BLUE MARLIN DIVERS KOH TAO
Scuba Diving on Koh Tao with Blue Marlin Divers , Koh Tao, Surat Thani, Thailand. Tel : +66 7745 6823
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A brand new Dive Center has opened it's doors on Koh Tao, in the Gulf of Thailand.

Blue Marlin Divers welcomes all Scuba Divers and everybody who wants to get wet and try scuba diving in the warm waters of Koh Tao. Blue Marlin Diving Koh Tao, Thailand is open all the year around. Learn to dive in the tropical water of Koh Tao. Gain your first diving experience in one of the most famous dive spots of the world.

Experienced Scuba Diving Instructors will teach you this popular sport in many different languages.
Blue Marlin Divers are qualified to certify scuba diving licenses for PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) and SSI (Scuba Schools International). These Scuba Diving Certifications are valid all over the planet.

New courses start on daily bases. All scuba diving courses are tailored to fit your holiday plans and our schedules will leave you plenty of time to enjoy the wonderful white beaches and coconut palm trees of Koh Tao. Diving is not the only thing you can do on Koh Tao but by far the most popular. Activities on Turtle Island reach from Bowling over Mini golf to Paint ball or Quad Trekking. Rock Climbing, Thai Cooking- or Thai Massage Courses and much more. Have a look around in our website to find all the information you need. If you have a question, please don't hesitate to ask us.

If you are already certified as a scuba diver, join us on a dive with real Sharks. Work with us on the Chumphon Pinnacle Shark Project and help us to obtain more valuable information on those great creatures of the sea.

Welcome to Blue Marlin Diving Koh Tao Thailand
The newly opened dive center of Blue Marlin Divers is located in the heart of Mae Haad right in the middle between the Songserm Express Boat Pier and the Lomprayah Pier.

The Blue Marlin Dive Shop is the right place to go if you are looking for a Mask and Snorkel or a pair of fins to explore the coral reefs of Turtle Island. If your desires are deeper, we can also provide you with all kinds of scuba diving equipment. whether you need a BCD (buoyancy control device or simply 'Jacket') a regulator, a compass or a dive computer.
The Prices you'll find at Blue Marlin are within the lowest on the island. It's always worth the while to come along for a chat and compare the prices. Our friendly and competent staff will assist you with any question you might have.

If you haven't been scuba diving yet you might want to have a look at our DSD (Discover Scuba Diving) program where you can explore the underwater world without going through a whole scuba diving course. To discover the world of scuba diving, all you need is a morning or afternoon. You will be instructed and guided by one of our diving instructors or dive masters who will take especially care for you while you can fully enjoy the wonders of the under water world of Koh Tao.

If you have some more time though and you still haven't been diving yet; we strongly recommend to make your scuba diving course on Ko Tao. The course prices on Turtle Island are well within the cheapest around the globe. With less than 10'000 Thai Baht ( around 300 $US or 230 Euro) you will get the full PADI Open Water Diving Course on Koh Tao. But Blue Marlin Divers do not only teach PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) courses, but also SSI (Scuba Schools International) diving courses. With SSI the Open Water Diving Course will only cost you about 210 Euro. Click here to register for a scuba diving course

Now when you go under water, there are other things to consider but the course cost alone. What about the diving equipment? Submerged on 18 meter below, you don't want anything to go wrong, sure. Since we are a young company we sure have brand new scuba diving equipment of the world best brands like ScubaPro, SeakoDive, Mares, SeaQuest and Technisub. Our equipment is regulary serviced and will be sold second hand after one year to keep the quality and standards as high as possible.

Koh Tao Diving Course at Blue Marlin Divers
More and more people are drawn into the beauty of the underwater environment, especially now that we can go and undertake our explorations to a hundred feet - 30 meters and deeper below the surface. We therefore need the help of scuba diving gear. Scuba means "self contained underwater breathing apparatus”. If you are looking for an ultimate adventure than scuba diving may be your option.

Scuba Diving and Pressure

However, before you excitedly jump in the water, keep in mind that scuba diving, without proper education, poses some hazards.

The most common hazards are pressure related injuries, such as decompression sickness, illness or air embolism. To avoid these injuries, you must be able to calculate how long you can safely stay underwater. You also need to know the proper descent and ascent rates. Your diving instructor will teach you how to use a PADI diving table and how to calculate your dive time all by yourself. Don't worry it's not half as complicated as it may sound.

