At Sairee Cottage Diving, the month of March is synonymous with celebration, as in St. Patrick’s Day celebration. Thanks to Trevor, our Irish dive shop owner, we couldn’t wait for the big day to arrive. And celebrate we did, along with the rest of the island. It was a great day filled with face paint (you had to have a green shamrock painted somewhere on your body), friends – old and new, Irish music and dancing, and general merriment.

Diving in March was fantastic! The conditions continued to improve, and we were so grateful that the weather was cooperating! There is nothing more fun than seeing the sun shine through the water! Whalesharks were out and about this month. Woohoo! Paddy and his group of fun divers saw spotted a Whaleshark and a Cobia at Shark Island. (They were the only group to see the Whaleshark, much to Chris’ dismay). The shipwreck, Sattukut 742, is blooming with life. Sometimes, you can’t even see the wreck through the fish. A new school of juvenile Yellowtail Barracuda have been visiting the wreck, and Rachel and her group of fun divers found a miniscule Flatworm hanging out near the gun on the bow.

Congratulations to Peter and Ingrid! They finished their PADI divemaster course with Stefan. We are so very proud of them! We can also count among our ranks a Muay Thai champion. Andy, one of our DMTs, and Jake, one of his mates, fought on March 23rd. Sairee Cottage basically took over the Muay Thai stadium that night. Jake knocked out his opponent, and Andy bravely fought for 3 rounds with a broken toe before dominating his opponent. Unfortunately, he now has to stay out of the water for a couple of weeks while his toe heals. Warriors!

We have been hearing rumors that one of our DMT graduates, Sam, might be coming back for a visit sometime in April. Fingers crossed! Mira, who completed her DM course with us a couple of years ago, came back to Koh Tao for a holiday. It was lovely to meet her and go diving with her! And unfortunately, this month we are saying good-bye to Danny, one of our full time instructors. While we are sad that he is leaving us, we wish him all the best with his new venture working for SSI.

Visit our Facebook page to see what we have been up to. We would love to hear from y’all! Before we send you on your way, here’s Irish blessing from us to you:

For each petal on the shamrock
This brings a wish your way -
Good health, good luck, and happiness
For today and every day.
-Author Unknown

Here at Sairee Cottage Diving, we celebrated the Leap Year with pizzazz!! The sun is blazing hot in Koh Tao during February, so we have definitely been using our air condition in the dive shop and in our new classrooms. With High Season in full gear, heaps of travelers have visited Koh Tao, which means that our dive shop has been very lively and full of smiling faces because diving was so great during the whole month!

Our team of diving instructors was super busy teaching PADI and SSI diving courses (Open Water, Advanced, Deep and Nitrox Specialty courses, EFR/Stress and Rescue courses and new divemaster courses)! More importantly, we met some wickedly cool people from all over the world who came to Koh Tao to learn how to dive. We had guests from Slovenia, Slovakia, Estonia, and Serbia. Onca again, it was really cool to see how scuba diving unites people from all over the world.

New Divemasters in Koh Tao

This month, we added two more divemasters to the crew: Nikki and Victor. We are very excited to welcome them to the world of professional diving. And a huge congratulations goes out to Kirsten, or Shep, as we affectionately call her. She finished her PADI divemaster course this month and passed her ‘bucket’ test with flair! Stefan, Peter, and Ingrid have started teaching German to the rest of us non-German speakers; we, of course, have learned only the most important phases, e.g. I would like to order an alcoholic beverage and Let’s go diving!

Diving in Koh Tao

Diving around Koh Tao (or the Rock as we like to call it) is improving immensely. Rachel and her group of fun divers came across a GIGANTIC Great Barracuda in Buoyancy World at Twins. It literally was half the size of Rachel’s body, although every time she tells the story, the barracuda seems to get larger and larger! The Green Rock drop-off dive was stunning the last time Barry and Matt, his Advanced student, dove it.

[Sidenote: For all you nay-sayers, many grammatical experts accept that the word, ‘dove’, is a legitimate form for the past tense of the verb, ‘dive’. It is more commonly used in North America than by the British Commonwealth.]

