This series of articles shares some free snippets from the PADI Divemaster internship here in Thailand. Simple Life’s experienced scuba instructors add their past experiences and stories to the curriculum of the PADI Divemaster course, so you’ll understand much more than the bare minimum and can apply what you’re learning to real working situations here on Koh Tao.
In this article we’ll focus on how a PADI Divemaster chooses the best Koh Tao dive site for any given day. Consider this.
Koh Tao has more than 30 dive sites close to the island, ranging from beach dives to shallow coral reefs, deep isolated pinnacles, small islands and even ship wrecks. So what influences where we go scuba diving each day?
Here’s a look at the important factors which a PADI Divemaster considers when deciding on the dive site:
Environmental Conditions
Safety is of paramount importance when choosing a dive site. A big part of that is making an assessment of environmental conditions – specifically waves, current and general weather. Information is gathered from a range of sources including weather forecasts from the internet, tide tables, direct observation of the weather and speaking to the boat captain.
We always want to dive where the waves are lowest. Big waves make it more difficult to get in and out of the water, especially when climbing a ladder to get back aboard the dive boat whilst laden with dive equipment.
Luckily in Koh Tao we can dive either side of the island, so can always head to the sheltered lee-ward side of the island, away from the wind and waves.
Similarly for currents, unless drift diving we’d prefer to dive where there is little or no current, so if there’s a choice we’ll decide to dive when the tide is slack (not coming in or going out).
Ability of the Group & required training activities
Most PADI courses focus on building up dive skills and experience within controlled limits. For example Discover Scuba Diving or the first two dives of the PADI Open Water course must be conducted within a maximum depth of 12M, whilst the PADI Advanced Course deep dive can go to a maximum depth of 30M.
Plus, during the Open Water course, most PADI Instructors will appreciate you choosing a dive site which has shallow areas with a sandy bottom, which they can use to carry out any required underwater skills.
Even certified divers have maximum recommended depth ratings. PADI Open Water certified divers should stick to about 18M, PADI Advanced Divers can head right down to 30M, whilst Deep Specialty certified divers can dive right down to the recreational limit of 40M.
A Koh Tao PADI Divemaster must always consider the ability of the divers on the boat and the limits determined by required dive training to choose a dive site which has a suitable depth.
Time Constraints, Logistics & Economic Factors
Scuba diving is a business, so there are practical and economic factors that must also be considered.
For example, at Simple Life Divers we run two dive trips daily – one in the morning and one in the afternoon, which each make two dives. That means we need to plan dive sites so that we’re able to stay on schedule. We depart from Sairee Beach on the west coast of Koh Tao.
Almost any two dive site combination is possible during our half day trips. But you wouldn’t want to dive our furthest north dive site (Chumphon Pinnacles) followed by our most southern dive site (Southwest Pinnacles). We’d generally hit one of the further dive sites first, then motor back towards Koh Tao during the surface interval, diving one of Koh Tao’s closer dive sites second.
Also consider the cost of diesel. If you were the senior PADI Divemaster on the boat and chose to visit dive sites which are the furthest apart, you’d rack up some pretty serious fuel bills. Much better is to plan a northern combination one day, then a southerly trip the next.
Making the customer happy
People go diving to enjoy themselves, and we want to show them a good time where they see lots of marine life. As you gain experience as a PADI Divemaster in Koh Tao, you’ll develop your own opinions about which dive sites you prefer, and will know what marine life lives where.
That means that provided you’re able to satisfy all of the above, by speaking to divers and finding out what they’re interested in you’ll be able to tailor the choice of Koh Tao dive site to give them what they want.
If avoidable a Koh Tao Divemaster wouldn’t choose to dive the same dive site every day, as repeat customers would quickly become dissatisfied. Much better is to rotate around the Koh Tao dive sites, visiting different spots each day.
Diving Conditions
There are a number of other conditions which can affect the quality of a dive and overall diver safety. One big example is underwater visibility. Sometimes the water is crystal clear which is great. At other times disturbance of sediment, thermo-clines or algae blooms can reduce visibility to almost nothing which means that you can see very little and buddy separation becomes increasingly likely. Visibility varies from day to day, but it is well worth speaking to other divers to find out where conditions are best.
So that’s a brief look at the theory of how PADI Divemasters choose a dive site.
Now’s your chance to put theory into practice! Looking at the information given on the Koh Tao dive site map below, propose two dive sites for the following list of conditions:
Dive Trip 1. Two dives during the afternoon session
A strong wind is blowing in from the north-east. 2.5M high waves crashing on the east coast of Koh Tao. Minimal current throughout the area as it’s slack tide. The morning’s dive trip just got back and they said visibility was poor below the thermo-cline, which they reckon happened at about 26M, but pretty clear above.
On the boat, instructors Alex and Steve are each teaching a group of Koh Tao PADI Open Water students (dive 1 & 2, max depth 12M), meanwhile PADI Divemaster Lisa is running a scuba review for some rusty divers.
Which two dive sites are you going to send the Simple Life boat to?
Dive Trip 2. Two Dives in the Morning Session
Today there is a brisk breeze from the north-east, with wave height getting up to a maximum of about 0.5-1M. At the time the divers will be in the water you predict a gentle current flowing from north to south.
On the boat PADI Scuba Instructor Warren is running a PADI Advanced course. He’ll be doing the deep dive first so would like to get his students down to about 26M, then he plans to make the underwater navigation dive second, for which he’d appreciate a shallow sandy bottom. Plus PADI Divemaster Tim is guiding a very experienced group of divers, who dived the Chumphon Pinnacles yesterday morning.
Which two dive sites will you choose for the morning dive, getting back in time for lunch?
Dive Trip 3. Two dive afternoon trip
Reports have come in that there are two whale sharks hanging around at the Chumphon Pinnacles. Manager Luke has scrambled together a group of certified divers, there’s an underwater videographer onboard, and PADI Instructor Nikki is running a Deep Specialty course.
Which two Koh Tao dive sites are you going to send the boat to?
Answers:
Dive Trip 1: You’ve got to stay on the sheltered west coast of Koh Tao, out of the waves, and choose shallow easy dive sites for the PADI courses. Good choices would include Twins, White Rock or even 3 rocks.
Dive Trip 2: They need some depth, want to see something good and have already seen the Chumphon Pinnacles, so a good choice for your first dive would be the South-West pinnacle or Shark Island. Since you need to get back to Koh Tao on time, you’ll need to choose a much closer second dive site such as White Rock or Hin Pee Wee.
Dive Trip 3: Scuba diving with a whale shark is a once in a lifetime experience, and we’re lucky to be able to provide such fantastic scuba diving here on Koh Tao. Best would be to double dive the Chumphon Pinnacles.
That wraps up a quick look at how Koh Tao PADI Divemasters choose the best dive site each day. Cheack back again soon for more free lessons from Simple Life’s Thailand PADI Divemaster internships.
