.

 

We chatted about the Island and the dive community. Laughed about silly things divers did or the instructor who had taught for half an hour before realizing he was teaching the wrong subject for his class. We rounded the point of the Island and saw an area we usually didn?t dive for the first time. Sheer limestone walls plunging deep into the sea. The water was like a giant pond with gentle ripples. It was perfect day to dive.

 

John told us that the site was found by looking for a land mark on the cliff. As he spoke we looked all over the cliff face but didn?t notice anything unusual. Soon John told the boat captain to cut the motor. The noise died down and we started to slow to a drift. The wall looked pretty much the same as all the rest of the cliffs. I looked over to John quizzically and he pointed to a dark area on the wall and told us that was the land mark. We all agreed that if you hadn?t been there before you?d never notice the landmark.

 

John briefed us on the dive plan and we started to gear up. I?m not sure about the others but now I really was thinking about the cave. How would I react to sea snakes slithering all over a dry cave? I?d swam with them countless times before and never given it a second thought. Even though they are one of the most poisonous species of snakes and related to the Krait family, they are very docile. Although I certainly wouldn?t recommend others try this, I had petted them and gently held them underwater. But how would I react on terra firma?

 

Next ? The Dive ? To be continued????.

 

 

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It might make sense to go over some very basic diving information for people who are either not yet divers or who have limited experience.

 

Terms -

 

The basic diver?s kit - the items most divers own even if the don't have the full gear.

 

Mask

Fins

Snorkel

 

The serious scuba equipment_

 

Regulator - This is the part that attaches to the tank and allows the diver to breath and also is used to inflate the BCD. It may also include an alternate air source, a second mouthpiece intended to be used by the divers buddy should he or she run low on air.

 

BCD (Buoyancy Control Device) - This vest serves several purposes. At its most basic it holds the tank onto the diver's back. But in reality it gives the diver the ability to control their buoyancy by adding or purging air in the vest. The ability to control one's buoyancy is critical to a diver as this is what creates the weightless state that makes diving such a relaxing and incredible experience. It also keeps less skilled divers off of the coral reefs which keeps the dive masters and instructors very happy.

 

Tanks - Typically made of aluminum, the cylinders are filled with pure dry air, not oxygen as is often thought incorrectly. Pure oxygen becomes toxic at fairly shallow depths.

 

Weight belt - As many divers wear wetsuits, which are naturally buoyant, divers must wear a small (at least in tropical waters) amount of weight to be able to descend. The amount of weight and positioning are critical to a diver?s stability under water.

 

Auxiliary equipment -

 

Dive light - Used primarily for night dives, dive lights can be of great use during the day to look under or around reefs. They are an absolute necessity for night, deep, wreck, and cavern diving and it is generally recommended that a diver carry at least two lights for these specialties.

 

Dive knife - Unlike in a James Bond movie a dive knife is really a tool intended to free a trapped diver entangled in fishing line or nets. As a result of misuse they are banned in many parts of the world.

 

Underwater camera - A picture last longer than a memory. Many people decide to focus their diving on this one specialty.

 

This is by no means a complete list and I'm sure Racha and Limbo will have other things to add, but it gives you an idea as to what makes up a diver's gear.

 

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Temple of Doom Part II

 

I?m sure more than a few board members have had a ride in a longtail boat. If you have then you know that although they are very stable they are sort of like a huge canoe. And like a canoe one must be aware of where one?s feet are at any given time and plan one?s moves ahead of time lest one end up on one?s ass. This is an even greater task when donning a 20 kilo scuba set up and dive fins. You not only have to pay attention to yourself but the divers around you. More than once my hand has just stopped a tank from doing reconstructive surgery on my face. (And this by the way is not the forum for debate whether said tank hitting my face might be a good thing.)

 

Once geared up we sat on the rails of the boat and gently rolled backwards one at a time until we were all in the water. When the final diver had entered we gathered close to the face of the wall. The visibility, or the clarity of the water, seemed pretty good. From the surface I could see almost all the way to the bottom at 20m. I tried to see if I could spot the cave opening but it was just too dark towards the bottom.

 

John checked to make sure everyone was ready for the descent and then we slowly let the air out of our BCDs. Each diver slipped beneath the surface looking below them to judge how fast they were descending. Now usually on a dive I like to check out the marine life. See what kinds of fish are swimming around and try to spot something interesting like a moray or cuttlefish. On this dive none of that mattered. I focused on the wall looking for the cave opening.

