Koh Luam Noi

This small island north of Koh Pai is seldom visited by divers which is why this dive site has produced some very good dives when the visibility has been decent. Because of it’s location in very shallow waters between two bigger islands, when there are waves or strong currents the visibility seems to be more affected than in most of the “Far Islands” area. But, because it is so seldom visited the fish and marine life can be stunning. It is a relatively small dive site so we like to do slow drift dives in lightly falling currents from the north east side to the south side.

The coral life is intact with little anchor damage and the marine life includes multiple Hawksbill Turtles, Blue Spotted Rays, Eagle Rays, large Marble Rays, more Squirrel Fish than anywhere else, large schools of Yellow Tail Fusiliers and Rabbit Fish, and loads of Porcupine Puffer Fish. Maximum depth is about 10 meters.

Koh Pai

Koh Pai or “Bamboo Island” is controlled by the Royal Thai Navy, who restricts the use of the beaches, but the fairly large sheltered bay at the south of the island is ideal for beginners. While beginners are using the South Bay, more experienced divers have opportunity to follow the southern most part of the island down to 24 meters where they will find some larger fish and a few outcroppings of rock formations and a spattering of coral. It could be a decent dive but the area unfortunately has quite a bit of discarded bottles, fishing boat parts and some nets, old tires and other trash. We have had some interesting dives in the deep in spite of this.

The east side of the island has a shallow (4 to 9 meters) line of corals which is also pretty good for beginners and the HTMS Khram is just 500 meters from the east side as well. We have on good currents dropped off the beginners on the beach and taken the advanced divers to the wreck, then picked up the beginners. It works pretty well and gets two dives done in the same time.

The north side of the island boast actually a very nice line of shallow corals seldom visited by diving boats. Very shallow though and not good in an outgoing current.

And, finally, the bay just west of the southern beach has a fairly shallow and patchy coral density dive but has produced some very interesting creatures, like a massive school of Sea Catfish hiding under a big outcrop of coral and interesting Pipefish.

Koh Klung Badan

Koh Klung Badan is a rather long island that offers at least four different dives. First, on the north-east side in an incoming or slack current it offers probably the absolute best Discover Scuba Diving or dive one for the Open Water Course site in the Pattaya dive area. There is clean sand with few Sea Urchins shallow enough to stand in and not far away there are pristine shallow corals down to only 5 meters with a lot of marine life to interest new scuba divers.

Then, starting from the same point, there is for the more experienced diver a long stretch of dive that can be used as a drift dive or simply a one way that can go down to 24 meters and still be interesting. In the shallower parts at the beginning of the dive there are many Sea Horses to be found, there are Sea Turtles often seen and down in the deeper areas there are generally Bamboo Sharks to be seen under Coral Heads. This dive can end up in the third possible dive.

The third dive begins on the south end of the island and is a perfect back to the boat dive in an out-going tide. It also starts at around 5 meters and follows a large hill with big boulders covered in corals to the island. In this area there are many Blue Spotted Sting Ray, schools of Yellow Tailed Fusiliers, Porcupine Puffer Fish and a large variety of other marine life to see. This dive can go to 24 meters before the are no interesting things to see.

From the same start point for the third dive plan, less experienced divers can go the other way and have a fairly shallow dive to about 6 meters and see many of the same things.

Koh Man Wichai

Koh Man Wichai has two excellent dive areas. The boat generally moors on the south side of the island, in between The Wall, to the west and the Fingers to the east. If choosing the Wall to dive, enter the water, swim to the corals and turn west.

Follow the coral line around for about 15 minutes and you will arrive at the Wall, which is a cliff with coral growth jutting out of the water from starting 11 meters and gradually getting shallower to the surface. Follow the Wall to around 8 meters depth and turn directly west and follow that bearing for about 8 minutes and you will arrive to a drop off which runs north/south, which boast loads of Blue Spotted Rays, Moray Eels and Porcupine Puffer Fish and you can follow till your turn around point or in strong currents can continue with on a drift dive and be picked up at the next beach area.

If you choose to dive the Fingers, enter the water and generally where the boats moor, you are on top of the Fingers. Dive towards the east and you will cross over ridges that run more or less north/south and the corresponding valleys. This dive boast Hawksbill Turtles, big Parrot Fish and schools of Yellow Tail Fusiliers. This dive is best done as a back to the boat dive as if you drift it it will be a short dive.

North Rock

Just off of Koh Rin, this dive site has become Adventure Divers’ favorite coral dive site in the Pattaya Dive Area. It boasts a huge variety of hard corals down to about 14 meters and absolutely stunning Soft Corals down to around 22 meters deep. The variety and abundance of schooling fish, Yellow Jacks, Rabbit Fish, Juvenile Barracudas, Yellow Tail Fusiliers and Travelies is impressive and add to those the Bamboo Sharks, Blue Spotted Rays and lots of Moray Eels in the corals makes this dive site spectacular.

