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Experience……. We
employ only qualified PADI Instructors and Dive
masters speaking a variety of languages: English,
German, Swedish, Dutch, German, Danish, Norwegian,
French, Chinese and Thai. Many of our staff have
worked on Koh Tao for several years and have logged
hundreds of dives around Koh Tao.
Location
Located…….at
the far end of the main town of “Mae Haad” the
center of the beautiful tropical Island Koh Tao.
With a private beach right in front of the resort
and the Blue Diamond Restaurant located beside
the resort has a unique atmosphere. Surrounded
by the warm waters of the Gulf of Thailand. This
magical part of the world attracts people from
all over the globe.
Koh Tao
Koh Tao,
little more than 21 km?, is located about 70 km
east of the coastline between Suratthani and Chumphon,
in the Gulf of Thailand. Koh Tao means Turtle
Island, because in the past the waters in the
area had been rich with sea turtles, nowadays
they have mostly moved on to other breeding grounds.
Initially the island was not inhabited, there
was only the occasional fisherman from the neighbouring
islands, looking for shelter in a storm or just
taking a break before continuing his tiresome
journey. On June 18, 1899, His Majesty the King
Chulalongkorn (Rama V 1868-1910) visited Koh Tao
and left as evidence his monogram on a huge boulder
at Jor Por Ror Bay next to Sairee Beach. This
place is worshipped even today and should be treated
with respect.
From 1933
on the island was used as a political prison.
In 1947, Khun A-Paiwong, prime minister at the
time, pleaded and received a royal pardon for
all prisoners on the island. Everybody was taken
to the Suratthani shore and the "Turtle"
was abandoned again. But not for long. In the
same year Khun Ueam and his twin brother Khun
Oh reached Koh Tao from the neighbouring Koh Phangan
by trying out their traditional sail boat, for
that time a quite long and dangerous journey.
Even though the island was still under royal patronage,
it didn’t stop these pioneers claiming themselves
a good piece of land on today's Sairee Beach.
Having brought their families over, they began
to cultivate and harvest the excellent soil. The
first generation of today's community had settled!
They lived
a very simple and tough life harvesting coconuts,
fishing and growing vegetables, which were also
traded with Koh Phangan. Despite the difficulties
in reaching the island, the population then grew
steadily.
How
to get there
Plane
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Bangkok
Air provides a comprehensive choice of destinations
and routes all across Thailand.
These include:
- Bangkok
- Suratthani
- Koh
Samui
- Phuket
www.bangkokair.com
, www.thaiairways.co.th
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Train
The Thai
State Railway provides an excellent service to
almost every destination in Thailand.
Their overnight
sleeper trains are an excellent and comfortable
way to cover long distances.
www.railway.co.th
Bus
Getting here
by bus is one of the cheapest and easiest ways
to get to Koh Tao.
Bangkok
to Koh Tao - Direct
The Lomprayah company offers an excellent bus
and boat combo ticket - taking you direct from
Bangkok to Koh Tao quickly and in comfort. Their
buses have reclining seats, air conditioning,
toilets and on board movies.
Travel from
almost any other part of Thailand is also extremely
easy with a wide choice of times and routes.
www.lomprayah.com
www.seatrandiscovery.com
Boat
Chumporn
The closest link to Koh Tao on the mainland. Boats
leave for Koh Tao daily between 07:00 and 07:30.
Suratthani
Day boat at 08:00. Night boat leaves 23:00.
Koh Samui
Boats leave Koh Samui between 08:00 and 9:30 in
the morning. Peak season has other services leaving
at 11:00 and 12:30.
Koh Phangan
Boats leave Koh Phangan daily between 08:30 and
09:30. Later services leave from 11:30 to 13:00.
www.lomprayah.com
www.seatrandiscovery.com
Facilities
Restaurant
The
Blue Diamond Restaurant provides the best in delicious
Thai and International food which can be enjoyed
on our terrace during the day time or while watch
an unforgettable sunset on the beach.
