Here are a few photos of the past few days out on the dive boat:

The dive internships gang out on the Simple Life dive boat in Koh Tao, Thailand

Koh Tao PADI Divemaster trainees Michelle and Olivier

Soon to be PADI Divemaster Gustav with Koh Tao in the background

The Simple Life dive boat motoring out to a distant dive site

And we’re pleased to announce that six of the group have completed their Divemaster internship, qualifying as new PADI Divemasters.

Following Koh Tao tradition, we convened at the Simple Life bar to celebrate the guy’s achievement with a bit of a party. The night was a lot of fun, with Debbie, Ollie, Katie, James, Sam and Kerrie marking their success by undertaking Koh Tao’s ritualistic Divemaster ‘Snorkel Test’. This involved donning a mask and snorkel and drinking a bucket of special tropical cocktail through the snorkel! Here are a few images of the antics.

The new Koh Tao Divemasters celebrating at Simple Life

And the main event….

Koh Tao's traditional Divemaster celebration - the snorkel test

The Divemaster snorkel test

Congratulations to Debbie, Ollie, Katie, James, Sam and Kerrie!

Zoe during the PADI open water course on Koh Tao

For the 4 open water dives of the PADI Course, we visited Mango Bay, Twin pinnacles near Koh Nangyuan, Chumporn pinnacles and Hin Pee Wee to the west of Koh Tao. We got to enjoy seeing a wide variety of ocean life, including shoals of barracuda, batfish, parrotfish, angelfish, butterfly fish, banner-fish, also saw a lots of hard and soft corals.  And the buoyancy skills we fine tuned in the confined session served the girls well, keeping them away from the spiky urchins and anemones.

Anne prepares for an open water dive

After qualifying as PADI Open Water Divers, Zoe and Anne took a 2 day break to relax and enjoy some of Koh Tao‘s on-land attractions before starting their PADI advanced open water course with me.  We went back to Chumporn pinnacles for their deep dive, where this time I could take them right down to the ocean floor at the base of the giant granite pinnacle where we reached 30m.  Then we visited the HTMS Sattakut wreck for a wreck dive exploring the decks and superstructure of the Thai military vessel.

Anne and Zoe aboard the Simple Life dive boat off Koh Tao

For their Peak Performance Buoyancy dive we made use of the artificial reef ‘buoyancy world’ off Koh Nangyuan. This is a series of underwater structures deliberately sunk for divers to fine tune breathing and buoyancy control as well as acting as providing an artificial reef habitat for corals and marine life. For the girl’s underwater navigation dive we dive Hin Pee Wee named after one of the island’s early diving pioneers. They both successfully navigated using compass and natural navigation techniques, finding their way around the giant boulders and corals. Finally to complete their advanced course, Zoe and Anne both chose a night dive which we made at White Rock. The night dive was thrilling, getting to see giant barracuda hunting as well as a baby porcupine puffer-fish asleep.

The girls following the night dive at White Rock

So congratulations to Anne and Zoe – new PADI advanced open water divers.

They enjoy the diving and Koh Tao lifestyle so much that by the end of those few days they made the decision to stick around and train right through to PADI professional. Over the coming weeks the guys will be working through a diving internship, training them to PADI Divemaster.

Today Tom and Jeff finished their Rescue Diver training, team taught by myself and Jonny, and have already racked up some 40 logged dives. We’ll now be stepping things up a gear in the Divemaster internship where they’ll be learning to guide underwater tours, assist in student diver training and coordinate dive logistics.

Here are some photos from our past few days out on the Simple Life boat:

Koh Tao Dive Internships: Soon-to-be PADI Divemasters Tom, Jeff and Ansel

Instructor Aude teaching dives one and two of the open water course, joined by Divemaster trainee Anthony [right

Motoring out to the Koh Tao dive site aboard the Simple Life boat

We pass a yacht en-route to the dive site

Tom and Jeff about to begin their PADI Divemaster internship

After getting the rudimentary paperwork out of the way and covering some important concepts in our theory workshops it was time to get wet!
We started out in shallow water, giving the group their first opportunity to get used to breathing underwater using a scuba unit. As the gang gained confidence, we practiced many skills including mask and regulator clearing, breathing from an alternate air source and learning to control our buoyancy using a BCD [Buoyancy Control Device] and our lung volume. The group quickly overcame a few early apprehension, and we were ready for the next step.

Over the following two days we made four proper open water dives, exploring the coral reefs and submerged pinnacles surrounding Koh Tao. Out first two dives took us to a maximum depth of 12M where we navigated round Koh Tao’s famous ‘Japanese Gardens’ dive site followed by White Rock. We practiced a few skills again to further develop the guys confidence, and got to make an underwater tour to check out the colorful corals and tropical aquatic life.

Finally we finished fof the course with two open water dives right down to a maximum depth of 18M, by the end of which I’m pleased to report the guys developed excellent buoyancy control and are shaping up to be competent divers.