 

Each diver checked their depth gauge to see where they were in the descent. The cave started to become visible at about 8m. At first just a dark outline on the wall and then slowly coming into clarity like a big gaping maw of some prehistoric behemoth of the deep ready to swallow us all. The mouth of the cave was triangular in shape but what made it impressive was its size. It appeared to be about 10m wide at its base and about 6m wide at its mid-point.

 

We adjusted our buoyancy so that we were neutral, neither ascending nor descending. We just floated weightless at the entrance. John signaled each diver checking to make sure everyone was ready. Primary dive lights were turned on and back-ups checked to make sure they still worked. John signaled again to tell us to stay off the bottom and watch our fin kicks.

 

John led the way into the cave with me at his side. Behind us were Karen and the two instructors from the other shop. As we swam I tried to get a feel for the size of the cave. Normally you can shine your light and see where the beam ends but in this case it appeared that the beam went on forever. As we were keeping closer to the ceiling I was able to use that as a reference point. I watched our exhaust bubbles pool on the ceiling like drops of mercury, joining and then separating again.

 

As we swam in deeper I turned to see the exit. A skill used in wreck diving is to turn around as you swim and make a mental image of what the exit looks like from the direction you?ll be headed as you leave. More than once this skill has saved lives. Obviously if you are looking for what you saw when you entered a wreck, or in this case cave, it won?t look the same from the other direction.

 

We were about 20m into the cave when I noticed the light at the entrance fade to the point where it could barely be seen. This is past the light zone that is the limit of cavern diving. I knew John had said the cave was only 30 ? 40m deep but in the realm of the unknown your mind starts wandering. Would I feel so comfortable in here if I was alone? Might there be other passages that had been overlooked as so assumed not to exist? Better to stay focused.

 

John started examining the ceiling more carefully now as we approached the end of the cave. He was looking for the difference between the bubbles pooling at the ceiling and breaking the surface. I wondered briefly if he would be able to find the opening. After a minute or two he stopped and signaled the group. We had reached the goal.

 

We started our ascents very carefully making sure not to hit our heads on the ceiling if we misjudged the opening above us. As each person broke the surface there was a feeling of relief. Off came the masks and regulators fell out of mouths. Most of those mouths stayed open in awe at our surroundings.

 

We were in a huge air chamber, maybe 12 ? 16m in diameter. The ceiling was at least 10m above our heads. After looking around we inflated our BCDs and swam towards a narrow ledge just slightly above the water line. The first thing we noticed were the snakes. One of the instructors from the other shop pointed her light at the wall above the ledge. A sea snake slowly slithered diagonally across the wall. Another snake could be seen at the far end of the ledge. This was certainly going to be interesting.

 

John advised us to take off our BCDs and make sure they were fully inflated as we were going to leave them in the water when we got out. Since we were surrounded by walls on all sides there was nowhere for the BCDs to go except down. In the unlikely event one did sink, one of us would go get it. John offered some advice before we climbed out. ?Watch where you step and more importantly watch where you put your hands. You don?t want to grab onto a sea snake by mistake and piss it off.?

 

Next ? Snakes everywhere ? to be continued???

 

 

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Guest lazyphil

VERY interesting reading Brink. This is something I've always wanted to do and never gotten round to it. I WILL try one day, I might try and get qualified here in England first and can get stuck in when I get back to los. Naturally I will go with pofessionals (Divers that is!) Trouble is I've been Sea fishing in los and was EXTREMLY sea sick for the whole nine hours at sea, it was a horrible experience so I'm cautious of diving off boats etc!

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Phil,

 

My suggestion would be to do your classroom and pool training in the UK and then do the 4 open water dives that are required for certification in Thailand. This gets the bulk of the course out of the way but allows you to experience open water diving in amazing conditions for the first time.

 

The important thing is that unless you plan on diving in the North Sea try to find a PADI dive shop. PADI is the largest certification agency in the world and has a very well thought out program. In the UK BSAC (British Sub Aqua Club) is the most popular but is quite rigorous which is great if you plan on doing cold water diving but can be overwhelming for the person planning on doing tropical dives.

