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Published: August 28th 2007
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After about 7 hours on the train from Bangkok we arrived at Chumphon on the east coast of Thailand and a couple of hours later were heading down the river and out toward the island of Koh Tao.
As with most islands the taxi cartel have the prices sewn up and once we had got to our chosen beach Chalok Baan we decided to stay there until we left a week later. We found the cheapest room that we could just back from the beach and whiled away the hours swimming, snorkeling and chatting in the Scuba Shack where we were based. There we met Colin a friendly English guy who was taking some time out in Thailand and doing his PADI Dive master qualification. Amongst other conversations, Colin told us about the Ningaloo Reef on the west coast of Australia, great diving and famous for being one of THE spots to see Whale Sharks - the biggest fish in the oceans.
This discussion with Colin led us to change our travel plans completely, (our previous route being into Darwin and then a few hops down the east coast Cairns - Brisbane - Sydney) instead we decided to
fly into Perth (bottom left for the geographically challenged) and spend 5 weeks travelling up the west coast by car or campervan. We’re actually sitting in our campervan sweating just 100km south of Darwin in Litchfield National Park as I write this, it’s 8.30 in the morning and the temperature is already heading for 30 degree and the humidity is around 100%! So Colin if you are reading this - it’s all your fault! No honestly it’s been a hoot and you’ll get to hear about it all soon hopefully as we continue in our attempts to catch up on our blogs!
Having heard about how good diving in Thailand was and impatient to get in the water before our live-aboard the following week, we signed up for 6 dives around the Island. They were pretty good, we had disappointing visibility at a couple of the ‘best’ sites - Chumpon and Southwest Pinnacle where we hoped to see sharks with the normal visibility quoted at 15-30m. Unfortunately we managed to dive when the viz. was more like 5 - 10m at best… I guess the sharks were there, it’s just they were watching us and not the other way
around!
We don’t seem to have much luck with visibility when we go diving!
I don’t know if the average visibility on the reefs has dropped in the area, but I did comment on how muddy the sand was where we were staying and that although it was one of the less developed spots, it looked like the years of tourist effluent had taken its toll. This feeling was confirmed when we met one of the first Western guys that came over to Kho Tao by long-tail boat in the 80’s. Back then, he set up a dive shop, lived on the island for about 15 years and was back to see what had happened to the place. He had left because it was getting too busy, with too many dive boats trying to get on the same site and too much development on land. Coming back ten years on, he was not surprised that it was even worse now and agreed that the beaches were not what they used to be.
The flying fish were entertaining during the trips out to the dive sites and I’ve included one of the less blurred shots I managed to get
of them! They can travel for a hundred meters or so, using a combination of their pectoral fins as wings (like flapping your arms) and running with their tail fin leaving a cool zig-zag pattern. In the interests of economy we went on the dive boat most days, but only went on one of the two dives that they would do. This way we could get a boat trip to see a bit of the island, snorkel somewhere interesting when they were diving and of course eat free snacks and drinks!
Toward the end of our time on the island we met John from Essex - a laid back easy going chap also taking a break in Thailand after working on the west coast of Australia. He didn’t dive, but certainly knew some good snorkeling spots. He took us to Shark Bay and yes the clues in the title…. After a week of failing to see any sharks or much at all at times, we had the most amazing snorkel 250m off the beach surrounded by 1 - 2m Black Tip Reef sharks. This was in 3 - 5m of water, where they would cruise around on the bottom
and then come up to head height occasionally. You might be busy keeping an eye on two passing 5 or 6m in front of you and then you realize that there were two swimming directly below! So thanks John, very cool, better than many dives we have been on and FREE!
To get over to the west coast of Thailand we caught a sleeper boat to Surrattani and then bus over to Kho Lak. The ferry was an experience, not unpleasant, but a little cosy as you can see from photo and we were very glad it wasn’t rough!
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Nigel
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Kho Tao
I went to Kho Tao in 1999 and it was the most wonderful week of my life. The Scuba diving was amazing with Big Blue, we dived the Japanese gardens which was really cool. To be in a place so cutoff in this crazy fast paced world was absolutely amazing. The tranquility was to die for. i ahve returned to Thailnd many ties since then but never quite made it back to Kho Tao, but I will!