December at Sairee Cottage Diving Koh Tao

Dive Shop News

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!

Koh Tao Diving – October News

The End of a Diving Season

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.

Videos

Over time we collected some quite nice videos from and around Sairee Cottage Resort and Diving in Koh Tao. On this page we will show you some of theses videos plus some of our favorites. If you made a video about Koh Tao or/and Sairee Cottage, please send us a link where we can find the video (YouTube, Vimeo etc). If you would like to leave a comment about Sairee cottage Resort or about your diving course with us, please sign our Guestbook.

Sairee Cottage Videos:

Some of our Favorite Videos:

Pictures

Here are some pictures of and from Sairee Cottage Diving in Koh Tao. There will be more pictures uploaded soon. For now, you can also find more albums and pictures on our facebook page. Many of the pictures have been taken during our diving courses, maybe you can find a picture of yourself here. If YOU have shot some cool pics on Koh Tao, no matter if underwater or on land; send them to us and we will be happy to publish them here with credit to you. If you would like to leave a comment about Sairee Cottage Diving Koh Tao, please sign our Guestbook, enjoy the pictures (click on the “View in Piclens” link to get a larger picture).

[View with PicLens]

Dive Trip – Sail Rock & Lham Tian

On the 5th of Sept Sairee Cottage Diving Koh Tao had a full day trip to Sail Rock on the program! The conditions for this diving adventure were perfect, the sea was flat and the sun was out. We set off at 7am ready to get some good diving in for the day. Chris was teaching an Open Water Diver and an Advanced Diver course with Rachel’s assistance. Tamara was leading fun divers while Alina, Barry and Laura got the chance to do some fun dives for a change. Trevor, Bear and Sarah got the opportunity to do some deco dives. The best tanning spots were soon nabbed on the journey out and everyone took the task of tanning very seriously!

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!

Sairee Cottage News August 2011

What a fantastic month we all had in July her at Sairee Cottage Diving! A very busy few weeks and lots of happy divers, with the weather not being its best visibility is still great and plenty of cool sea life. Congratulations to Ida for becoming a Dive Pro and doing her SSI Dive Control Specialist; truly a great diver. Dan and Bear had a group of 11 Irish lads from the full moon rush who were awesome to teach and a great laugh thanks lads for making our job as good as it can be!. You can imagine the night out celebrating after becoming open water divers; it was carnage. To quote from 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…