Well done to Amy, Jason, Hattem and Sarah on qualifying as PADI Open Water Divers and we’ll hope to see you on Koh Tao again for some more diving adventures!

During our four open water dives around Koh Tao we got to visit sites including Twins and White Rock, seeing a lovely Porcupine Puffer-fish and many other reef species – butterfly-fish, parrot-fish, banner-fish and trigger-fish.

Ansel also decided to stick around for longer here at Simple Life and followed his open water certification with the two day PADI advanced course. We did a 28m deep dive off Green Rock, got to dive the new HTMS Sattakut wreck and made a Peak Performance Buoyancy dive at Twins and the nearby ‘Buoyancy World’ artificial reef. Two new artificial reef structures which have recently been added giving us an even bigger underwater playground to fine tune buoyancy control. Plus we made a fish identification dive exploring the shallow coral reef at Japanese Gardens on the opposite side of Koh Nangyuan.

Here are a few photos from our week of scuba diving around Koh Tao:

Beautiful weather - a traditional Thai longtail boat outside Simple Life Divers on Sairee Beach , Koh Tao

Naam Chai - captain of the Simple Life dive boat at the helm

Heading out to one of the dive sites during the PADI Open Water course

On the dive boat with Elke and Ansel during the PADI Open Water course

Another great sunset on Sairee Beach, Koh Tao as we enjoy a couple of apres-dive beers!

“Just to says thanks for some great weeks at Koh Tao! This is a small rollup of how we experienced diving with all of you.

In September fled my wife and me from rainy Denmark to Thailand where we started with three days on Koh Samui without any plans about what to happen.

We had talked about that we of course had to go out and dive if the opportunity came, so we looked after resort and dive shop on Koh Tao that was only 2 hours away with the ferry.

Having done plenty of hotels, resorts and dive shops through was our choice fell on the Simple Life Resort & Dive where we got excellent service from the very beginning when we wrote if there was availability at the resort and so it continued throughout his stay at Koh Tao.

Already one hour after we arrived to our room on the Simple Life Resort knocked Steve from Simple Life Divers on the door and welcomed us and told us about where the Simple Life dive shop was and told about the place and that we should just stop by so we could see which tour we wanted to be on.

The day after we were past and had agreed that we next morning at 7 o’clock was going with the boat for a Scuba Review because there had gone 3 ½ years since we last had dived
Hannah pulled us through a lot of tasks and the same afternoon we was back on the boat again and Zac guided us through two great dives..

On the way back to the shop Zac asked if we were ready to proceed to the PADI Advanced Open Water, because he had a few seats available the day after and we struck immediately, as we have felt ourselves in very safe hands with Zac as the instructor.

The next few days were a lot great experiences and exercises and Zac drove us great through it all with assistance from Malcom, ending with a dive at the wreck of HTMS Satakut and we were now finished and ready to turn us loose in the depths.

On the way back we were asked if we’d be on a night dive that night and we had to stop and think for 1 minute before we said yes and again we had a fantastic experience at White Rock and crossed again some of our own borders, but was never nervous when Maik and Malcolm led us safely through the briefing and throughout the dive was very relaxing.

We were on the boat each day for the rest of your holiday on Koh Tao, and had some great dives with the great dive masters in Maik, Malcolm, Edward, Maddy, Chris, Sneaky and Steve,

When we had fled the rainy Denmark, we had talked about that it would be good to get out and dive, but we had not planned that we would get through 22 great dives which we reached through the 12 days we were on Koh Tao.

Truly a wonderful holiday and a fantastic stay at Simple Life Resort and thanks to the Simple Life Divers on some amazing experiences in safe hands and always happy people around.

Looking very much forward to coming back and seeing the whale shark as Zac promised us.

Birgitte & Thomas, Denmark”

All the divers had lots of experience and/or recently trained through to PADI Advanced – which was great for me because we could dive any of Koh Tao’s dive sites with no restrictions on depth / difficulty. So we got to enjoy a series of dives including the always superb Chumphon Pinnacles and South-West Pinnacle, plus visits to Shark Island, Green rock, Twins, White Rock and the new HTMS Sattakut wreck.

It had been a while since Karl and Kelly’s last dive so we gave them a easy reintroduction with a dive at White Rock. With their refresher completed we moved onto some more advanced dive sites. The following day we made our way to Chumphon Pinnacles, with clear water and plentiful marine life and we enjoyed a great dive.

Following trips included taking the dive boat all the way out  to South-West pinnacles. This dive site is not visited as frequently as Chumphon, but when the conditions are right it is easily as good if not better than Chumphon. Thankfully we chose the right day, with no currents, 20 meter visibility and a breathtaking amount of marine life so we enjoyed a great morning of diving.

Plus our wreck dive on the HTMS Sattakut was nice. After 20 minutes at depth exploring the wreck we made the short swim across to the reef and pinnacles at Hin Pee Wee so got to enjoy both wreck and reef exploration in one dive.

Shark Island, Green rock and Twins where all fun too, with nice shallow depths in the 12 to 18 meter range affording long bottom times enjoying lots of colorful marine life.

