Thailand in August

[stevenl]

There are every year heavy discussions about that here on the forum. I like the liveaboards in the European summer months: hardly any divers, no boat traffic, good visibility, and also the marine life is nice. Normally not too much rain in those months, but the wind can be strong. And if the wind is too strong, the trip is cancelled. Does not happen very often, last season we had 1 trip cancelled.

Boats going:
Really Wicked Witch
Genesis
Colona VI
Nautica

There are also boats making liveaboard trips further South: Racha Islands, Phi Phi Islands and Hin Daeng and Hin Muang if the weather permits.

 

[lemurs2]

Thanks stevenl! Some of the boats have some Aug dates so we'll check those out. Are currents stronger when the winds are blowing?

 

[sailmaryann]

probably getting late on this thread, but , but...
august in the andaman is NOT advisable. risk of heavy seas, rain, etc... is just too high.
Gulf of Thailand better choice definitely. Koh Tao is not that bad crowd-wise, and even samui you can find quiet places and good dives. go live-aboard to stay away from the crowds. Phangan not bad also, and the Angthong National Park is another option.

 

[stevenl]

risk of heavy seas, rain, etc... is just too high.

In the last few years, we have had 1 trip cancelled each year because of heavy seas. The risk really is far less than a lot of people think.

 

[Ringo]

As Steven says - there is always a debate about Liveaboards during this period. My personal opinion? Not advisable purely because the weather is unpredicatable at this time of the year. Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[Batfish]

My opinion - don't book ahead unless you are flexible and don't get mad if you do book ahead and your trip is cancelled/rescheduled or you can't dive all the dive sites. August is likely to have mostly decent weather, but I wouldn't bet my life savings on it! The Colona VI would be a good bet for a quality boat.

 

[lemurs2]

I think that we will wait for a more stable time and hit Indonesia for Aug/Sept and try T-Land in Feb/March time

 

[Ex-Aquanaut]

Hi Matt,

The Andaman side in August can be pretty dicey. About half the dive sites are closed that time of year and the waves can be pretty harsh.

The Gulf of Thailand is much better and here in Pattaya, while not as good as the Similans in the peak season, has good diving all year round. Pattaya is Thaialnd's wreck diving captal, with 3 wrecks between 26-32 meters. We have about 20 different dive sites to choose from.

Being only 90 minutes from Bangkok, it's also a great first stop. You can fly from here directly to Samui or Phuket w/o having to go through Bangkok.

As for crowds, they are smaller in Pattaya and my company, Aquanauts Dive Centre, as actually built our business around personal attention and training. You dive generally with 1 or 2 other people only in any group. We operate the largest boat in Pattaya and train all our own instructors.

Check us out at www.AquanautsDive.com

 

[stevenl]

About half the dive sites are closed that time of year

And these sites are??