November on Koh Tao

Well hello to all of you out there and sorry that we have not posted anything for quite a while but as you all know it is monsoon season here on Koh Tao….. where was the rain though!

November was actually a pretty dry month with some rain, so this meant that we were busy. We had lots of DSDs, Open water courses and a few Advance courses.

Because of Jansom Bay being here on the resort we have a lot of people who just want a nice and easy dive, so off we swim to 3 Rocks, drop down and enjoy the underwater life that we have there, like blue spotted stingrays, giant pufferfish, scorpionfish, scribbled filefish, giant groupers (this one we saw on our night dive, it was just resting there and was about 1m-1.5m), moray eels, poison sea claw urchins, blue ringed angelfish, longfin bannerfish, cleaner shrimps, gobies and there shrimp roommates, nudibranchs, batfish, various crabs, starfish, fusiliers, goatfish, sea cucumbers and also a lot of corals.

In the month of November we were so lucky as to have so many sightings of Whale sharks here, not only at Chumphon pinnacle but also on White rock, Green rock & Hin Pee wee.

As high season is starting to kick in again we have had a few changes here at Dive @ Charm Churee Villa with our staff, a new DMT, old Instructors and Dive Masters coming back and Assistant Instructors leaving.

Currently the visibility is around 6m – 11m depending on which dive site you go to. This does not mean that there is nothing to see, quite the contrary as the fish seem to hang around the reefs more. On some of the sites baby Mantis shrimps have been found as well. It even adds to some of the dive sites like the Sattakut wreck, making it a bit more mysterious especially when some of the areas are shrouded in clouds of mist as if it was early morning on land! Water temperature is currently around the 28’c/29’c and is still fine to dive with a 3mm Shorty.

Also on the island some of the roads are getting upgrades as they are being resurfaced but only in certain areas. We also had a small water shortage here but that was due to the flooding in Bangkok and not having enough supplies.

We try every month to make an underwater cleanup so as to help the coral and fish have a nicer and cleaner home. It is amazing what you tend to find dumped in the sea, from plastic bottles, M15 bottles, beer bottles, plastic bags, broken bits of plastic, brick filled sacks, soft drink cans, wood and coconuts.

Happy diving for all of our readers and remember…

Take only pictures leave only bubbles!

Don’t eat shark fin soup and boycott those places that do!