…ANYWHO, Barry said that a school of Golden Trevallies took at least 8 minutes to swim by them; that’s a LOT of fish. The water was crystal clear with a deep blue tinge. Absolutely stunning! More recently, Paddy and his group of fun divers were ecstatic to see the Hawksbill Turtle at Red Rock while Sarah and her students saw some rare Nudy branches at the shipwreck, Sattakut 742.
 

Check out our Facebook page for the latest news and gossip about our dive sites and our dive team. We look forward to any comments y’all have! So feel free to send us some love!

Sairee Cottage Diving definitely started off this year with a bang! We met so many fantastic people this month. The weather even started to cooperate: the temperature is warming up, and you can see the beach in front of the restaurant in the afternoons! Ahh, life on a tropical island is wonderful!

Danny, Bear, Neil, Barry, Chris, and Laura taught so many great and enthusiastic divers! They completed loads of Open Water and Advanced courses as well as EFR/Stress & Rescue and Nitrox courses.

Our wonderful freelancers (Greg, Sarah, Nacho, and Gordon) also played a tremendous role this month and gained valuable teaching experience. Over the last two months, we ‘graduated’ 2 divemasters; Sam and Paddy. Although Sam went back to England, Paddy has decided to stay in Koh Tao. Congrats to them both! Moreover, we added 3 new team members to the shop: Stefan, an instructor, adds a new dimension as a native German speaker, and Peter, Ingrid, and Andy, are our 3 new divemasters. We are very excited to have them join our team!

We also want to wish Trevor, the dive shop owner, and Laura (or Yeah Mate, as we affectionately call her) a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! – Don’t worry though, we celebrated their days of birth with the appropriate amount of Koh Tao gusto!

Diving in Koh Tao just keeps getting better and better! The visibility is now consistently 10+ meters. The seas are flat, and the wind has died down, allowing us to visit dive sites on the other side of the island, such as Southwest Pinnacle and Hin Wong. Our divemasters are excited about the new Liver-Colored Moray Eel, which is hiding under a rock on the west side of the middle pinnacle at Twins and the Remora or Sharksucker, which is hanging out with the school of Chevron Barracuda in between the deep and middle pinnacle at Twins. Chumphon is blooming with sea life – Barracudas galore, massive schools of Fusiliers, Batfish, and giant Malabar Groupers. MOST IMPORTANTLY, Chris discovered a Moorish Idol (think Finding Nemo) on the coastline between Green Rock and Twins. Wicked!

The Sairee Cottage Restaurant is open (yeah!), and the pizza oven is getting plenty of use! Our staff has enjoyed many an evening sitting around the dive shop and enjoying the sunset. We hope to share our little slice of heaven with y’all sometime soon. For more up-to-date information about our dives and life at Sairee Cottage Diving, please visit our Facebook page. See y’all in February!

Some of our Divers in January

Goodbye 2011! And hello 2012! The last year has definitely been very kind to us over here at Sairee Cottage Diving in Koh Tao. We had such fun teaching our students, diving with our fun divers, and working with our try-divers! While we experienced a mild monsoon season in November, the weather in December turned out to be a bit unexpected. It was quite unpredictable – very windy and wavy and at times, the visibility was less than 5 meters while the water temperature hovered between 26 degrees C (brrrr!) and 27 degrees C.  However, conditions like these are what make us more experienced divers!

This month, we completed quite a number of diving courses;  Danny, Neil, Bear, Chris, and Barry finished several Open Water, Advanced, and Stress and Rescue courses. We definitely had some awesome groups of students – a lot of great characters, all of which made for some great videos and nights out! Feel free to visit our Facebook page and check out our December 2011 photos! Our freelancers (Nacho, Gordon, Sarah, and Greg) stepped in and helped around the dive shop as well.  Moreover, we had two more divemaster trainees join our team this year – Kirsten and Jon. Along with Sam and Paddy, we now have four DMTs!

Rest assured, the dive shop celebrated the holidays in style. The girls (Sarah, Laura, and Rachel) scoured the island for holiday decorations, and with Nanni’s help, they made the dive shop feel incredibly festive. Laura went home to Australia for the holidays, and we can’t wait for her to return! We also had several Irish friends visit Trevor; they kept us well entertained with their antics. Chris prepared an amazing Christmas dinner for us – turkey, ham, delicious vegetables, and a mouth-watering gravy. Needless to say, we didn’t leave too many leftovers!

