November at Sairee Cottage Koh Tao

Monsoon Season on Koh Tao

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!

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]

Koh Tao Diving – September 2011

August has come and gone and what an awesome month it was! The weather was superb and we were able to dive on the east coast of the island and explore some of the less dived dive sites of Koh Tao like Hin Wong, Lham Tian, Ao Mao and Light House Bay. We were really busy with Open Water Diving Courses as well as Advanced Diver and Rescue Diver courses this month. Laura, or as we like to call her, “Yeah Mate” joined our full time staff so we’ve added another girl to the team which we’re all delighted about.

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.