I guess its the cold weather that makes me browse through some of the nice pictures from my diving trips…  and I just found some really good ones from diving with my friend Benjamin back in August 2007 – we spend some time diving at Koh Tao and had also a couple of great wreck dives outside Pattaya.

On one of our dives at Koh Tao the visibilty wasnt too great on the close west coast, so the skipper decided to take us round the south end to Aow Leuk Bay at the South East end of Koh Tao – quite a good choice, because the visibility was very nice and Aow Leuk Bay did have some nice stuff down there….  I especially remember this big Barrel Coral,

Barrel Coral at Aow Leuk Bay, Koh Tao

Meet my good friend Benjamin Knudsen – I was on a Thailand trip with him back in August 2007.

At this picture he’s showing how much he loves the diving at Koh Tao.

One of the corals I like the most is the Table Coral – especially when you hover above it or when you can see it from below as on my picture…

And another Table Coral outside Koh Tao

When you see all the fishes around the corals you really understand how important the coral are for the sea life.
I just hope more people would take care of the these beautiful and usefull corals and not walk on them as some people do just outside the beaches at Sharm el Sheik (Egypt). In Thailand I didnt experience any kind of problems like that, but the behavior of non-divers at Sharm el Sheik is unfortunately very bad and not taken care of by the autorities… a sign is not enough…

O yes, we found Nemo…
Koh Tao also has its own couple of Clownfishes at the house reef Twins – or in fact just beside the house reef Twins. On every dive at the Twins the Divemasters has the habit of straying a little away from the pinnacles to a circle of stones around some anemones where the local pair of Clownfishes (also called Anemonefishes) are living. The circle of stones has been place there to protect the anemones and give the Clownfishes just a bit of privacy, so every diver is being told not to come closer to the anemones than the circle, but that doesn’t keep the Clownfished coming closer to us…  its really amazing as the clownfishes are coming around to greet us…  

Isnt this Clownfish cute?

On our last dive at Koh Tao was at the divesite Twins where Benjamin discovered that not all Titan Triggerfishes are aggressive…. Benjamin had the camera and suddenly both Benjamin our Divemaster and I spottet a Titan Triggerfish deeply engaged in eating from a coral – the only difference between our observation was that Benjamin didn’t recognise the ‘fish’ as a Titan Triggerfish, so the next thing we saw was Benjamin hanging 2-3 meters vertical on top of the Triggerfish! Usually not the most clever move in the book…    But luckily this Triggerfish was not aggressive at all.. or just to busy eating, so Benjamin did in fact manage to get some shots pretty close from above.
Btw Benjamin does recognise Titan Triggerfishes now…

From above – by Benjamin


Titan Triggerfish leaving….

Some people has asked me where we stayed at Koh Tao this time and the simple answer is Sairee Hut Dive Resort on the nice Sairee Beach.
I also stayed at Sairee Beach when I was at Koh Tao in the summer 2005, but at that time it was at Big Blue Diving.
This time Benjamin and I agree to try another place. We did in fact book the trip, the place to stay and the dive center from Khao San Road in Bangkok – you can save some money by booking a package at Khao San Road or at least book at package of room and dives at the same place and because Koh Tao is known for being ‘diver-factory’ most centers will give the best discount if you take some kind of education and not only fun-dives… anyway Benjamin and I used a couple of hours talking with some of the dive center shops in the Khao San Road area and decided to try out Grand Coral Divers.
The trip went pretty smooth even though you ALWAYS are told to meet up far too early, getting pooled with travellers from other hotels and shops and then spend a lot of time waiting for the bus ect… and this was no exception – a lot of waiting, a rather cold bus, a stop for dinner at around 23.00?, but in the end arrival at Koh Tao at planned time… business as usual…   
At Koh Tao the room wasnt what we had expected and situated a 10-15 minutes extra walk by a road away from the dive center and the nice beach, so for us it wasnt an option…. the staff at Grand Coral Divers understood our decision and we took our backpacks for a walk down the beach – a great thing about a backpack is that its so easy to talk a walk and find what you’re looking for…. so in the nice sun we walked down Sairee Breach and looked at some of the places making Sairee Hut Dive Resort our choice – really a nice room/hut with a sea view, restaurant by the sea and also also a dive center… we loved staying there, but we did in fact dive with Grand CoralDivers, which was also a good choice!

But to call it a resort might not live up the American definition of a resort… 

A really nice view from our balcony at Sairee Hut Dive Resort

Benjamin relaxing at our balcony

(yes, Benjamin has an amazing smile….)

The Sairee Hut Dive Resort restaurant seen from the beach

And you can spot our hut – the first one on the right just after the dive center…..

Benjamin enjoying life at the restaurant…

Even on a cloudy day the beach is so nice a Koh Tao

The Titan Triggerfishes around Koh Tao are would famous for being very agressive and being up to 75 cm’s its quite a big fish attacking with an incredible speed.
My divemaster from Big Blue Diving, Koh Tao, back in the summer 2005 had her own defence position sort of sitting in the water with her finns towards the Titan Triggerfishes whenever see saw one… yes, it seemed like she was rather worried about them… maybe because the Finnish divemaster also from Big Blue Diving got bitten in her nose some weeks ago and now has a nice little scar… but most people get away with no problems or a bit in their finns…
But on my last trip to Koh Tao in August 2007 the Divemaster from Grand Coral Divers showed me how to handle Titan Triggerfishes with success by blasting them with the air from the octopus… that was sooo coool! He just faced the Titan Triggerfish and waited for it to attack and then blasted it when it was near… it was really funny to watch how the Titan Triggerfish turned away and flead.. but just to attack again – and get blasted.. He really played with it for several minuts which were good entertainment for us and I took a couple of pictures…

Titan Triggerfish gets blasted with air from the octopus 

And it returns for some more… its incredible so aggressive they can be..

Diving with the guys at Coral Grand Divers has both its upside and downsides – the downside is definately that the leave too early for the morning dives (before 07.00), but the upside is the great service, then nice people and the fact that we are usually the first people at the divesite, which is GREAT at Chumphon Pinnacles, because the sharks hasnt been ’scared’ away. Diving at Chumphon Pinnacles on 18th August was no exception – the sharks was sort of waiting for us and our divemaster took us directly out to them – what a great sight seeing sharks at Chumphon Pinnacles – they were around 2 meters in size…
It seems like the trick is to go there early and you’ll see 8-10 sharks there… of course not too close up.. sharks isnt that nosy…

Last time I was at Chumphon Pinnacles it seems like we came to late, but luckily Chumphon Pinnacles has more that just sharks to ‘offer’…

Yes, they didnt come too close, but it was great and its not the last time I’m going to visit Koh Tao and Chumphon Pinnacles – Koh Tao is really a nice place to stay, which I’ll tell more about later.

And we saw sharks at Chumphon Pinnacles – it was sooo great – I’ll post some pictures later….

Leaving for Thailand tomorrow and after a lot of thoughts about it I’m sure Koh Tao will be included – seems like the Similan Islands and the area around could be too unstable..  it could be with a lot of wind and rain this time of year… and Benjamin needs to take his Advanced Open Water so we can go wreck diving, so Koh Tao would in fact be perfect – also because Koh Tao is such a nice relaxing place…  Gonna be great!

Pictures will follow…