Diving in Naithon, Phuket

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Koh Waeo Island is an exceptional dive spot. The picturesque rock formations, the beautiful anemone carpets and coral gardens, and the astonishing marine life are among the best you can wish for. Apart from anemones and corals, at diving depths of 10-30m and a visibility of 10-25m, the dive spots of Koh Waeo
not only enchant you with turtles and huge puffer fish, they also offer macro highlights.

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The Rock, an easy to dive reef starts at about 6 m depth and is covered on the top of the coral rock with some gorgonians. The elch horn corals are bleached partially and just in the process of recovering slowly.


At about 8 m depth a capital grouper offers great photo shots. This grouper is known by the name “Klaus”. A swarm of barracudas is very fine sight in shallow water near the reef. The coral formations reach to a depth of 16 m and can be attained with a comfortable dive.
Due to the shallow depth “The Rock” is excellent for multilevel dives and for repetitive dives in the afternoon. On this reef divers will find fishing leads.

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In 2008 as one of the first artificial reef projects in Thailand, TDA – the Thai Diving Association – realized with the strong, active support of the Aqua Divers Team to sink six dismissed Sikorsky military helicopters and four Dakota airplanes close to the border of Sirikit National Marine Park near Bangtao Bay.

As in Germany famous "Berlin Tempelhof Airport" closed its public activities on the same day and the Berlin Airlift after WWII was primarily supported with Dakota aircrafts ("raisin bombers"), the Aqua Divers Team simply named this dive site as "Tempelhof". This "new artificial reef" is between 18 m and 24 m depth and distributed at intervals of about 30 m to each other.

Storms and rough seas in the off season as well as trawling, unfortunately damaged the wrecks so that today only some parts remain under water. Some divers noted jokingly that "Tempelhof looks like the aftermath of a plane crash, but there is still an exciting view of the airplanes and helicopters, with many remains of marine organisms settled in to inspect. This dive site is primarily dived to the tidal shutdowns to ensure optimum visibility and slow current conditions.

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The Thin Lizzy Wreck is an old tin excavator, which sank into Bangtao Bay in the early 1990s.

In an average of 14 m water depth the remains of the excavator are scattered on the sandy seabed. The highlight is the impressively large paddle wheel.
This dive site is very popular with divers, as there seems to gather almost the whole kaleidoscope of marine biodiversity of the Andaman Sea. It’s regular to see several large stingrays (Kuhl’s stingrays), schooling barracudas, bat fishes and cuttlefish and numerous species of puffer fish and moray eels. A striking feature of the Thin Lizzy wreck is the population of large lion fish which approach divers and very often quite tame. The legendary big brown giant moray named Olga always is around at Thin Lizzy!
Just north of the wreck in 2010 an artificial reef was created in the form of newly dumped cement blocks, which extend up to within four feet below the water surface. Also there are many schools of fish to be observed. The Thin Lizzy and the cement blocks are also a very popular dive site for dedicated macro photographers. Various shrimp and nudibranch species, snails, pipe fishes and various anemone crabs can be found.

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Since 1995 Aqua Divers has been located at Nai Thon Beach. The dive base is run by the German Jens,and his British partner Mark. Aqua Divers is an international 5 -Star ITC Master Center and internationally recognized by CMAS /TDA, PADI and SSI. Aqua Divers offers multilingual courses. Various kinds of dive trips can be booked, half day or day trips and live-a-board trips.

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King Cruiser was a car and passenger ferry servicing the Phuket to Phi Phi Island route that sank on 4th May 1997 after hitting a submerged rock known as Anemone Reef on its way to Phi Phi Island. Fortunately, no lives were lost during the incident. Having settled in an upright position on the sandy bottom, the wreck stays relatively close to Anemone Reef and Shark Point and is 25-27 km east of Chalong Bay with a north south orientation. The depth is around 32 meters at the sand bottom and about 14-15 meters on top. The wreck is 85 meters long by 25 meters wide with four decks with large passages and window holes divers can use to gain easy access to explore the spacious interior. However, some parts of the wreck has noticeably deteriorated and in mid-2003 the top deck at the stern collapsed into the mid-section so the wreck is now considered unsafe for penetration. Divers can explore the passenger deck level at a depth of around 18-22 meters, while others may be more interested in checking out the remains of the wheel house at the top level. There is usually at least one buoy tied to the south side of the wreck.
Information taken from www.kolantadivingcenter.com

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Koh Phi Phi Maya Bay became world famous thanks to the Hollywood movie production “The Beach”. It’s a popular spot for wall diving and some outer offshore coral blocks and pinnacles which are covered with a rich diversity of colorful soft and hard corals down to a depth of 25 meters. Leopard sharks and the occasional sting ray are seen at this dive site. Several sea anemones and other varieties of anemone populate this spot. Ao Maya also hosts a big variety of invertebrates, which delights macro photographers.
Information taken from www.kolantadivingcenter.com

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