Looking for good diving for a beginner (or being told to just skip it)

[lvicks]

Hey all!

First post here, so big thanks to everyone for making such a great community. I've been reading anonymously but decided to jump in.

Background story. I dove with my family from age 13-17, I have Advanced Open Water PADI cert, and something like 30-50 dives under my belt. I also haven't been diving in ~20 years. My wife has never dived before, but I've been talking to her about it for some time and we'd like to get her certified and give it a go to see if we want to get into it.

Our plan is for my wife to take Open Water courses in a nearby pool, and I'll take a reactivate course. We'd then dive on vacation where she'd do her open water dives, and we could kick off having some fun. Growing up I'd dive in Bonaire, where you can hang at a resort / beach then jump in a motor boat for your dive. If you're doing a certification the resort could send an extra dive master out on the trip to focus on the diver. I'm looking for this type of experience for my wife.

Which brings me to Thailand. We'll be traveling there in late Jan to visit a friend, and we have 4-6 days we could spend at an Island hanging out and learning to dive. Given this is my wife's first time, I'd really like something calm, easy, and as beautiful as possible. A lot of what I'm seeing are liveaboard boats which I think might be a bit intense and won't offer the beach relaxing we want.

So I'm looking for recommendations on islands and even places to stay. Your feedback may be to skip the diving and wait until we can do it somewhere better for beginners, which is totally valid feedback as well.

Cheers!
Lucas

 

[MacDuyver]

What part of Thailand are you going to be in/ interested in?
I ask because it's a surprisingly long country.
good news is that there are many many options.

 

[lvicks]

What part of Thailand are you going to be in/ interested in?
I ask because it's a surprisingly long country.
good news is that there are many many options.

We’ll be in Bangkok and eventually have to catch a flight to Hanoi (not yet booked), so we’re flexible within reason. Happy to spend half a day traveling for a better experience.

Our only preference may be to chase warmer weather, if it’s even much of a factor (seems like everywhere is pretty warm despite it being January)

 

[lvicks]

Oh maybe also worth noting we would prefer a place less travelled, so our preference would be to avoid very popular islands.

 

[MacDuyver]

There are two locations I'd recommend within a couple hours of Bangkok:

Pattaya - about 2 hrs or so southeast of Bangkok. It's the most accessible spot from Bangkok and is the Miami Beach of Thailand. The city has an earned reputation for being Bangkok's beach party city, however if you choose your hotel wisely, you can stay at a nice place with good dining options that's more removed from the lady bars. The diving is great (if conditions are good, which they ought to be in january) with shallow reefs, as well as deeper dives to some cool wrecks.

Satthahip/ Chon Samaesarn/ Koh Chang - About 40 minutes south of Pattaya. Koh Chang is popular among Thais wanting a quiet getaway weekend. More rustic of a location. The diving in the Samaesarn Islands is incredible if you're into deep wrecks. That said, it might not be a good spot for bringing little ones just learning to dive. There are some good entry level dives around Koh Chang. The rest of the Samaesarn Islands has some ripping currents. Incredible dives, but they tend to be a bit more on the aggressive side. I'd keep to Koh Chang and save the gnarly drift and wrecks for later on in skill development.

Other options:
Si Racha - in between Bangkok and Pattaya. Not as.... festive... as Pattaya, but also the diving is not as good. The sites are decent, but there aren't as many of them as in Pattaya.

Koh Samui/ Koh Tao - The best diving in the southern Gulf of Thailand. Beautiful tropical paradise island as well.

Phuket and the near-by Koh Phi Phi (the "pee pee Islands") are world class, on the Andaman Sea side, but are either an airplane flight or a 10+ hour drive from BKK. I very much recommend either, but budget your dives to allow 18hrs or so off-gas time for a retrun flight.

 

[MacDuyver]

TRANSLATION NOTE: "Koh" means "island" in Thai.

It's safe to assume that to get to any Koh location, you'll need to plan to take a boat/ ferry.

Koh Samui is the only one I know of that has an airport.

 

[Centrals]

1. Wrong time of the yr for the East coast.
2. Diving in Pattaya is very very ordinary.
3. Phuket is no better and expensive.
4. Koh Lanta is very good but sites are far so rather expensive.
5. Koh Lipe is further south and near to Malaysian border. However diving is good and sites are not that far. This is the place I would recommend. Fly to Hat Yai and then long transfer.
6. No experience on Koh Chang.
7. Koh Phi Phi? You have to go to Phuket/Krabi first so might as well go to Koh Lipe.
8. Swimming pool for scuba training is NOT that common.
9. Thailand is NOT Bonaire.

 

[lowwall]

Something to keep in mind is that training has changed a lot since you got certified due to e-learning and dive computers. You now show up having done all the classroom work online which means the in-person part is normally a quick review of the material and then right into one or two pool (or calm shallow beach) sessions to go through the skills and then the checkout dives.

I mention this because you might want to do the full class during the vacation instead of breaking it up. It's nice to have the same instructor and gear through the whole class. If you can afford it, I'll also recommend doing a private class instead of the local group lesson. Depending on where it's done, the cost difference might be pretty small. I had my wife do this in Cozumel and our son in West Palm Beach.

I also had a friend who lives in Singapore do this in Phuket. I hung out with him during the class and can recommend the instructor, @stevenl who is the owner of Welcome to Phuket dash Scuba, your personal Phuket divecenter and diving school . He's in Kata, which is a quieter and way more family friendly than Patong, but it still may not be exactly what you are looking for. All the local instructor/shops do the pool training at one hotel that has a deep pool. We did the first OW dive from Kata Beach which is calm and shallow and the second on a day boat trip.

Still, I'm not 100% sure that's the best route given your time frame. You will have to fly to Phuket. The flight is quick, but you have to get to the airport at each end. It's about an hour from the airport to the Phuket beach cities. But the bigger issue is that she won't be able to get many dives in after the course. It's nice to get at least a half dozen dives right away after certification to get comfortable before you take a break. A full week in Coz or Bonaire or the Caymans might make more sense.

 

[JonnieB]

There is no good diving close to Bangkok (Pattaya and Praying/Samaesan are marginal at best, with often low visibility and string currents). (Twenty years plus diver and Thai resident here.) About four hours drive down the coast is Ko Chang, the nearest decent diving and even there it's not the best.

If you're going to Vietnam, you might also consider getting certified there. Rumblefish Adventure in Ho Chi Min city is my recommended shop, where they pool train in the city and organize diving in Nha Trang up the coast.

 

[Centrals]

If you're going to Vietnam, you might also consider getting certified there. Rumblefish Adventure in Ho Chi Min city is my rec where they pool train in the city and organize diving in Nha Trang up the coast.

You cannot be serious!!! But then.....