PADI, diving and Instructor Development (IDC)

Yesterday I was on a speedboat trip to Koh Tao with two Norwegian divers, Trond and Simon, father and son.

Our destination for the first dive was Chumpon Pinnacle, known for it's population of Bull Sharks.

Life on the speedboat, yesterday on the way over to Koh Tao. The weather yesterday was favourable and it was smooth sailing with plenty of sunshine and no big waves.

Chumpon Pinnacle is a good dive site, with plenty of deep areas, although we went to a max depth of 25 meters. We made it all around the pinnacle just in time before it was time to ascend and do our 5 minute safety stop. Visibility wasn't the greatest yesterday but still there was plenty of life on and around the pinnacle. Trond and Simon enjoyed it.

An interesting piece of equipment that Trond carries around is a full face mask. He dives a lot in Norway and the water there is a couple of degrees colder than here in Thailand, hence a full face mask to protect him from that cold water. A piece of equipment you don't get to see an awful lot here in Thailand.

Trond during the safety stop wearing his full face mask. Training in use of full masks is possible in Thailand and one of the dive schools in Pattaya I work with offers courses for this kind of diving. If you're interested, let me know and I can hook you up with the right people.

A picture taken during the safety stop, showing lots of small shells hanging on to a piece of rope.

There's a lot of coral bleaching at the local dive sites in trend with the overall region, as already reported well over a month ago. In a day or two I will put up some pictures of the coral bleaching at Hin Wong, our second destination of the day.

A good days diving with more to come. If you're interested in diving trips around Koh Samui or Koh Tao you can get directly in touch with me and I can arrange your trips.

Camille