Thailand questions

[aqudoc]

OOOOkay - Gettin' a little spicy. I gotta go teach a snowboard class at altitude, so I'll check back for more ideas tonight. You kids paly nice now while I'm gone. -T

 

[MoonWrasse]

Lol, Steven works so hard to get himself tossed out of Thailand

 

[vondo]

Hi and thaks in advance for any light you can shed. Wife and I are doing our academic and confined dives in the US, then off to Thailand in January for one month to do open water for certification and probably advanced open water plus just fun dives. I've been emailing outfits to get pricing and am in dialogue w/ save-money-diving.com about both courses. We will be on west coast/Andaman sea and were considering gulf later/Koh Tai, but the rep. said gulf is poor during that time and even in best time, not great. Anyone w/ experience diving Thailand have suggestions for us regarding outfits that are reputable, places to dive? All email response so far is quoting around $200 - 250 ea. for cert. and another $235 ea. for 6 more dives and advanced open water cert. Here's the itinerary

Day One Dives 1 & 2 Open Water Course Racha Yai
Day Two Dives 3 & 4 Open Water Course Staghorn Reef - Racha

Day Three Dives 1 - 3 Advanced Open Water King Cruiser Wreck, Koh Doc Mai and Shark Point
Day Four Dives 4 & 5 Advanced Open Water Phi Phi Island or Anenome Reef etc

Thoughts??

I see you are now planning to only do AOW plus fun dives. Not a bad choice, in my opinion. I did much the same, but on Koh Phi Phi (a 2 hour ferry from Phuket). Have you considered heading out to the islands? The place I used was www.vikingdiversthailand.com and heartily recommend them. There are other operators too and the prices are fixed on Phi Phi. You can get a discount with your own gear. Actually if I was going again, I think I would head down further to Koh Lanta as even Phi Phi was a little crowded for my tastes.

Enjoy!!!!

 

[aqudoc]

Thanks for the link Vondo. We are going to do a live aboard, just can't decide the company, and dive Simian, poss. Surin. also south toward Trang to do some lazing, snorkel (is that a bad word here??) and dive Hin Daeng/Hin Muang. I'm guessing it would be cheaper to go Simian from Khao Lak because it's closer and maybe day trips from Trang or vicinity to Hin D & M for same. We've been to Phuket and I can relate to your crowd msg. We spent most of our time taking tuk tuk to Kata Noi. Just can't decide where to do that AOW, lots of money breaks doing it on live aboards, but worried I might waste good boat diving doing skills that I might do off shore?? Thanks for everyones continued input.

 

[MoonWrasse]

Many people do their AOW at the Similans.
In PADI AOW, you'll spend a brief portion normally during the dive doing a skill
specific to the AOW unit.
Then the remainder of the dive will be a fun dive.

 

[stevenl]

AOW at the Similans is certainly possible and fun. On the dives there will be some skills, but onlyon one of the dives (navigation), you will have so much things to do you will hardly be able to enjoy the diving. On all other dives you basically make a fundive, with a few skills/tasks in between.

Prices to the Similans from Khao Lak and Phuket are more or less the same, does not make much of a difference.

For diving hin Daeng/Muang: if you want to get as close as possible and save traveltime, Koh Lanta is the place to be.

 

[aqudoc]

Thanks fot the Koh Lanta tip Steve. Think I should be booking this online? Will it be difficult to do so on short notice? I can see the schedules of many of the boats talked about on these forums.

 

[DandyDon]

Howdy and welcome to SB!

WE have a forum for that area. I suggest Nitrox before Aow, and don't get on a boat without a Safety Sausage & Storm Whistel.

If you haven't yet, click Forums above and start going thru the list - looking for those of interest to you, especially your local dive club. Always good to try a Search before starting a new thread, tho and be careful about posting Replies without reading the Stickies for each forum. Click the link in my Sig below to PM me if I can help you around here..

don

 

[stevenl]

You could book online, but I don't think that is really necessary. Also on the spot you can book, after having checked out a few DC's of course.

 

[Jason Ooi]

Welcome to :sblogo:
:wave-smil :wave-smil