Thanks to the guys for diving with us at Simple Life Divers – I’ve had a great few days of Koh Tao diving! Hope you all make your way home safe and sound and we look forward to seeing you in the future

Hannah and Olly during the PADI Open Water course

First I ran Olly’s PADI Open Water course where we got to dive at Mango Bay, Green Rock and White Rock during his course. It’s nice to get feedback on first impressions of scuba diving, offering perspective as he develops over the coming months of his scuba diving internship.

His response was that he most enjoyed the sheer variety of aquatic life which we saw on open water dive 3  [White Rock] which included a pair of scribbled file-fish, a baby white eyed moray eel, several blue spotted rays (out in the open rather than hiding under rocks) as well as the usual mix of our ‘friends’ the resident titan triggers, butterfly fish, angel fish, wrasses etc.

Continuing on, Olly completed his PADI Advanced open water course yesterday along with Debbie, another of our PADI Divemaster internship candidates who will also be with us for two months. Olly completed a deep dive at green rock followed by a wreck dive at the HTMS Sattakut wreck near Hin Pee Wee. (We took a few moments out of our underwater tour of the wreck to pretend to shoot each other with the deck-guns, as well as re-enacting the famous bow scene from Titanic – a lot of underwater giggles). Olly also completed the underwater navigation dive, a fish identification dive and also fine-tuned his buoyancy and breathing control during the Peak Performance Buoyancy dive.

Ollie and Debbie will now be taught EFR and PADI Rescue Diver by Steve, [apparently the best scuba diving instructor in the world ], before getting stuck into their PADI Divemaster internship mentored by Jon.

Here’s a couple of photos from our past few days diving in Koh Tao:

Some of the Thailand Divemaster internships gang - past and present | From left, Carmen who is now a certified PADI Divemaster with Anna, Debbie, Olly and Charles

Salty sea-dog Captain Nam Chai at the helm!

Historically, deep pinnacle sites such as the Chumphon Pinnacles, Southwest and Green Rock ranked amongst divers’ most popular dive sites near Koh Tao. We put this poll together to assess the impact and popularity of Koh Tao’s recent artificial reef projects – especially Buoyancy World and the HTMS Sattakut wreck.

Early results are surprising – cast your vote below to take part and see the latest poll results.

We’ll be repeating the survey in 12 months time to see how opinions compare.

The PADI Advanced course involves two compulsory dives [deep dive and underwater navigation], plus three more dives of their choosing.

First up, the underwater navigation went without a hitch with the guys a performing near perfect squares, reciprocal headings and having fun trying to find their way around the dive site using natural navigation. [Not as easy as it sounds!].

And our deep diving adventure was a lot of fun, finding depth by swimming out from the main pinnacle at White Rock, down into the open ocean. Chris, Ethan, Ariane and Angela did a timed task at depth to test their susceptibility to nitrogen narcosis, after which we toured the dive site and made a slow ascent up to safety-stop depth.

For the three elective dives of the advanced course we had a mix! We made a Fish Identification dive exploring the corals reefs and learning to recognize and identify common tropical marine life species. This was great because we got to visit the famous Chumphon Pinnacles dive site – one of the best dive sites in the entire Gulf of Thailand where there is plenty cool marine life to check out.

Exploring the depths of the Chumphon Pinnacle dive site, Koh Tao

During another of our elective dives – peak performance buoyancy each diver endeavored to fine tune their breathing rate and air consumption. We practiced hovering motionlessly in mid-water for over a minute, using only our lung volume and breathing control to avoid touching the floor (or entering an uncontrolled ascent in which Scuba Steve would have to intervene!). We also concentrated on using efficient fin kicking to help maximize our movement through the water whilst conserving our air supply. And we also played lots of games such as pretending to be in the Matrix movies and doing cool slow underwater kicking and punching actions

Thanks to the recent sinking of the HTMS Sattakut as an artificial reef off Koh Tao, one of the newest (and most popular) dives of the PADI Advanced course is the wreck dive. The HTMS Sattakut – a former Thai military vessel was sunk near Koh Tao’s Hin Pee Wee dive site. This close proximity of reef and ship wreck mean there is already a healthy array of marine life inhabiting the steel hulled ship. With her bow and stern deck guns still in place, striking tower and purpose cut holes in the deck the guys also got some great photo opportunities.

Our final dive of the PADI Advanced Course was the always entertaining night dive. The advanced night dive gave the team the chance to explore the wonders of the reef in complete darkness, equipped with an underwater torch to illuminate their tour. By night, many aquatic species come out to feed such as great and chevron barracudas and bottom foraging sting rays. It was a whole new journey for the guys and all they all had an exciting dive experience!

Simple Life dive boat sits at the buoyline as sun sets on Sairee Beach, Koh Tao

There are many other optional Adventure Dives to choose from as part of the PADI Advanced course, so everyone can enjoy an exciting program of dives tailored to their own interests and ambitions  [safe in the knowledge you will be taught by the best Instructor in the world, Scuba Steve ].