Today at DJL Diving Koh Tao we’ve certified four new PADI Rescue Divers.

Go Pro Diving Intern James (UK), Wendy (Holland), Penny (UK) & Louis (UK) all passed under the instruction of Alex (assisted by PADI Divemaster Trainee John [Canada]).

From Left [proceeding clockwise] James, Wendy, Alex (instructor), Penny, John (Divemaster Trainee) and Mr Ali.

This was a four day course, commencing with the emergency first responder (CPR & 1st Aid Course) then proceeding into dealing with suface and underwater problems, managing an emergency, running underwater search patterns then surfacing and egressing an unconscious diver. The course concluded with ‘final scenarios’ in which they guys had to respond to a series of simulated problems and control the situation. The group all performed well, and Alex was more than satisfied. If you’re interested in finding out more about the PADI Rescue Diver Course check out this link.

Alex & Louis sharing the love!!

James, Penny & Louis will now carry on to PADI Divemaster. We’ll make sure we capture photos of their snorkel test!

Sea conditions throughout the Gulf of Thailand couldn’t be better. No waves and great visibility – we dived Sail Rock and had at least 30 metres vis above the thermocline, plus a lot of pelagic fish around the site. Hopefully the diving remains constant throughout summer! Perfect weather for running the diving RIB out around Koh Tao!

Around Koh Tao, we’re now experiencing great sea conditions – flat sea, very sunny and visibility increasing every day. This should continue throughout Summer.

At DJL Diving Koh Tao, we’re going to take advantage of this by using the RIB to dive Sail Rock (Hin Bae) & the Samran Pinnacles – we’ll be running trips to these dive sites twice weekly throughout Summer.

Sail Rock is a small island, which breaks the surface midway between Koh Tao & Koh Phangan. It’s sheer walls meet the sand at around 25 metres – we see lots of pelagic fish, plus there’s a vertical chimney swimthrough running from 6 metres down to 18 metres.

The Samran Pinacle is an isolated rarely dive site, roughly West of Sail Rock. Max depth around 35 metres extending up to 14 metres from the surface, this a great site for experienced divers. Deep soft corals and masses of fish (due to the lack of divers). Since the RIB is equipped with GPS & sonar its easy for us to locate this deep pinnacle.

Throughout Summer we’re making a special offer for this trip:

2 dives, 2000 baht. [Max 6 customers per trip]

Because the RIB is so quick, journey time to Sail Rock will be just 30 minutes (with flat seas), rather than the normal two hours off a big boat. Don’t miss it!

Contact us if you are interested.

For the next few days we’ve got a south-easterly tropical monsoon storm hitting Koh Tao!!

Off the unprotected west coast of Koh Tao, Thailand wave heights are reaching 1.5 – 2 metres -not great for scuba diving!

For the next few days we’ll be diving the sheltered dive sites on the leaward shoreline of Koh Tao – Hin Wong Pinnacles, Tanote Bay, Laem Thian, Lighthouse bay and Aow Leuk etc. Despite the storm conditions are still reasonable – we got around 10 metres vis at 3 metres depth on the Hin Wong Pinnacles dive site this morning.

The weather is expected to return to normal around 16th July – we should rapidly return to flat seas and great vis. We’ll then crack on with our intro to tec diving trips on the Unicorn wreck, and visit the isolated pinnacles around Koh Tao.