Koh Tao located in the Gulf Coast of Thailand, it’s the smallest island of the Chumphon Archipelago, next to Koh Phangan and Koh Samui. The island’s natural beauty both above and below the water, with its stunning coral reefs and abundant marine life, attracts visitors year round.

Koh Tao is one of the best scuba diving destination in South East Asia. It’s also one of the cheapest to complete dive certifications in the world. In short it’s a backpackers paradise and also for people who love a bit of luxury, you have a few high end resorts as well.

We stayed on this island near shark bay for 5 nights and did a few dives around the island. This island keeps you engaged anytime with it’s pristine white sandy beaches, lively corals and marine life, of course the vibrant night life on the Sairee beach.

I went looking for dive shops to do my dives next day. Almost every dive shop here closes around 5-6 pm.  Since we arrived a little late in the afternoon and by the time i went, many were already closed. Somehow, I contacted over the phone and signed up with Nova divers for my refresher course next day.

Although in many other places they take you quickly to the ocean, do your skills and start with your dives but here in Koh Tao all the dive shops asked me to skip the morning dives and take up my refresher course, only then do the fun dives. In safety terms, yeah agree with them 100%.

My instructor was there on time and we started with the course. It was beautifully located dive school just next to the bay.  After an hour of theory and discussion on skills we got our gears ready.  A vehicle was waiting for us, loaded everything on the vehicle and went to the dive site called ” Tanote Bay”, although it was shore dive it had lot to offer.

Tanote Bay is located on the east coast of Koh Tao. It is surrounded by verdant high hills and large boulders, including one in the middle of the bay from where you can do a cliff jump. Lot of marine life and lovely corals to look for, also a small wreck can be found towards end of the bay.

Our bottom time was about 50 mins in the water and half the time we spent on skill correction. With lot of colorful fishes in small schools and corals, it was a very relaxing dive.

With hundreds of beach cafes around, it’s always nice to relax in one of them after your dives.  Love Koh Tao is one beautiful located cafe on top of a mountain overlooking the Tanote Bay. One can sit there for hours together just looking at the view from the top.

In the evening Sairee beach lights up with lot of fire dances happening in many of the cafes/restaurants. You can hop from one to another until you get bored. They keep you engaged by inviting you to perform with them. Lotus cafe was one of the best on the  Sairee beach.

Small lanes start with some live music and food stalls open up, Suddenly the whole island becomes energetic. One can bump into random travelers here and share some travel stories.

My dive sites next morning was White Rock and then PV wreck. It was slightly cold morning and sun wasn’t shining yet. We were there at the jetty by 6.45 am. After briefing by the boat captain, we started from jetty to the dive site. It was 7.40 am slightly overcast, not a great conditions to dive initially but things cleared up a little once the Sun was out and we were able to see quite a lot of interesting stuff including a huge school of Barracuda. Back on the boat we had divers from Thailand doing OW course and some dive masters as well. Had a good chat about the dive sites with them during the surface time before going to the next dive.

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PV wreck was the next dive site, it was a deep dive. And the visibility wasn’t great as well, we went around the wreck and felt comfortable now after doing couple of dives and got the rhythm back. My luck with Barracuda school continued here as well, followed by a huge grouper fish hovering between the rocks. Blue spotted sting rays, Barracuda, grouper, lion, bat, trigger fish and many more.

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Same day did the night dive with Buddha view Divers. They are located at Montalay Restort on the popular beach of Tanote Bay, highly recommended dive school to do your dives in Koh Tao. It was again a nice dive with lot of shrimps shinning and bioluminescent blue spark lights everywhere, of course saw a turtle sleeping, octopus on the move, eerls, scorpion fish, puffer fish and many more. Best part about any night dives is always after your dives while floating on the ocean, you see the beautifully lit up clear skies with thousands of stars.

Did a few more dives on the following days in different dive sites and overall it was an amazing experience after a long gap in diving.

We visited a few places across the island and some of them were just amazing. One needs to be little experienced when it comes to driving in Koh Tao as the roads are steep and bumpy.