Scuba Diving Equipment
Since we are not able to breathe under water, scuba divers depend on their dive gear such as a buoyancy control device - Jacket or BCD - , a dive tank and a regulator to control the air flow, fins to swim faster and a diving mask, so we can see clearly under water. In most regions it is also good to have a wetsuit that to keep the diver warm over a period of time. Most dives will be 40 minutes to 1 hour long and even in warm tropical water it gets cold after a while. Wetsuits are available in many different shapes and thickness. Starting from a tropical 1mm suit to 3, 5 or 7 mm wetsuits. In very cold water, divers even use dry suits and wear clothes underneath. You will learn all about scuba diving equipment, how to handle and maintain it, in your PADI Open Water Course.

Scuba Divers and Aquatic Life
Most aquatic animals don't pose any risks to divers. In fact, a diver may be a rather a threat to them. For example, some coral can be killed by just one touch. However, there are also a few marine life forms that may injure a diver. The most common include jellyfishes, stinging corals, fire corals, and sea urchins and crown of thorns. Sharks and poisonous sea animals can also injure divers if they behave in an improper way. Animal attacks on scuba divers are very rare though. In general you could say that animals attack divers only when they are provoked.

The number of unprovoked shark attacks is very low for a number of reasons. First of all we dive in very clear water, don't thrash around much at the surface like swimmers and surfers do, so we don't look like pray to the sharks, and we dive in groups, make lots of bubbles and scare the potential aggressors off. We could only find one single event in the International Shark Attack File (ISAF) records, in Thailand (unconfirmed). That was in the year 2000.

Scuba diving, being a visual underwater experience, doesn't include altering the underwater habitat. Divers shouldn't touch anything, be it a plant, animal or an object underwater.
An empty shell might be the home of a hermit crab or even a tin can could be the breading spot of a fish. Always remember that we are just visitors in this beautiful environment. Ask your diving instructor for books and information. We have many fish books and movies that you can borrow if you are interested to learn more about the underwater world.

Flying under Water
You might ask yourself; how does it feel to be submerged 60 feet under water? The answer is easy. Just about like weightlessly flying in space! You will learn to sit freely underwater without moving up or down. You will learn that you can breath underwater as normal as you can breath on the surface.You will than learn to keep your buoyancy so perfect that you can control your ascent or descent solely by your breathing. Once you have finished your PADI Open Water Scuba Diving Course at Blue Marlin Divers, you will get certified by your diving instructor and will be able to enjoy the underwater world anywhere on the planet.

Continuing Education
If you feel that you haven't had enough, there is always the possibility to take your education a step further. With an additional five course dives you can get certified as an Advanced Open Water Diver (AOWD). In this diving course you will learn to improve your buoyancy and other skills and you will learn new aspects of scuba diving. Only two of the five parts of the AOWD are mandatory, navigation, where you will learn to navigate with a compass and by using natural signs under water, and deep diving. On the deep dive you will expand your depth limit from 18 meters (OWD) to 30 meters. Ask your scuba diving instructor about the possibilities for the remaining three course parts. He will best be able to advice you in what will be best for you.

Koh Tao Diving Courses - The Dive Boat

Scuba Diving Koh Tao Thailand
Since there is only limited shore diving on Koh Tao, all dive operators work on dive boats. This avoids crashing and damaging the precious coral reefs, that made Koh Tao so famous. Most of the diving boats on Koh Tao are former fishing boats. The boats have been re-designed to fit the new purpose. All dive sites around the island have mooring lines and buoyes so the boats wont have to use ankers on the site.

The dive boat of Blue Marlin Divers makes no exception here. The boat was used for fishing before and now serves a much nicer purpose. The Blue Marlin boat is by far not the biggest on Koh Tao but therefor it fits our dive shop policy of small diving groups in both course and fun dives. Small groups and fewer divers on a dive boat not only makes our fellow divers happy but also helps to protect the reefs. Big groups coming from crowded dive boats are likely to produce more direct impact to a coral reef than smaller well guided groups of scuba divers. And who want's to be on a dive boat with fifty other divers anyway?

Blue Marlin Diving Koh Tao is a new dive shop with a strong environmental background. We engage in Marine Projects on the island such as artificial reef building and cleaning up dive sites from unwanted debrie. We also try to tell our scuba diving enthusiasts and diving course participants about the marine life and how things work together under water. We try not to disturb the fragile underwaterworld but behave as what we are; visitors and guests to a fascinating new world.

With this little picture gallery we would like to introduce the Blue Marlin 1. The Boat easily accomodates 15 scuba divers plus staff and has enough room for everybody. We serve fresh fruits, soups, coffee, tea and cookies in the surface intervall. We also provide lots of water and electrolytes during the dive trips to avoid dehydration. as you sure know, you need to drink a lot in a tropical environment and scuba diving takes an extra amount of liquid out of ones body that needs to be replaced.