Nightlife
The Turtle,
usually rather relaxed can get surprisingly energetic
after sunset and if you like to party all night
in a gorgeous surrounding, you've come to the
perfect place. The Turtle celebrates life every
day. Most of the bars & dance spots are right
on the beach, some on mountain tops. They impress
with stylish,retro- modern or colourful, ethnic
design. The owners are very creative & staff
is extremely friendly. Drink prices are moderate
& don't forget to check out the wicked buckets.
Professional DJ's from all over the world spin
their best and the freshest sounds are guaranteed.
Theme & retro parties with selfmade costumes
& silly games are very popular, mostly getting
everybody involved. Amazing fire jugglers perform
amidst stunning sand sculptures. Well designed
flyers all around keep you up to date. The happy
crowd never gets tired & basically there is
a cool party somewhere every night; no matter
what moon is up. Pancake & fried chicken vendors
will keep you stuffed and there are plenty of
taxis around to get you home safely. Warm-up for
the parties at sunset beach bars or stylish cocktail
lounges with chilled tunes or music theme nights.
For the more low-key clientele there's plenty
of pubs with rock/pop music, showing live sports
on huge screens, pool tables, live music &
a wide range of draught beers . A turtle style
bowling and mini golf invites day and night. Most
restaurants have a daily changing movie program.
Recommended
Night Spots
SAIREE
VIEW - Resort & Restaurant - Sairee
hilltop Lush tropical garden resort with spectacular
panoramic sunsets. Deck restaurant serving Thai
food. Real whale skeleton on display. Monthly
parties announced by flyers.
AC
- PARTY PUB - Sairee Beach - southend
Koh Tao's original night spot, bringing you wild
party nights every Tues-, Thurs- & Sunday,
big screen live sports, pool competitions, happy
hours till midnight, open daily
LOTUS
BAR - Beach Bar - Sairee Beach - northend
Atmospheric beach bar with happy, funky vibes,
fire shows & refreshing cocktails. Beach parties
every Monday, Open Mic on Thursday. 50B Happy
hours from 16h -19h.
DIRTY
NELLY - Irish Pub - Mae Haad Square
A classy setup with pool table & beergarden
showing live sports on a 3x4m screen, 6 draught
beers, pub grub, buffets, live music, friendly
atmosphere, Irish managment.
DRAGON
BAR - Cocktail Bar - Mae Haad - pier
road Straight out of a Bruce Lee flick. Oriental
retro fused with tribal. Excellent cocktails,
pool & arena lounge, jazz/dub early; hiphop/indy/electro
late, theme parties. 18h - 2h; HH 18h - 20h
MAYA
BAR - Sairee Beach - southend
Comfortable, relaxed open air cocktail lounge
in a ethnic, rustic, creative styling, chilled
tunes at sunset, guest dj's welcome, massive parties
Monday & Friday. early - late
SAFETY
STOP PUB - Mae Haad - beach front at
Seatran pier
Comfortable, spacious pub with tropical beer garden.
Draught beers, international menu with English
specialities. Weekend BBQ's Sunday roasts. Live
sports. 7h - late
TATTOO
BAR & GRILL - Western, Thai, Indian
- Mae Haad
Beautiful beach front beergarden with pool table,
BBQs & sunset view. Colossal burgers, homemade
meat pies & sausages. Fantastic music selection.
Guestrooms available.
FIZZ
BEACH LOUNGE - north Sairee (at former
Dry Bar) Trendy, cool and cosy beachfront venue
that serves tasty soul food, delightful drinks
and fresh, funky sounds. Check posters for special
events; open 17h - 1h, kitchen 18h - 23h
Scuba
Diving
PADI
System of education
The PADI
system of diver education allows anyone from the
age of 8 to experience the thrills of the underwater
world. Diving allows your a degree of freedom
and weightlessness that is normally only experienced
by astronauts.
Most people
begin their diving education with the PADI system,
the PADI Open Water Course. This takes three to
four days depending on where you learn and qualifies
you to drive to 18m with any other similarly qualified
diver.
If you don't
have three or four days to learn then you can
gain the Scuba Diver qualification in just two
days and extend it to the Open Water Diver Course
when you have time.
