Scuba Diving in Koh Tao

Getting PADI certified in paradise

The three most popular islands in the Gulf of Thailand each have a distinct purpose. Koh Samui is for beaches, Koh Phangan is for Full Moon Parties, and Koh Tao is for diving.

As one of the cheapest and most beautiful places to dive in the world, Koh Tao (“Turtle Island”) was a must visit.

With over 50 dive shops on the small island, trying to research the best one for our needs was a little overwhelming. We wanted a reputable school, with small groups, and well maintained equipment. We were recommended Coral Grand Divers by some travel buddies Laura and Skylr. It met all of our requirements, and after reading the outstanding Trip Advisor reviews, we signed up for our PADI Open Water!

Open Water (OW)

Our Open Water course cost 9,800 baht (€250) which included 4 nights accommodation at the Coral Grand Resort. The room only had a fan and was crazy hot (have you ever got out of the shower, dried yourself, sat down, and been immediately soaked with sweat?) so we forked out a little extra per night and upgraded our room to A/C.

The PADI Open Water course takes 3 days to complete, includes 4 dives, and looks like this;

Night before

We met our instructor John Stachura, a fantastic instructor whom we highly recommend. He gave us videos to watch and some knowledge reviews to complete before the next morning. It took us about 2–3 hours to complete — whilst sat on the beach with a beer it hardly felt like work!

All this meant tomorrow we could spend less time in the classroom and more time in the pool!

There are probably worse places to study!

Day 1

We spent the morning in the classroom learning about safety, basic skills, equipment, and what happens to your body during and after diving.

Afterwards, we moved down to the training pool for the afternoon. Of course it started to rain as soon as we stepped outside! Luckily, after we had learned how to setup and dismantle our equipment, we jumped into the quite warm water to complete our first set of underwater skills!

Taking my first breath underwater was exhilarating, even though it was only in a swimming pool!

Day 2

We awoke to monsoon style rain on our second day (as you will know from my posts, it always rains when we’re doing outdoor activities!). We ran to the classroom and finished off our knowledge reviews praying that the rain would stop.

It reduced to a drizzle by the afternoon but the wind was vicious. This made for an extremely rough sea and an interesting boat ride to the dive site. The captain took us around the other side of the island away from the wind which was thankfully much calmer.

Rain jackets on the dive boat…

We prepared our gear on the boat — a challenge on the rough sea, and were briefed on the dive site, Hin Wong Bay (the route we’d take, the fish we might see etc). I was a little nervous as we did our final checks all round and took a giant stride off the boat into the sea.

We descended gradually until we reached the shallow bottom. We looked around and despite warnings that the weather might impact visibility we could see a lot of colourful marine life and coral — it was already incredible to be a part of this underwater world! 🐠

We completed our second dive at a nearby site Lighthouse and saw plenty more fishes and marine life. As we headed back to shore a storm started rolling in. The wind picked up and the sky was turning black. The conditions were so rough that even the seasoned dive masters were filming the boat from the beach as we tried to jump onto the smaller fishing boat that ferried us back to the beach — but we made it.

Stormy skies…

Day 3

We were up nice and early to take the 6am dive boat out for our last two dives. The early start was totally worth it; finally the sun showed up, and the dive sites were quieter. It was still quite windy so we went back to Lighthouse and then Japanese Garden for two really nice dives.

6am start’s aren’t all bad

We were back on land by lunchtime and just one last bit of theory and our final exam before we were certified divers. The final exam was nothing to be afraid of and the questions were mostly common sense. Of course we both passed with full marks and celebrated with a free cocktail. We aren’t ones to turn down free drinks!

Both James and I were absolutely blown away by scuba diving. We had only glimpsed a tiny fraction of an incredibly beautiful world. We’d heard that learning to dive in Koh Tao could lead to a serious addiction, but despite the warning we were totally hooked, and immediately signed up for the Advanced Open Water course!