The Blue Marlin 2, our "big boat" is used manly for Excursions to the Ang Thong Marine Park. Blue Marlin Divers offers weekly trips to Sailrock, the most famous dive site in the Gulf of Thailand, and the Ang Thong National Park where we stay over night.

Koh Tao Resorts, Hotels and Accommodation

Koh Tao Accommodation - Save Bungalows

Blue Marlin Divers is a scuba diving company, concentrating mainly on fun diving and diving courses. That doesn't mean that we don't care where our customer stay. We simply do not have bungalows of our own. We are working closely with some of the best resorts on Koh Tao though and our partner resorts will take care of your comfort and well being.

Save Bungalows is one of the resorts near by the dive shop and offers rooms and bungalows in a range of 400 to 1'500 Baht. the bungalows are either wooden or stone made. depending on the comfort you require, you can get a simple wooden bungalow for 400 Baht or stay in one of the bigger rooms with Air Condition, Satellite TV and Refrigerator. Air-con accomodation at Safe bungalows start at 800 Baht per night.

If you deside to make an open water diving course at Blue Marlin Divers, we offer a 200 Baht discount per night on your accomodation during your diving course.

Save Bungalows is located directly in Mae Haad, layed back at the end of the small town and very quiet. No trafic, no noise and very clean. The resort has a restaurant that serves Thai and Western food.

Koh Tao Garden Resort

Blue Marlin Divers is a Scuba Diving Company, concentrating mainly on fun diving and diving courses. That doesn't mean that we don't care where our customer stay. We simply do not have bungalows of our own. We are working closely with some of the best resorts on Koh Tao though and our partner resorts will take care of your comfort and well being.

If you deside to make an open water diving course at Blue Marlin Divers, we offer a 200 Baht discount per night on your accomodation during your diving course.

Koh Tao Garden Bungalows is also located directly in Mae Haad. The resort is a bit nearer towards the center of Mae Haad. Still layed back and very quiet. No trafic, no noise here either. The resort has a snack bar at the shopping street that serves Thai and Western food.

Mue Koh Ang Thong National Park
The one thing you shouldn't miss out on, if you have been on Koh Tao, is a boat trip to the Ang Thong Marine National Park. No matter if you are scuba diving or just planing on snorkeling, this is the place you have to see. Long withe, sandy beaches and nobody there. This is the place where the story of "The Beach" really took place. Leonardo di caprio has probably never seen this place himself, since he has been working in the Andaman Sea at Phi Phi Island.

The Angthong National Park was established on 12th November 1980. Koh Ang Thong is an archipelago in the Gulf of Thailand. More than 40 separate islands are spread like green perls in the blue sea. The main islands are Phaluai, Wua Ta Lap, Mae Koh, Sam Sao, Koh Hin Dap, Nai Phut and Koh Phai Luak. The islands belong to the Ang Thong District, of Amphur Samui, in the Province Suratthani.. The national park covers a total area of aprox. 100 sq.km of which about only 18 sq.km is dry land. Most of the islands consist of limestone mountains from 10 to 400 meters above sea level. The National park does not enclose the entire island chain, its jurisdiction covers only 82% of the total area.

There is a considerable amount of wildlife inhabiting the islands including the asian long-tailed monkey (langur), hair-nosed otters, pacific reef egrets, white-bellied sea eagles, ashy drongos, tortoises, sea turtles, lizards, common sandpiper, edible nest swiflet, oriental pied hornbill, southern pied hornbill, and pythons.The surrounding sea is also the major spawning ground for the short-bodied mackerel, a tasty Thai delicacy. Snorkelling, walking, exploring caves, swimming and ocasionally scuba diving are the most poular attractions of the region.

The best time to visit this archipelago is late March to October when visibility is at its best. Get a few friends together and charter a boat so that you can explore the marvels of the 'Golden Basin' in your own time.On the larger islands with areas of undisturbed forest many species of animals are present. Collared kingfisher, Monitor lizards, Tortoises, Sea Turtles and King Pythons.

The area of the Gulf of Siam where the islands are located is at a maximum 10 - 12 meters depth. The water is greatly influenced by turbid river waters from the mainland, the river water does not encounter deep water which will reduce its velocity and allow carried sediment to settle.
The water around the islands is thus fairly turbid all year round. The coral development on the islands is not extensive and is restricted to a narrow band encircling each island close to the shore, especially on the southwestern and northeastern sides.

The North-Western side of the islands is the area most influenced by the monsoon. At sheltered spots you will see young corals development especially elephants tusk coral, brain coral, stagshorn coral. In deeper water you'll find plate corals of the genus Pavona and flower corals of the genus Goniopora. Animals found inhabiting these reefs include; Butterflyfish, Angelfish, Parrotfish, Stingrays, Black Tip Sharks, many kinds of Groupers, Seahorses and more.

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