If you are
unsure about whether you want to learn to dive
then you have the option to do an introductory
dive, Discover Scuba Diving, under the supervision
of a qualified PADI instructor. This will allow
you to experience the feel of diving without committing
to a course.
All PADI
courses have professional educational materials
available to help you learn and retain the knowledge
for your future enjoyment and safety. We cannot
emphasis strongly enough about how important it
is to own your own personal copies of the course
material.
The PADI
dive schools, dive centers and resorts will often
loan you a copy of your course material but this
is far from ideal as you cannot reference relevant
notes or important information on completion of
your studies. Unless your dive regularly it is
unlikely that you'll remember all that you've
been taught, highlighting the need for your own
reference guides. Before your next dive, take
a few minutes with your personal manual to review
the key points before returning to the underwater
world.
Diving
Courses
PADI
Scuba Review
PADI recommend
this "diving tune-up" after more than
6 months of no diving. It certainly is necessary
after much longer periods or if you're feeling
a little out of touch. We will go through your
basic dive theory, check & refine your SCUBA
skills and then do some fun diving with you too
PADI
Discover SCUBA Diving
For people
without the time for a full course or who want
to check it out first, we are happy to give you
a real taste of diving. It's a strictly shallow
dive, starting in water "deep enough to stand
up", after a thorough briefing on safety
rules, techniques and equipment. We usually specify
a maximum of 2 divers per PADI instructor. Your
dive can then be credited towards an Open Water
Diver course; please let us know if you are interested
in this option.
PADI
Open Water Diver
A full beginners
diving course, taking about 4 days and involving
theory sessions (DVD & personal teaching),
shallow water training and 4 actual dives. On
successful completion of the program you should
understand all the basics of safe diving and will
receive your log book plus PADI certification;
valid for life.
PADI
Advanced Open Water Diver
The next
level, featuring further training in underwater
navigation and deep diving, plus 3 other specialized
activities such as night diving, underwater naturalist,
photography, multilevel diving or dive with an
under water scooter. So you do 5 dives in total
over 2 to 3 days. Any of the advanced dives can
then be credited to the special course that might
take your fancy. You will finish the course a
more confident and experienced diver, with a further
card to prove it!
PADI
Emergency First Response
A one-day,
classroom based course on basic first aid, required
before you start your Rescue Diver program, although
proof of training (inc. CPR) with any recognized
first aid organization within the past 2 years
is also acceptable.
PADI
Rescue Diver
A more serious
(but definitely still fun) level of diving education.
Self rescue techniques, surface and underwater
problems, emergency management, actual rescue
scenarios and more are covered in theory lessons
and a minimum of 5 in-water training sessions
over at least 3 days. With this certification
you should be able to better care for a dive buddy
with problems, in addition to becoming more self-sufficient
& confident as a diver yourself.
PADI
Dive master
The first
level in the PADI professional programmer will
teach you how to care for certified divers and
assist in teaching situations. This should take
a minimum of 4 weeks (including as many dives
as it takes) as there's lots to do! In-depth (so
to speak) theory, lots of in-water work but, more
than anything else, learning how to help in the
running of a dive center; from filling tanks and
maintaining equipment, to caring for divers &
students, to handling potential customers and
dealing with paperwork. We are always interested
in teaching these courses, as we try to use only
dive masters taught by ourselves as staff here.
PADI
SpecialTraining
What's Special
in Diving for you? We've dived here for 15 years
& have compiled a full photo directory of
our local marine life, so join us for the Special
U/W Naturalist course or the U/W Photographer
course; we are experts. Have you ever dived with
the extra bottom time that enriched air (nitrox)
allows you, or do you want to dive deeper, but
with proper training first? Then we've got the
Special Enriched Air or Deep Diver courses. Basically
there's a program to meet most diver's special
interests & we're usually happy to teach it;
just let us know. (Only please don't ask for the
"u/w hunter" course, as we're doing
the little we can to try to preserve the underwater
world here!).
