Scorpion Fish
Grouper
It’s Earth Day At Sairee Cottage Diving and we take it seriously to be as eco aware as we can possibly be. We dedicate time all year, not only on dedicated days. Of course we participated in Earth Day as well by coordinating a clean-up dive and beach clean-up at Lham Tian bay, east side of Koh Tao. We dedicated 11 people on our afternoon boat to clean the bay at Lham Tian. We had a team of four people snorkel the very shallow waters and clean up the beach itself and two teams of 3 divers conducted a clean-up dive along either side of the shore. The good news is that we did not find an immense amount of debris. We encountered mainly fishing nets, fishing lines, freshly broken glass and other metal debris.
Boxer shrimp
Tiger Sole
I think the divers were thanked for their efforts already, when the resident green turtle came by to check on the progress of the clean-up. The snorkel team was also policed by several juvenile black tip reef sharks. They hung around us, curiously checking on what we are doing in their backyard. Of course there were a few unicorn fish, puffers and even a blue spotted stingray in the shallow waters all going about their day. Absolutely worth the effort! There were quite a large number of visitors on the beach and I am sure seeing us clean the beach inspired them to not leave any rubbish behind and who knows, maybe even pick up a piece of rubbish that was “accidentally” left by another fellow human. It was a total success. We look forward to continuously care for our beaches and reefs. If you are a certified diver and are interested to join us on our weekly clean-up efforts, please drop by and talk to us. It is a free tank if you help us out!
Whaleshark Sighting at Chumpon Pinnacle Koh Tao
Whale Shark at Chumpon Pinnacle Koh Tao
On Monday morning there was a lot of excitement on our boat as we headed out to Chumpon pinnacle. The captain had been tipped off that there is a whaleshark at Chumpon and our boat master discreetly told all the dive leaders. Of course we were very excited but tried to contain it a little. It is still not guaranteed that we will see the beautiful creature. We briefed our groups on how to properly behave around a whaleshark just in case. We jump in and swim off into the blue hoping for a sighting away from the pinnacle. After 12 minutes of just hovering at 10 meters, we see it rising from the deep blue right between two of our dive groups. It never gets old seeing these majestic fish.
Finally it swam across the pinnacle and disappeared. I’m now trying to distract my divers with shrimp and eels and other small life, but it is obvious that all of us are hoping for a second sighting. As we swim up towards the safety stop, I see a shadow and swim out into its trajectory. Then I fire my surface marker and we wait. In an absolute strike of luck we see it again and have to get out of its path as it swims directly for us.
Jose, who is also an PADI instructor, has been diving with us quite a bit and has been kind enough to leave us some of his pictures and his video of the whale shark, we will put on Our YouTube page.
If this sounds like a great day. Become a PADI Divemaster. Start here!
Lionel
Divemaster
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