Koh Tao Diving in December

While the visibility wasn’t spectacular, we still had some wonderful dives! We ventured to Tao Tong, which is a shallow little bay on the south end of the island. Within the first two times of diving there, we saw a Hawksbill turtle, White-eyed Moray eels, loads of Unicorn and Rabbit fish, and Fusiliers. We also stayed close to home and visited the ever faithful dive sites, White Rock and Twins. These spots never fail to surprise us with sea life: Harry Hotlips, Sixbar Angelfish, Teira and Orbicular Batfish, Dancing Shrimp, and loads of different types of Snappers and Monocle Breams.

Sairee Cottage Dive Shop News

While our restaurant is still under construction, we are looking forward to it opening in January 2012. The restaurant is starting to look very jazzy; we will have new furniture, new lighting and big comfy cushions – all of which you will be able to enjoy with stunning tropical sunsets and a delicious cocktail or two. Most importantly, we are all very EXCITED about the new pizza ovens, which should be in use by the beginning of February. All in all, 2011 has been a FABULOUS year, and we look forward to sharing our home with y’all in the new year! We here at Sairee Cottage Diving Koh Tao wish you all a

                                Happy New Year 2012!

November is the start of our low season here. Generally, it rains every day, so rain jackets are a must! Fortunately for us, this November was extremely enjoyable. While it did rain occasionally, the sun came out for several days at a time, and the visibility at the nearby dive sites was much better than expected. Lucky us! The dive shop was in full swing, and we had such a great time with our students! Laura and Chris were the full time instructors managing the shop. They received help from some of our freelancers, like Greg and Nacho, and the fun divers kept Rachel very busy. We taught several open water and advanced courses along with Nitrox and rescue courses. There is nothing more satisfying than sharing our love for scuba diving with new people!

Diving

We had plenty of fantastic dives this month. Sarah hasn’t stopped bragging about diving with Whale Sharks on several different occasions. Luckily, both Laura and Rachel experienced their first dive with a Whale Shark at White Rock. Breathtakingly awesome! Talk about spectacular creatures; they are so elegant underwater.While the weather limited us to 5 or 6 dive sites in November, we still saw loads of great underwater life.

White Rock and Twins were teeming with schools of Long Face Emperors, White-Eyed Moral Eels, Snappers, and Blue-Spotted Ribbontail Stingrays. The table corals at these dive sites were home to many juvenile Eight-Banded Butterfly fish and Three-Spot Dascyllus.
Chumphon Pinnacle was spectacular as usual. The schools of Chevron Barracuda and Batfish returned joining the school of Yellow-Tailed Barracuda and giant Marbled Groupers. The dive site is a MUST when visiting Koh Tao! We recently noticed 4 baby Scrawled Filefish on one of the shipwreck’s buoy line, and schools of Fusiliers and Rabbit fish were swarming the wreck. It continues to be really exciting watching the dive site blossom with life.

Staff News

Several of our instructors headed off for a holiday during the month. Danny and Neil both traveled to Phuket. Danny polished his sale skills by working within the dive industry, and Neil concluded a SSI Instructor Trainer course. Barry took a ‘stay-cation’ here on Koh Tao. Sarah and Gordon, who both completed their DMT course with Sairee Cottage Diving, passed their PADI Instructor course with flying colors! Congratulations to them!

Neil met up with Trevor, Greg, and Rachel in Khao Lak where they jumped on a 4-day live aboard trip that toured the Similan Islands. Although they didn’t see any Manta Rays, they dove with Leopard Sharks on two different dives!

Bear, otherwise known as Mad Skills, was the one who traveled the furthest. He went to Dahab in Egypt, to complete a Technical diving course himself. He is now a Tri-Mix diver and a bona-fide Side-Mount and Technical Deep Diving Instructor. Bear is now looking forward to developing Sairee Cottage Diving Koh Tao into a Technical Diving facility. Well done, sir!

