Koh Tao Island

Koh Tao is a small island located on the eastern side of the coast of Surat Thani province, near its two neighboring islands – Koh Phangan and Koh Samui.

Translated into English, the island's name Koh Tao means "Turtle Island." There are several versions regarding the origin of this name. Some suggest it relates to the island's shape, while others claim it stems from the abundance of turtles in its coastal waters. Unfortunately, turtles are becoming fewer now, but they are still regularly encountered off the island's shores.

Previously, this Thai corner was completely deserted until the last century. In 1933, a political prison was built on its territory, which closed 14 years later, after which its prisoners were pardoned.

Since then, fishermen began to actively visit the island, gradually moving there with their families. And only thanks to tourist interest did Koh Tao begin to develop rapidly.

The natural beauty of the island, the richness of its marine flora and fauna, as well as clean warm water have made Koh Tao one of the largest diving centers in the world.

On this small island covering just 21 sq. km, there are about 150 diving centers from various associations. This number of schools is due to the fact that there are over 30 dive sites around the island – from deep-sea pinnacles to calm sandy bays. The island literally lives off diving, freediving, and snorkeling.

Underwater visibility here reaches 40 meters, and the coastal reefs are home to turtles, stingrays, barracudas, reef sharks, and whale sharks. The developed dive infrastructure, excellent visibility, rich underwater world, coupled with the lowest diving prices in Thailand, as well as an excellent climate for 11 months of the year, make Koh Tao a veritable mecca for lovers of the underwater world.

Getting to Koh Tao isn't straightforward. There are no airports, bus stations, or train stations. The only way to reach Koh Tao is by water, departing from the mainland from the nearest provinces of Chumphon and Surat Thani. You can leave at night and travel on a slow ferry, or in the morning on high-speed catamarans.

The first option is suitable for those who want to bring their own bike or car to the island, as well as if you are prone to seasickness. The huge ferry will definitely rock less on the waves, but you pay for this with time and comfort.

The second option is the high-speed catamarans of Lomprayah. These are three-deck high-speed catamarans, described as being able to carry up to 400 passengers. The ferry speed exceeds 45 km/h, making travel between islands quite fast.

My choice fell on the second option, as I wanted to combine the trip to Koh Tao with a road trip through Thailand by car.

The drive from Phuket to Surat Thani, staying there overnight, driving to the port in Don Sak in the morning, leaving the car in the port parking lot, and sailing to Koh Tao. The first day's journey covered 250 km through scenic parts of Thailand.

Koh Tao surprised me from the very beginning. A huge noisy crowd on the pier. A mix of those just arriving, those wanting to leave the island, and a crowd of locals offering taxis and hotel transfers. The first few minutes on the island were so-so. But leaving the pier and starting the way to the hotel, I liked the island. This is exactly how I imagined a resort island in the tropics, not like Phuket looks. Pedestrian paths through the jungle. Cafes on beaches with beautiful views and a semblance of design. Many smiling, relaxed people. Straight out of a movie picture.

But you can't just stroll along the sidewalk sipping a coconut here. Even a simple walk involves the risk of being hit by a moped. As I wrote above, the island is very small. Mopeds are very accessible. They don't ask for a license here (like everywhere in Thailand), but there are also no police checkpoints. So almost anyone can rent a moped and try their luck on the roads and in pedestrian areas.

In the evening, I dropped by the dive center I had arranged dives with a week earlier to sign documents and found out my diving plans were changing. Diving here is indeed very cheap, especially fun diving, and therein lies the problem. Dive centers will prioritize those taking courses. That's what happened in my case; even though I thought I had arranged everything in advance, there was no spot for me on the morning dives. I had no desire to run around looking for another dive center after the journey. So I signed the papers for an afternoon dive the next day and went to enjoy the sunset.

Before describing the dive sites, I want to say a few words about the infrastructure. When I was heading here, I wondered how the local dive centers make money. The cost per dive for a certified diver with their own equipment is about ~$13 USD. For comparison, in Phuket, the cost starts from ~$35 USD.

The first point, which likely brings in the most income, was the reason my diving plans were changed. Dive centers earn from training divers. Judging by the prices, taking an Open Water course here costs about the same as in Phuket. Yes, the price often includes a place in a hostel attached to the dive center. But even considering this, the instructor and/or dive center must receive the bulk of the net profit, as other expenses seem minimal here.

The dive sites are close to the island, but you still need boats to get there. Their maintenance and crew cost money. But all the boats I saw were quite old. Yes, they are kept in more or less decent condition, but again, it's not the level of boats in Phuket.

Minimal amenities are available on the boats. No breakfasts, lunches, or coffee makers like on Phuket boats. A stark selection: water, the cheapest tea, and 3-in-1 coffee is all you can enjoy between dives.

This isn't bad; most likely, it's precisely because of the modest standard that prices here remain low. Besides, you don't spend as much time on the boat here as in other places in Thailand. But underwater, everything is top-notch. And I liked the instructors' attitude towards their work.

