A Typical Day Diving in Phuket

A typical Day in Phuket diving is quite Early starts What Some May Think, Thirty Seven AM. The Phuket dive center will pick you up from your hotel lobby in either an air conditioned mini bus or other style of car or van. Takes the Drive Around 20 - 30 minutes Through the countryside and Other Beach Resorts As You cross the Island of Phuket Thailand .

Once at the Pier You Find that at First glance it looks like Chaos As there are dozens of Boats and Dive companies, speed Boat Tours and Fishing Boats all over the Place. How Ever it is Really well Organized. As the Bus stops You are met. by the Tour Leader Who has your name and then over to your instructor Hands You Waiting for You Who is there. The Pier in Chalong Quite is a long one so they have several "Pink busses" to take You. to the End where there are Again a Dozen or so Dive Boats tied up. The instructor Waits for everyone to Get Together then Takes You to the Boat. As now we are in Thailand and ITS Rude to Wear shoes in the House they are Boxes to. . Put your shoes in before stepping onto the Boat. Make sure You Put your shoes in the right box or your shoes Will Go to a different Place to You.

The Dive Boats themselves vary in size and comfort. My Boat was nice and big with plenty of space inside if needed and a large shaded area upstairs with tea, coffee, drinking water and chocolate. Here we have a boat briefing by the Tour Leader which. takes about 5 minutes or so. The boat has 3 toilets and showers to rinse off at the End of the Day plus another 2 more showers to rinse off after the dive on the dive platform at the back of the boat. There are bins of Fresh Water for cameras. and another one for other equipment. There is a large sun deck on the top deck. While this is going on my instructor is setting up my equipment for me which was a very nice touch. There are many Phuket dive shop on the boat but Thailand Divers was the only one where the instructors did this for us. As the briefing ends my instructor joins our group and guides us round to the front of the boat where there is another set of steps that take us to the front of the cabin where the breakfast is served. By going to the front ment we were at the front of the line while everyone was trying to climb down the back stairs. The breakfast was Great. Eggs, saucages, toast, tomatoes, croissants, fried rice and a chicken rice soup, fruit and fruit juice. Better than many small hotels. Now time for a snooze to let the food go down.

About 30 minutes from our first dive site we are awoken by our instructor and told to get a drink before we have our dive briefing. We get a very good briefing telling us not only background to the site, what we will see, what to look out for and what to be aware of. We are given a full safety briefing and what to do if we get separated. Now another drink. Its funny but as the water we are diving in is so warm 29 - 30 degrees we still sweat underwater so we have to be careful not to get dehydrated. Now down to the dive deck to get kitted up. The divers are split into 2 groups to give everyone space when getting ready. We are in group 1. All the gear is already set up on the tanks in a numbered place on the boat. We sit down and put on the BCD at while we do this the boat crew actually help us with our fins and other bits and pieces and then buddy check. We stay seated till the boat arrives and stops. When in the correct position the Captain sounds a horn and we all get up and move to the back of the boat. When the group is all together with our instructor we get in the water. our instructor gets in first and waits at the back of the boat to make sure we are all ok as we get in. Then move away from the boat when all are ready and in a close group the instructor gives us the sign and down we go. . . .

When diving in Phuket there are several locations that are in easy reach. Today we are diving at Phi Phi and Shark point. The first location is a small island to the south of the main islands. This is a very nice easy dive with huge shoals of yellow snappers everywhere. There is plenty of healthy soft coral, big sea fans and color everywhere. We follow a long ridge covered in coral and life.The instructor leads and points out so much as we go you can tell he dives here several times a week and loves to dive. As we go he checks our air from time to time. By the time we get down one side of the ridge and back up the other its been around 35 minutes.

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I do not have to say to much about this dive As the name Turtle Rock says it all. Yes turtles and more Black Tip sharks on top of so many other colorful tropical fish and again our instructor managed to point out so much and helped us in positioning ourselves to get great photos with the turtles. After another great 50 minute dive it was back to the boat for an hour and a half ride to Shark Point. Time to top up the tan on the sun deck. Again 20 minutes out a Wake up Call from the instructor for a Dice briefing. This briefing includes How to Get close to the Leopard Shark without spooking it (US spooking it? What About spooking it me?) So we Can Get photos with them. Now I Can not Say How Exciting this is As I know How Great the First. 2 Dives were and this sounds like it Will be better. However we are told this is not a Zoo Wild Nothing is so certain and like all animals Can they be unpredictable. Shark Point is a very Colorful Dive Site. So much coral, big sea fans, anemone's and life.

We got to see Tiger Tail Sea Horses as well as so much more. Rounding one rocky out crop on the sand we came face to face with the Leopard Shark. Its was resting on the sand. We stayed a good distance away then made our way to its front so he can see us so not to spook it. We sat back and watched the instructor. He can in very low to the floor directly in front of the shark, folded his arms and crept forward till he was no more than 2 foot from it and they just looked at each other. Then just back away without flapping arms or stirring up the bottom. We all moved in one at a time and waited for the other person to move off before going in. How amazing to be no more than a couple of feet away from a big shark. We stayed and watched as another group came. This time they saw the shark and all swam straight at it from all sides and above it. The shark took one look and swam away. This other group had not been briefed by the instructor so did not get the experience we did.

When back on the boat we packed the equipment away and had a nice hot shower. The chef had been busy again and there were pancakes with Banana, Mango and with honey or chocolate sauce and fresh fruit. this was eaten up on the Sun Deck where we looked at each others photos (and compared ours to the other group who scared the Leopard Shark Away). Ours were so much better and that was totally down to our instructors in depth briefings and instructing us. How to move to the positions and how to best dive with these creatures. When diving in Phuket there are many different Phukeket dive centers, some are a few Baht cheaper but the experience will be un comparable. You are in Phuket Thailand and as I have said before the experience was way above what I have had when paying double the price in other places. Phuket Scuba diving is something special. There may be better boats or better dive sites around the world but for the whole trip I can not see how it can be improved. Scuba diving in Phuket is a day you will remember and compare all other dive days too and for such a small price. 4,200 baht for the whole day and wait till you see the photos of the sunset as we came home. Most people can only dream of seeing things like this. Warning diving Phuket is addictive.