The west side of the island is a bit shallow and sparsely populated but does boast Bamboo Sharks and Blue Spotted Rays and has a concentration of Nudibranches unmatched anywhere I have ever dived. The south west side gets deeper, down to 14 meters where the bright Florescent Soft Corals provide great color, around to the south side with the Schooling Fish and great Hard Corals to the south east side, what we have dubbed the Octopus’s Garden down to 22 meters and populated by loads of Black Sponge Corals decorated with three colors of Florescent Soft Corals and populated by loads of fish. We often find Cuddle Fish in this area, then going around to the north side of the dive site it becomes slightly shallower to around 12 meters where we find really nice corals and rock formations where the Morays and Blue Spotted Sting Rays love to hide out.

The whole site makes for a great drift dive when there is a strong incoming tide starting from the southeast side, where a large school of Yellow Jacks hang out, ripping past the south where the Yellow Tail Fusiliers are, and with some exciting speeds zip around the east corner past the Octopus’ Garden and ending up in the calm north side, just past the wall of current where all the Rabbit Fish and large Travelies hang out feeding from the food blown by and have something different to see everywhere along the drift dive. Truly a spectacular dive location!

Koh Rin

Koh Rin and the surrounding area, without a doubt, has all of the best coral dives in the immediate Pattaya area. There are other very good ones but they take a bit of getting to. Koh Rin area has eight main dive areas, plus one secret site known only to Adventure Divers and friends, each of which can easily support more than one dive.
Hin Ton Mai also known as South Rock is a very popular dive spot as the fish life is very varied with lots of Moray Eels and Barracuda. Very Large Marble Rays (250 CM wing tip to wing tip) have been spotted there, though not often. There are plenty of both hard and soft corals, coral whips as well as very good invertebrate life such as nudibranchs, brittle stars and feather stars. This site has very good coral life down to 22 metres.

Hin Khao also known as North Rock has as much coral life as South Rock and has lots of rock outcroppings that are homes to many sharks and eels. This is an excellent site for searching around for the more unusual nudibranchs, pipefish, razorfish and others that like to hide away. The site has good diving down to around 18 metres.

Koh Rin bay. This site is part of the main island of Koh Rin. Although this site only goes down to a maximum depth of 16 meters it is not well protected from currents and is therefore must be dived on when the currents are favorable.

The west side offers a very protected dive site that is excellent for training dives and is acceptable for qualified divers, especially when the currents and/or waves are strong. Just off Koh Rin on the west side there is a deep hole of over 40 meters deep with sometimes some interesting things to see and is perfect for the adventurous diver in times of currents.

The south east and south side of the island offers yet again a different dive site. On the south east side, there are many well preserved corals as not many people actually visit them well populated by Yellow jacks, Yellow Tail Fusiliers and Morays. In early September, 2011. We, in cooperation with The Dive Tribe, released around 30 Sharks in this area, including 2 Black Tip Reef Sharks, 10 Banded Bamboo Sharks and 18 Bamboo Sharks. Moving around to the south side, the corals thin out but the topography boast nice cliffs and valleys down to depth of about 14 meters.

The secret dive site is a small wreck that attracts a swarm of yellow jacks as seen on the video that also attracts 6 to 8 very large Cobia Fish around 1 meter 50 cm plus long.

South Rock

As it’s name implies, just south of Koh Rin, South Rock has been a very desirable dive in the past. It is now starting to recover from a three wham blow that it suffered in 2009. First, the Thai Royal Navy, who has used this unfortunate island for target practice for may years, stepped up their shelling of the island itself and the surrounding corals that year.

Then Thailand and much of Southeast Asia experienced a massive coral bleaching event and in combination with massive fishing nets strung around football field areas of the reef and the added stress brought on by the Navy’s shelling the reef just died. everywhere there was rubble from dead coral and the fish life just disappeared. The last time I dove it in 2009, I nearly cried.

Just a few months ago, in September, 2011 we took a chance and had another dive on South Rock. Mermaids Dive Shop had cleaned off the nets and the area has made a surprising recovery, bringing South Rock back into a divable site. There is still some more recovery to be done, but if the waters stay cool enough the corals are remarkably resilient and the area should recover to it’s former glory.

For years this site has been one of our better coral dive sites. There are many rock canyons and hills, well covered in coral and many fish, Blue Spotted Rays, Moray Eels, large Eagle Rays and a few Black Tip Reef Sharks had been spotted from time to time.