Well, now finally to the description of the dive sites and my impressions.

Koh Tao Dive Sites (that I visited)

Japanese Garden

The first dive was at a place called Japanese Garden. The dive site is located off the tiny island of Koh Nang Yuan and contains diverse hard corals that reach enormous sizes.

During the dive, visibility was no more than 12 meters, but this didn't make the dive bad, rather it added a certain charm. The maximum depth here is about 18 meters. On the day of my dive, there was no current, and the instructors said this is normal for this dive site, which is why it's so popular for first dives during dive training.

The most interesting part of the dive site was a small swim-through grotto where only one person can pass at a time, and you need to be very flexible if you want to turn around. So if you enter, you have to swim through to the end.

But what surprised me most were the fish, or rather their behavior. They are not afraid of divers and allow you to get quite close to photograph them and simply observe. Actually, this is the behavior of all underwater creatures on Koh Tao. It seems that because there are many times more divers here than in the places I dived before, the underwater inhabitants have become used to people and are not afraid of them.

Before the dive, there was a separate briefing dedicated to Triggerfish. April is their breeding season, so they can be aggressive towards divers, but no problems arose during the entire dive.

Buoyancy World

The second dive was at the Buoyancy World dive site. This is an artificial dive site on Koh Tao, located off the coast of Koh Nang Yuan island, just like Japanese Garden, but on the other side. It was built on a sandy bottom at about 12m depth by the Save Koh Tao organization in collaboration with several island dive centers to create a training area for new divers so they wouldn't damage the natural reef while learning buoyancy control. There is also a coral and fish nursery here, aiming to restore and enhance the abundance and biodiversity of Koh Tao's reefs, but I learned about this later. This dive site consists of sculptures, including a huge shark, octopus, gecko, a small "sunken ship," Himmapan trees, and various hoops, tunnels, and cages, strongly resembling an underwater playground. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of the dive site map and can't find it online, so we'll have to do without it.

We started the dive at the Twin Peaks dive site (more on that below) but immediately headed towards Buoyancy World. Visibility became even worse in places, but this added more mystery to the area. Large fish, strange white worms (a type of sea cucumber, as I later found out), underwater statues, and a good group of divers with whom we stayed underwater for exactly 60 minutes.

Green Rock

On the second day, in the morning, we went to the Green Rock dive site. Entering the water, I decided to film others jumping in and discovered I had forgotten to insert the battery into my camera. Had to dive without filming. A pity. There were many swim-through grottos and narrow passages. Given that there was also a strong current, it was sometimes difficult, but I swam through everywhere without touching the surrounding corals.

They say Green Rock is an ideal choice for the PADI Deep Diver specialty course. It consists of rock and boulder formations creating series of small caves and swim-throughs, making it a very interesting place. On the day of my dive, there was a quite noticeable current, so sometimes swimming through without touching the walls was quite challenging, but not a single coral was harmed (at least not by me). And strong currents are quite common for this site, which is why inexperienced divers rarely dive here. Visibility ranges from 10 to 20 meters depending on the season and currents. The depth of the dive site ranges from 32 meters at the bottom to 5 meters at the top of the rock. We were looking for a green turtle, but apparently, someone had bad karma, so we didn't manage to see one, but we did spot a large school of yellowtail barracudas. They also said that whale sharks can be seen here in season, but they didn't say when that season is)

Hin Pee Wee

The next dive site I visited, I'm not sure if I translated the name correctly into Russian, so simply: Hin Pee Wee. It is located off the northwest coast of Koh Tao island. It's a reef with three pinnacles - a large one, about 7 meters long, and two smaller ones. Hard and soft corals grow on them.

Also strong current and murky water. But this added mystery to the area and it was interesting to observe how what I thought was a cloud of dust a few meters away turned out to be a small school of Blotcheye Soldierfish.

But overall, the dive site seemed quite boring. Groups of divers circle around the three rocks and eventually meet at the top, creating a crowd during the safety stop. Perhaps if the visibility had been good, I would have liked it more, but at the moment, nothing memorable.

White Rock

The White Rock dive site is located south of Koh Nang Yuan island and is possibly the largest dive site on Koh Tao. The dive site gets its name from the top of the shallow northern pinnacle, which lies less than 2 meters from the surface and looks like a white rock.

The shallowest part of the dive site is the northern section, where the rocks start between 16-12 meters. This dive site is easy to navigate, located on a south-to-north axis, with a beautiful small coral garden and a sandy patch between them at about 9 meters depth.

The southern pinnacle drops to about 22 meters and is often the best place to start the dive.

Depth from 4 to 22 meters, weak current, and excellent visibility - an ideal place for divers of all experience levels.