Dive Shop News

We have now fully moved into our new dive shop. There are some great photos of the new digs on our Facebook page. The shop and classrooms are very lovely and exceedingly functional. We have loads of comfy seating with pillows galore, and the shop has since become a popular place for both students and staff to relax. After moving into the new dive shop, our restaurant closed for renovations and is scheduled to open before Christmas. We cannot wait to share our new space with y’all and hope to see many of y’all soon!

The end of another diving season has arrived and what an amazing season it’s been! We’ve really enjoyed all the customers we’ve had at Sairee Cottage Diving in Koh Tao. No matter whether we were bringing people out for their first open water dives, or continuing on their diving education with Advanced, Rescue and Divemaster courses, we always enjoy diving with our guests. And now with Neil qualified as an SSI Instructor trainer we’re introducing new diving instructors into the dive industry. We want to give a big shout out to all our students and fun divers who have made this season an unforgettable one.

Underwater in October

We’ve had lots of spectacular dives this season. We were lucky enough to dive with a Whale Shark on a couple of occasions this year at Chumphon Pinnacle and South West Pinnacle . Even without the Whale Sharks both dive sites have been teaming with life this year with the huge Marbled Groupers, Schools of Chevron Barracuda, Bat Fish, Travellies as well as the sighting of King Mackerel hunting. We’ve loved diving at Lham Tien, the Red Rock Drop off and Green Rock for the amazing swim-throughs and turtle sightings. We’ve had a huge amount of turtle sights this year on dive sites such a Twins and White Rock. Diving with a turtle is always a lovely way to finish off an open water diving course. Our students and our fun divers have loved it.

News from the Dive School

Our new Dive School is up and running now. We’re going to be moving into the new reception during November and our instructors are already teaching in the new classrooms. It’s lovely to be in the new buildings. We hope you have all enjoyed diving with us this season and hopefully we’ll see you again soon. As always, the dive center remains open during the low season and we will be happy to accommodate you at Sairee Cottage Diving. Keep up to date with all our latest news and photos on our Facebook page.

The first dive at Sail Rock was brilliant. For those of you who don’t know Sail Rock yet; it’s simply one the very best dive sites in the Gulf of Thailand! Whale Sharks, Leopard Sharks and Reef Sharks are regular visitors here. There was a slight current but loads of underwater life. There were huge schools of Jacks, Chevron Barracuda, Spangled Emperor Fish and even some huge King Mackerel. We found the big Moray Ells and the Banded Coral Shrimp and even the Clown Anemone Shrimp.

As the current was picking up in the afternoon we decided to change our plans and head back to Lham Tian for our second dive so it was back to tanning on the top deck for most of us. The second dive at Lham Tian was amazing. We were the only dive boat there and we saw no other divers under the water which such a nice change. Everyone enjoyed squeezing in through the swim throughs, finding cool Nudi Branches and seeing lots of Angelfish, Banner Fish and Unicorn Fish. The visibility was amazing and there was absolutely no current which was a nice change from the first dive.

After chilling out on the boat for a bit, eating lunch and taking cheesy photos of us jumping off the boat we did our third dive at Ao Mao. Here we continued exploring the swim throughs along the coast line. On this dive most of the divers came across a group of Hump Head Parrot Fish which everyone was really excited about. Our boat boy found a turtle caught up in rope and fishing line and managed to free it. It only had a small scratch on its fin so we’re sure it’ll be fine. On the way back to Sairee we all chilled out together, compared sun burns (maybe the coconut tanning oil wasn’t the best idea!) and watched the sun set. It was the perfect end to an awesome full day diving trip. We can’t wait for the next one!

We had so many Irish and English divers during August it was like living back in Europe! Lots of family members and friends have been out to visit and it’s been awesome to have familiar faces around. Bear, Neil, Danny and Laura have been kept busy with Open Water Diver and Advanced Diver Courses while Chris has been teaching and leading fun divers while Sarah has been busy with lots of Fun Divers and Try Dives (DSD). We’ve had lots of families diving with us this month and we’ve even taught some Junior Open Waters. We also want to say a huge congrats to Rachel and Tamara who completed their SSI Dive Con Course at the beginning of September. Well done girls!!

Barry taught a BSAC Deep Diving Course with Eva and Sarah at the end of the month. After two days of training dives at Twins and the Sattakut wreck they managed to get to 38m at the Trident! The Dive sites on Koh Tao have been teemed with life this month. The huge School of Bat Fish and Chevron Barracuda are still around Chumphon Pinnacle and we were even lucky enough to dive with a Whale Shark there during the middle of the month.

