January Trip to Thailand

[Vic K]

Hello All,

I have never dived in Thailand and possibly will have 4-5 diving days in January. Can you please direct me to which areas I should be looking at. I am looking through the posts but unable to extract information from them. Thank you for your help.

 

[Centrals]

West coast of the Kingdom.
1. LoB to Similan
2. Koh Lanta or Lipe.
Have fun.

 

[JonnieB]

Well it all depends on your experience level and what kind of diving you are looking for (wide angle or macro, pinnacles, walls, or sandy bottom, day boats, shore dives, or liveaboards? In January, you'll be looking at the west side of Thailand, i.e., Andaman Sea and Phuket. Tell me more and I can give a more informed answer.

 

[dfk70]

I'm going to throw my hat into this ring as we are planning to go to Thailand in January as well. Looking for probably day boats for me.

 

[Doc Harry]

I did a liveaboard out of Phuket, and also some day trips from Phuket out to the Phi Phi islands.

Granted, its been about 10 years but the liveaboard (West Coast Divers) was dirt cheap - $900 USD for 10 days. The trip went up the west coast of Thailand to Myanmar.

The diving around the Phi Phi islands was excellent. There is a wreck on the Boonsun had spectacular schools of fish.

Thailand Liveaboard

scubaboard.com

 

[Centrals]

I'm going to throw my hat into this ring as we are planning to go to Thailand in January as well. Looking for probably day boats for me.

Day boat from Phuket is waste of money. If you really want to do day dive out from Phuket then make sure the operator does not take divers from other shops. Cattle boat. Imagine 30 divers on a tiny wreck of King Cruiser.
If you do not mind to travel a bit then Koh Lanta and Koh Lipe offers much better diving and also less touristy.
Similan is only really suitable for LoB.

 

[noserider]

How much time do you want to spend travelling both to dive sites and to the your base? This will probably drive your decisions

Koh Phi Phi - quick and easy to get to from phuket and fairly short trips to dive sites <1hr

Koh Lanta - about 2 hours from Krabi Airport, nice sites, and you will do some of the Phi Phi sites, Koh Has and Hin Muang but even on the speedboats you have a couple of hours to get to the sights and days are long - But Planet are good operation with nice boat

Koh Lipe, harder and longer to get to but the dive sites are closer

The best liveraboards will probably be fairly full, I really liked Big Blue Khao Lak. The junk and smiling seahorse both also have great reputations

 

[Centrals]

A lot of operators are sharing Blue Planet's fast boat to go to Hin Daeng and Hin Muang so lots of divers on the trip. The boat is comfortable and fast but.....
LANTA Divers uses it's own speed boat.
The average cost of a day dive is expensive by Thai's standard.

Similan is highly recommended.

 

[noserider]

A lot of operators are sharing Blue Planet's fast boat to go to Hin Daeng and Hin Muang so lots of divers on the trip. The boat is comfortable and fast but.....
LANTA Divers uses it's own speed boat.
The average cost of a day dive is expensive by Thai's standard.

Similan is highly recommended.

Was on the Blue planet boat 2 weeks ago for 4 days and only 12 divers and I had a DM to myself, only 1 from another operator. Lanta divers speed boat had more divers on it and was nowhere near as comfortable.

 

[Centrals]

Was on the Blue planet boat 2 weeks ago for 4 days and only 12 divers and I had a DM to myself, only 1 from another operator. Lanta divers speed boat had more divers on it and was nowhere near as comfortable.

Make no mistake that catamarian is big and fast while the speed boat is tiny.
It is still early in the season and more divers will turn up eventually. Supply and demand and there is no way to know in advance.
I know what it was like when there were 30 divers from several dive shops on the catamaran.