Actually, describing this dive site, I relied on what's written online, not what I saw. The reason is that although White Rock is a must-visit site, I only dived here at night. But what a dive it was! My first night dive was during a dive safari to the Similan Islands; on the briefing before it, we were told "Maximum 30 minutes, no deeper than 8 meters, and back" and I thought it would be the same here. How surprised I was when, starting the dive, we immediately dropped to 21 meters. Pitch darkness, new buddy partners from whom I didn't know what to expect yet. In the first few minutes, I even experienced something like panic a few times, but everything went well. We spent 50 minutes underwater, with adventures like my buddy's flashlight failing, feeding a Giant Grouper (add link to database) small fish that the divemaster stunned with a flashlight, almost getting mixed up with other divers who emerged towards us from a cloud of silt, and nearly missing the ascent line when finishing the dive. But tired and happy, everyone went home to sleep.

Southwest Pinnacle

By local standards, this is a very distant dive site. It took about 30 minutes to get there) It was very cool that our boat was the only one, practically a private site)

The dive site consists of seven large granite pinnacles arranged in a circle, as if built by a civilization from another era. It's an excellent dive site for advanced or specialty divers.

Under good conditions, this dive site is magnificent; however, due to its location in the open ocean, visibility can be unpredictable. That's exactly how it was during my dive. At the beginning of the dive, visibility was decent, and you could observe corals and fish, but when we went around a corner, a cloud of silt enveloped us. Then, swimming around the next pinnacle, visibility returned. And so it repeated several times)

On the walls of the rocks, you can find a huge variety of corals and marine fish. Lots of yellowtail barracudas, spotted rays, clownfish, and others.

And at the end of the dive, on top of the main pinnacle, we stumbled upon a huge school of Yellowtail Scad (Atule), being chased by about 20 Giant Trevallies. It was something amazing. Somewhat reminiscent of Richelieu Rock, but on a compact scale. The fish circled around the pinnacle, a huge moving mass. Incredible impressions.

HTMS Sattakut

Next was the sunken American WWII ship. But it didn't sink because it was hit, but because they decided making a dive site was better than returning it. Well, something like that, I'll read more about it later and write. The ship was cool, although quite crowded and visibility wasn't great. Definitely want to come back and see it with good visibility. Impressive and mystical.

HTMS Sattakut is a former US Navy ship launched in 1944 and sunk in June 2011 off Koh Tao island to create an artificial reef. Before this, the ship was cleaned of toxins and hazardous materials, allowing for the creation of a safe environment for divers and marine life.

Although not the largest ship, HTMS Sattakut is nevertheless one of the popular dive sites near the island. The ship is 48 meters long and rests at a depth of about 30 meters in very good condition.

There are two guns mounted on the ship. The one on the bow has information about when, where, and by whom the ship was built. Beneath this gun is a penetration point intended only for certified wreck divers. Descending the stairs leads you into the forward cabin. Under the second gun is another penetration point for divers.

Numerous marine inhabitants live on the wreck, including giant groupers, yellowtail barracudas, snappers, fusiliers, blennies, morays, and eels.

Hang Yuan Drop

We were supposed to go diving again at the Japanese Garden dive site, but when our boat arrived at the location, we saw many other boats already there. So we decided to head towards the nearby, less visited dive site, Hang Yuan Drop. It's so rarely visited that there isn't even a map for it =)

This is a fairly easy dive site, where we swam along the island's shore the whole time, observing the local fauna representatives. As usual, many parrotfish were spotted, various types of corals (I'll start learning and distinguishing them someday), lots of Triggerfish which we tried to keep our distance from.

Twins

Twins is one of the most visited dive sites on Koh Tao. Located west of Koh Nang Yuan island, it includes two main pinnacles situated at depths from 5 to 18 meters, with a third located deeper and further west.

It's unclear why the dive site got its name, whether from the two main underwater rocks or from the two peaks of Koh Nang Yuan island overlooking the dive site.

Groupers, clownfish, rays, parrotfish, and many other inhabitants of the Andaman Sea live here.

Twins Pinnacles are easy to navigate: all three peaks are located along an east-west axis. Therefore, the route depends on where the boat stops.

Conclusion

With that, my vacation on Koh Tao came to an end. Then there was the long journey back to Phuket, but that's another story.

The island is truly made for those who love diving. I don't know what other people do here; local instructors fully supported me in this view. Students come here to sunbathe on the beaches, but there are no parties and madness like on the nearby islands. You can go hiking on two routes through the jungle to viewpoints, but that's about it. But life revolves around diving. Although the service above water isn't like in Phuket and other places (according to other divers), underwater, everything is top-notch.

I dived with three different centers, plus observed how others work. Everyone I was with was very engaged. It seemed that diving was their top priority. I didn't see anyone trying to sell photos or push a course. Although perhaps the salespeople in the dive centers do that, but since I came in saying exactly what I needed, they didn't try to sell anything else. In any case, everyone I saw, instructors, divemasters, were fully committed to their work and tried to show everything possible and spend as much time underwater as possible.

I will definitely return to this island and spend more time there to see all the dive sites.