Both Greg’s group of Open Water students and Sarah’s Fun Divers were delighted to be able to dive with it. It stuck around for the entire 45min dive. The turtle was hanging out on Hin Wong a lot along with the Razor Fish and Yellow Box Fish which made it one of our favorite dive sites this month. Light House Bay was flooded with life with a Jenkins Ray hanging out, Blue Spotted Rays, Moray Eels and Trigger Fish galore ready to fight to keep our Dive Masters on their toes.

We had a superb dive on Green Rock at the start of the month watching a Golden Trevally hunting a school of Yellow Tail Barracudas. Green Rock is a fantastic dive site if the current isn’t too strong. The site is often visited by Whale Sharks during a plankton bloom. It was breath taking and we even managed to get some photos. Talking about photos; the Sattakut wreck has really taken off with life after it was moved last month. There’s huge schools of Scad and Fusilier surrounding it, a huge Puffer Fish, Baby Banner Fish, a Jenkins Ray and a new school of baby Yellow Tail Barracuda all living in the wreck already. Check out the photos they’re all up on our Facebook page.

“Hello! thanks to Trevor, Neill, Bean, Danny, Barry, Rachel, Ida, Laura, Sarah, Tamara and everyone else at Sairee Cottages for the best week of our lives!! Safe to say we’ll be back in Koh Tao again! lots of love from Gavin Nugent, Shane Lavelle, Brian Gerard Lynch, Jeff Abbott, Donncha O’Donovan, Ian Humphries, John Perrott, Simon Sweetnam, Christopher Ryan, Cormac O’Flynn and of course Junior Patrick O’Donovan! The other two langers deserve a mention as well i suppose! peace out xxx”

Wreck Diving on Koh Tao

The recently sunken naval ship wreck Sattakut 742, a 1943 built Thai Navy ship, has been moved to a more suitable location by the Thai Government. To move the wreck was necessary because it had fallen on the side. The bad weather conditions on the day of the sinking had it made difficult to sink the wreck exactly the way it was planned and it ended up to be in a bad position for wreck diving. the Sattakut 742 is the the second wreck, after the MV Trident, that has been sunk on Koh Tao to become an underwater attraction for fish and divers alike. On the 3rd of August it will be ready for scuba diving again! We can’t wait to start diving this fantastic wreck again, and especially teaching deep and wreck diving specialty courses, bring it on! Now the tide is high again and we have our Speed boat ready on the beach. This is going to be perfect for quick and easy trips to the dive site and what a cool way to do it Check out our dive boats here.

With the full moon party just around the corner, which will bring many new faces to Koh Tao, we are looking forward to another great few weeks ahead. August has been one of the busiest month of this Season so far. This is a great time to start your Divemaster Course and make lots of new friends, which is exactly what Alina has done, another diving professional in the making. Check out the huge schools of Yellow Tail barracudas!

Video from the Sinking of the Sattakut 742

For those of you who missed the sinking of the Sattakut it June, we have added the video here. The weather was bad and there where several delays until the wrecked ship could finally be sunk, so it’s probably much more comfortable to watch the video…

The rest of the guys in the team have been working flat out all month training people to be great divers. One of Dan’s Open Water Course Students loved it so much she decided to stay on to become an SSI Dive Control Specialist. So we would like to welcome Rachel, Tamara and Martin to our team of Divemaster Trainees, all of which are well on their way to becoming the dive pro’s they always dreamed of being.

The new Dive Shop Reception, office, equipment room and classrooms are close to completion now. Just a few finishing touches to be made and we should be moving in by the end of the month, and then its time for our fantastic new swimming pool and bar to begin construction. Keep an eye on our facebook page to see the progress.

The post full moon party rush was great fun this month with a an amazing bunch of people coming over to Koh Tao to become divers. Bear, Mee, Neil, Dan, Barry loved every minute of it. The weather conditions were fantastic with superb visibility in the water, which meant quite a few people stayed longer than they planned to take extra diving courses and to go fun diving with our DM’s Sarah, Gordon and Cle.