Seeking advise: Koh Samui dive centre

[scoufr]

Dear SB:ers,

Greetings! Me and my wife will soon be in Koh Samui for 8 days, and we're looking for a centre to dive with. Me Rescue / She AOW.
Apart from the obvious: well kept equipment (we'll have to rent some due to regional travel), safety and generally professional staff we also understand that the travel distances from Koh Samui to the best sites is something to take into consideration, so would also appreciate advise on this angle. We've seen that a few operators keep their own speed-boats, whereas others have bigger (but supposedly slower) boats, and some... I suppose they combine?

Anyway - would greatly appreciate some advise and comments from all of you out there to make the trip as nice as possible.

So if you kindly have a minute or two to spare... then many many thanks in advance!!!
Rikard

 

[limbo]

Hi Rikard,

As you already stated, Samui diving is done by two means, the faster way by speedboat or the slower way by big (slower) boat.
For the speedboat option I would recommend 'The Dive Academy', who most of the time use the 'Blue Fin' speedboats, well organized and good equipment.
If you want to go 'upmarket' for the speedboat option, try '100 Degrees East', they run their own speedboat with a max amount of divers (12 if I remember correctly) on the boat. They are slightly more expensive though.

For the slower but bigger boats, there really are only two options, 'Easy Divers' and 'Dive Point' both with their own boat.

All dive centers on the island will have a pick up service from your hotel and small breakfast and lunches are included in general for a two day dive trip although each Thursday you can do the 'Big Easy' with Easy divers, usually Shark Point on Koh Tao, South West Pinnacle and Sail Rock all in one day.

Sail Rock is 'must', in my opinion the best dive site in the Gulf!

Good luck and enjoy the dives.