 

As far as the sea sickness don't worry. Depending on the time of year either the Andaman or the Gulf can be extremely calm. Usually the best time for the Andaman is from November to March. Ask Racha or Limbo about the best time for the Gulf as I was there for only two months.

 

On Koh Phi Phi we would often travel from the pier to the dive sites in dead calm, just like a lake.

 

I highly encourage you to give it a go and don't hesitate to ask any question that comes to mind.

 

Cheers,

 

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Temple of Doom ? part III

 

Approaching the ledge was interesting. The closer we got the more snakes we could see. I must have counted a dozen just in the area immediately surrounding the ledge. The ones on the ground didn?t bother me as much as the ones above my head on the walls.

 

The ledge itself ran most of the way along the wall and at one end it stopped in a corner and the other went up a sharp incline. As the others were climbing out John invited me to climb the incline. The slope itself was very muddy and made for a tricky climb. It was probably about 3m from the base to the top. As I was climbing I reached for a handhold and almost grabbed a sea snake. Coming close to disturbing a venomous snake gives one pause to rethink what one is doing. When I got close to the top I noticed a large opening about half a meter in front of me. It was about a meter in diameter and did not look like a good place to fall. I climbed up around the hole and the peered down inside while shining my dive light at the bottom. Whoa. The hole dropped about 6 meters down to a pool of water. If you fell in this you were in serious trouble. Help would take at least a couple of hours coming. Not good.

 

We explored the upper area which was sort of a narrow bend ending in a wall. The whole thing was impressive. Being inside the island in a place very few had seen, it started to make me think how many other places like this existed throughout the Island. I looked down at the pool where we surfaced and noticed for the first time snakes swimming around our gear. Hmmm. This could get tricky. If someone had a fear of snakes this cave would have been the ultimate nightmare. Full of poisonous snakes and no way to get out without scuba gear. I myself would have been less then comfortable if our dive lights were extinguished.

 

After half an hour of climbing around we decided to head back. John confirmed my earlier observation by cautioning us to splash our gear before picking it up as a sea snake may have taken up residence. This caused everyone to pause and look at the gear for a moment. Was that a snake I saw or just a shadow? I?ve never seen gear so carefully picked up and examined. Someone called out ?snake!? as a joke and one of the women screamed. We all stopped to laugh and then went back to our examinations. I splashed a couple of snakes out of my direction as they swam to the ledge. It occurred to me that I would see them a little differently on my next dive.

 

Once everyone had their gear back on and was ready to go John signaled to descend. This time our descents were much slower as we wanted to avoid stirring up the silt on the bottom and wipe out the visibility. We reached what seemed to be the mid-point in the descent and adjusted our buoyancy to once again become neutral. I tried to make out any ambient light but couldn?t with all the dive lights on. I motioned to John to shut off the lights and he agreed. Once the lights were off the entrance stood out at the far end of the passage. We turned the lights back on and started in the direction from which we had seen the light. As we swam the light grew brighter and brighter until we no longer needed our dive lights. One by one they were turned off until we had only the sunlight shining in. Soon we reached the mouth of the cave and gathered on the outside to take one more look at the hole we had just survived.

 

John signaled for us to ascend and we slowly added a slight amount of air to our BCDs as we slowly kicked towards the surface. When we reached a depth of about 5 meters we stopped for 3 minutes for safety. In short order all of the divers were on the surface and the regulators came out and the masks were placed around each neck. Cheers of ?brilliant? and ?amazing? were heard by the boat captain as the divers approached. He probably had no idea what we were so excited about. He didn?t dive and probably was not fond of swimming and would never know the joy of the adventure we had just shared. Oh I?m sure he had his own adventures, but our sea snake cave would never be one of them. I felt sort of sad for him at this realization.

 

And then I sat in the boat and contemplated the incredible sights to which I had just been witness. I looked up at the cliffs and realized this really is paradise. No matter how over developed Ton Sai Village became or how much I tired of the tourist's same questions or the idiosyncrasies of the Thai ?business? structure, this really is paradise.

 

Well I hope you liked the first dive report. In the upcoming weeks and months I?ll add new stories including a wreck dive on a fishing boat in 55m of water in the Gulf. Hopefully Racha and Limbo will add some of their tales when they have the time. And if any other board members would like to add their own stories of scuba diving in Thailand please feel free.

 

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