As a result of the calm sea conditions we’ve been experiencing, the diving is great right now. Today, diving from our big dive boat we visited one of the Gulf of Thailand’s best dive sites – Sail Rock situated midway betweeen Koh Tao and Koh Phangan. DJL Diving’s Digital Underwater photography instructor Arne D’Hoore was on the dive boat to capture these great images of the diving.

Image: Trevelly above a table coral at Sail Rock [taken by Arne D'Hoore]

With 1 metre wave heights, it was more comfortable to take our big boat to Sail Rock. We planned for two dives on the small vertical walled island, and weren’t disappointed!

Image: The DJL Dive boat moored up on Sail Rock, Thailand [taken by Arne D'Hoore]

Sail Rock is most famous for it’s vertical ‘chimney swimthrough’ which opens at around 6 metres, dropping down to a wide exit at about 18 metres depth.

Image: The famous vertical chimney swimthrough at Sail Rock [taken by Arne D'Hoore]

Visibility was very good, giving great views of the masses of pelagic marine life around the dive site. Visibility was only reduced on the down current face of Sail Rock.

Image: Barracuda being tended to by a small wrasse at a cleaning station [taken by Arne D'Hoore]

The divers got to see masses of trevelly, giant grouper & batfish, along with lots of colourful tropical reef fish. Even the chevron and great barracudas were visible at cleaning stations on Sail Rock.

Image: Giant grouper @ Sail Rock [taken by Arne D'Hoore]

Image: A continuous school of fish passing across the Sail Rock dive site [taken by Arne D'Hoore]

If you want to learn to take great digital underwater images like these, contact us a we can line up a PADI Digital Underwater Photography Specialty with Arne.

Almost everyone that goes diving wants to see the big fish - it’s natural that every diver that visits Koh Tao wants to dive with the sharks at the Chumphon Pinnacles, north of Koh Tao Thailand.

 

Image: 3 Sharks at the Chumphon Pinnacles [taken by Arne D'Hoore]

The problem is that all the dive operators visit the Chumphon Pinnacle at the same time – either the early morning race to see sharks or early afternoon.
With DJL Diving’s high speed RIB, we don’t have to adhere to the normal Koh Tao diving routine – we’re much more reactive. It takes just 10 minutes to reach the Chumphon Pinnacles, so we can pick & choose the best time to head out to see the grey reef sharks & bull sharks!

Image: DJL Diving’s high speed RIB

We’re now running late afternoon shark diving sessions, double diving with sharks at the Chumphon Pinnacles. We go when there are no other dive operators at the Chumphon Pinnacles, to get the best possible diving experiences.

Since there’s no generator or compressor on the RIB, it sits at the surface, completely silent. This means that the sharks come right up over the pinnacle, often even breaching the surface. Around the pinnacle we’re surrounded by the 2 metre long sharks!. Diving with sharks off our high speed RIB is a dive experience not to be missed!

 

Image: Mexican ‘fun-diver’ Gloria pulls a face on the RIB

If you’re interested drop us an e-mail to check availability. We only take a max of 5 divers per trip to make sure everyone has a great dive.

Experienced divers Robin & Richard, recently dived with DJL Diving off our high speed RIB. Diving with instructor Tod Applegate, the guys were using underwater photography equipment to capture images of the sharks diving at the Chumphon Pinnacles Dive Site, Koh Tao, Thailand.

Managing to capture some great photos, they came up with a startling conclusion.

Image; Bull Shark at the Chumphon Pinnacles dive site Koh Tao (© Robin Nagy 2007)

Here’s a summary from their article;

[Grey Reef Sharks at Chumphon Pinnacle are a Load of Bull!]

Thousands of people have been diving with young bull sharks at Chumphon Pinnacle Thailand, thinking they were grey reef sharks.

Most shark sightings at Chumphon are reported as grey reef sharks, however, they are not. We are now convinced that all the sharks we have ever seen at Chumphon have been bull sharks. Two top shark experts independently confirm our findings that there are bulls at Chumphon (writes Robin Nagy).

Visit www.bigpinkshark.com for the full article.

For the last few days we’ve had fantastic visibility around Koh Tao, Thailand. Even better, this morning during the last two dives of their PADI Open Water Course, Joost & Marjolien [Netherlands] got to enjoy 2 dives with a whale shark.

Image: 4 metre whaleshark at the Chumphon Pinnacles Koh Tao, Thailand

Diving at the Chumphon Pinnacles with DJL Diving instrutor Alex, the group were joined by a 4 metre whale shark. Luckily, Alex had his camera to hand, and was able to capture these great photos of the whale shark.

Image: Marjolien happy to see the whale shark on her third ever dive!!

Also on the boat to enjoy the spectacle was Kieron, teaching a PADI Advanced Open Water class for Diane (Australia), Sebastian & Deborah (Germany). The whale shark circled the pinnacle and remained around the dive site for both dives.

Image: The whaleshark circling the Chumphon Pinnacles

We’re happy to announce, Sebastian and Deborah have decided to carry on through to PADI Rescue Diver then PADI Divemaster Internship with DJL Diving – no doubt they’ll be appearing in future news articles!

Image; Deborah, Diane, Kieron & Sebastian enjoying a fantastic dive experience!

At last the strong winds have at last subsided, and sea conditions have returned to normal – around 0.5 – 1 metre wave heights.

Yesterday Alex was able to take his Open Water Diving class out to the Chumphon Pinnacles for dives 3 & 4, and said there were a lot of grey reef sharks up around the pinnacle. Visibility is also returning – about 10 – 15 metres yesterday which should steadily increase over the following days.

Tim took advantage of the improved weather conditions by heading off-shore to check out a new mark. Details to follow . . .