Local Diving – The waters & reefs around Koh Phangan offer better scuba diving & snorkelling in Thailand than most people know: an extensive range of hard corals with a good range of tropical & pelagic fish. Generally shallower, shelving dive sites; good for beginners Padi courses, long slow scuba dives & easy snorkelling.
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Features of our local dive sites are a surprising variety of hard corals & a nice cross section of reef & pelagic fish. The main structure of the reefs is hump coral (porites sp.), offering shelter to several different staghorn & table corals, plate & leaf corals, some extensive anemone corals, large brain corals (etc etc !) plus filter & soft corals on the deeper dive sites.
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Local diving trips should introduce you to a variety of damselfish, butterflyfish, groupers (some of a fair size!), rabbitfish, goatfish, wrasse & parrot fish, snapper & anemonefish. We often also find special creatures such as stingray, barracuda, carpet eel blenny (!), cuttlefish or hunting trevally, to name a few.
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Local Sites we like to dive include:
- Koh Ma: a steeply shelving island off the NW. corner of Koh Phangan with interesting scenery & hard coral, particularly nice soft & whip corals at depth. Schooling fish, bannerfish & big grouper, plus the hunters; especially the barracuda when there’s a little current running. Max. depth ~24m.
- Mae Haad, Haad Salat & Haad Yao Bays on the W. coast offer long relaxed coral reef scuba dives with a really wide range of hard corals & a good variety of typical reef fish. Max depth ~14m. Laem Chua & Laem Tian offer more mixed dives: start on coral reef, but then drift around the shelving point to finish on the reef in the next bay. Max depth up to 18m.
- Rock Point (Kong Yai) is a miniature Sail Rock, on the E. tip of Chaloklum Bay just 5 minutes from the dive shop by longtail boat. Small walls, swim-throughs & scenery, plus lots of fish. A seasonal site due to varying visibility. Max depth to 20m.
- Further local sites we visit include Ao Tong Lang, Koh Kong Kliang & Koh Tae Nok; variable visibility makes them more seasonal, but great when it’s OK, & there are more…
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All the photo’s used on this page were taken by the Chaloklum Diving school team on scuba dives (or snorkelling) in the Gulf of Thailand , in the Koh Phangan vicinity. Check out our “Marine Life Directory” if you want to see many more.