Fun
Diving with Blue Diamond
Dive Resort
We offer a choice of 25 different dive sites,
with two scheduled dives in the morning and two
dives in the afternoon, and night dives on the
customer requests. The morning dives leave at
7.30 am and the afternoon dives leave at 12.30
pm. If you have not been diving for long time
(usually over 6 months), we will need you do a
scuba refreshment to make sure you are comfortable
and ready for the first time when you get back
in the water, you will need to refresh your basic
knowledge and skills. Scuba review consists of
a theory refresher, skills work (to make sure
you are still familiar with all the equipment
and how it all works). All fun dives are lead
by a Dive Master to give you the chance to see
as greater a diversity of marine life as possible.
Special
Trip
Sunrise
Divers
Sunrise Divers leave at 5.30 am in the morning
arriving at dive sites (Chumphon Pinnacle) as
sun rises. You can enjoy calm water conditions,
great visibility and dive away from the crowds
of day time divers. Marine species not seen often
during the day are quite active in the soft dusk
light. At these sites you can see Whale Shark,
Gray Reef Sharks and Leopard Sharks and many others.
Sail
Rock
The Best Dive Sites in the Gulf of Thailand (near
Koh Phangan). Sail Rock is not a site we are able
to dive everyday, but we can usually arrange a
trip out on request. This is a popular trip. We
leave from Koh Tao at 6.00 pm include 2 dives,
diving equipment, breakfast and lunch.
Live Aboard
Northern
and Southern Andaman Sea
Destinations available :
- Similan
Islands
- Bon Islands
- Tachai
Islands
- Richelieu
Rock
- Surin
Islands
- Phi Phi
Islands
- Ha Yai
Islands
- Red Rock
and Purple Rock
- Eight
Mile Rock
Please
contact us for booking options or for further
information about any of our service.
Boat
The new Blue
Diamond Dive Resort boat measures 18 x 5 meters
with a sundeck for your relaxation between divers.
There is plenty of space for our customers and
equipment. Free fruits, snacks and refreshment
are always available. In addition, we offer snorkel
equipment for our non-diving customers. The Blue
Diamond Dive Resort boat is specifically designed
to meet all of your needs. Safe diving is always
supervised by our experienced staff, ensuring
high standard, easy access to your equipment,
easy entry and exits from the water and of course,
lot of fun.
Equipment
Experienced
diving Instructors and brand new top of line equipment
will ensure your comfort and safety on every dive.
Padi dive courses are available from beginner
through professional level. Specialty equipment
like underwater cameras and underwater scooters
are also available.
Safety……….
One of the most important points for you and for
us. All of our dive equipment is brand new and
serviced regularly, and all dives are planned
to be well within the recommended limits. We have
full safety equipment at our resort and onboard
our dive boat, including comprehensive medical
hits and oxygen hits, providing 100% oxygen in
the unlikely event of an emergency.
We offer……
a choice of over 25 different dive sites, with
two scheduled dives in the morning and two dives
in the afternoon, and night dives at the customers
request. Or maybe you want to learn to dive? We
also provide the full range of PADI dive courses
form beginner to the professional level. In addition
we offer snorkel tours around the Island and Kayaks
are available for your entertainment. And a final
small point- to save our customers the hassle
of carrying heavy dive equipment with them, full
dive equipment is included in all our prices.
Exploring
Dive Sites
The waters around Koh Tao are warm, clear and
full of interesting sea life. This makes the area
ideal for diving and snorkeling trips, and in
recent years the small island scattered in the
sea around Koh Tao have become increasingly popular
with underwater adventurers from all over the
world. There are several Dive schools based on
Koh Tao and below is a list of the sites they
regularly visit on dive expeditions.
Gallery
Accommodation
Garden
View Bungalow
Fan
or A/C with Hotshower , T.V. , Refridegerator
(Double bed)
Garden
View Family Bungalow
Fan
or A/C with Hotshower , T.V. , Refridegerator
(Double+Single bed)
Seaview
Room
Fan
or A/C with Hotshower , T.V. , Refridegerator
(Double bed)
Seaview
Room
Fan
with Shower (Double bed) or ( 2 Single bed)
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