Published: 10 August 2018

Located off the North West coastline of Koh Nang Yuan Island, Thailand, Green Rock is the lovely dive site for scuba diving in Koh Tao or Samui and a brilliant choice for PADI Deep Diver Specialty course.

It’s made up of large rock formations and boulders which have created a series of swim-throughs and small caves what makes it unique for diving like anywhere else in Thailand. Dive site offering divers an exciting experience of underwater life in Koh Tao. There is often a strong current here that you can use to drift around the submerged pinnacles so it’s not really recommended for inexperienced divers. Visibility usually ranges from 10 m to 20 m depending on the season and current. Depth ranges from around 32 m. on the sandy bottom up to 5 m. at the top of the rock formation making this an ideal site for PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course and PADI Deep Diver course on Koh Tao.
Hawksbill and Green turtles are regular visitors and the occasional banded sea snake can be seen just off the main formation.
Yellowtail Barracuda school in huge numbers, the sunlight shimmering off their bodies as they surround the top of Green Rock.
On the inside of the caves you can spot dancing Durban shrimp and cleaner shrimp as well.
Huge variety of nudibranchs crawling around the rocks makes Green Rock the true paradise for macro-minded diver who loves small stuff on different dive sites around Koh Tao and Nang Yuan Islands.

Published: 06 August 2018

Diving in Koh Tao or Samui usually expects different marine life like sea Turtles. Usually, you can see them on the closest dive sites around Koh Tao: Twins, White rock, Pottery.

Turtles are a marine reptile, and like the sharks are a very ancient group of animals. They can live over a hundred years and have very few natural predators. There are currently 9 species of sea turtles worldwide, and all are endangered or threatened. Although they breathe air, they live almost their entire life in the sea, coming ashore only to lay eggs.
There are two types of turtle that you can see during diving on Koh Tao: The Green turtle and Hawksbill turtle. They look very similar to each other however have some differences in appearance.
The Green Turtle is the most typical sea turtle, possessing a teardrop-shaped carapace and a pair of large, paddle-like flippers. Despite the turtle’s common name, its carapace color ranges from olive-brown to black in Eastern Pacific Green turtles. The turtle is actually named for the greenish coloration of its fat and flesh.
The Hawksbill has a worldwide distribution, with Atlantic and Pacific subspecies and the Green turtle can be found throughout tropical and subtropical seas around the world, with two distinct populations in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean.
You can see both types of turtles at many dive sites around Koh Tao and Koh Nang Yuan islands, including sleeping turtles on night dives. If you do see one, make sure to keep a respectful distance and never touch them.

Published: 14 July 2018

A friendly and attentive Divecenter Scuba Birds organizes amazing daily diving trips on Koh Tao and Koh Samui.

I’ll describe just one I have been participated, together with five wonderful fundivers with PADI Advanced Open Water level. First dive we did at Japanese Garden, probably the most visited divesite of Koh Tao. At a depth of ~15 meters near concrete blocks used for divers buoyancy training, we met a shoal of curious young Batfish. They let us come very close, so we had a possibility to take few nice pictures. Two small Slender Suckerfish follow us for almost 20 minutes, trying to attach to our tanks, then chasing each. A small hawksbill turtle passed by slowly.

For our second dive we did drop-off on No Name Pinnacle swimming from there to Twins. At the deep part of divesite we found few different kinds of shrimps and soft corals. A huge Jenkins stingray was sleeping under a boulder with a long tail outside. Graceful white-eyed moray eel hid behind the branched coral. Giant pufferfish did not pay on us any attention even when we stopped to photograph it.

It was a good day! And tomorrow promises to be even better! We’ll go to the most stunning Koh Tao divesite, Chumphon Pinnacle with a hope to meet the biggest fish in the world — Whaleshark. Wish us good luck in our new adventures and amazing discoveries!

Published: 09 July 2018

For scuba diving on Koh Samui our own dive boat visits the most «lucky» dive sites for Whaleshark encounter.

Between them is our favorite dive site Chumphon Pinnacle, also Southwest Pinnacle, Sail Rock and Shark Island. Occasionally Whalesharks are spotted at dive sites such as Green Rock and White Rock that we often use for open water training dives.

You need to be a certified PADI Open Water Diver at a minimum to dive the sites Whalesharks visit more often. Being an Advanced Diver gives you better flexibility of depth as you can dive to 30 m that enables you to fully enjoy the more famous dive sites.

Very often Whaleshark prefers to stay close to the surface, so you can even snorkel with it!

Such a close encounter with these graceful creatures leaves a lot of positive emotions and good memories about diving in Koh Tao and Ko Samui!

Published: 06 July 2018

In our diving school Scuba Birds on Koh Tao and Samui Islands we provide Open Water Diver courses along many others, after which each student would be able to use a surface marker and learn their differences to apply in many different environments when diving.

SMB is deployed from the depth of at least 5 meters and allows you to perform a safety stop, or when in shallow waters and upon surfacing.
Divers or freedivers use dive flags on the surface to allow safe environment to conduct the dive or training, by doing this they are communicating with boats to avoid the area.
One of the few important safety features in the BCD is a whistle, it allows the diver to attract attention on the surface in case of the emergency to the nearby boats.
Small portable diving light that attaches to your BCD often seen on the night dives, allows diving buddies to stay close or within vision to each other and helps to locate you on the surface from the boat.

Few of the surface and signaling markers discussed above are the key to keep you and your team safe during the dive in Thailand, they will help to minimize the potential problems and stress. Our Boat Captains in the area are well trained and knowledgeable, they pay a lot of attention to the safety of divers and keep following the highest standards.