Olly's time on Koh Tao learning how to dive

Olly has recently returned from a trip learning how to dive with us on Koh Tao.  Below is a review of what he had to say about his time on the island.

"I contacted Mungo at Scuba Duba Dive about 2 months prior to the planned holiday, our tailor made package was quickly organised and confirmed. It is comforting to know that all of the money I invested into a holiday is protected through both the TTA and ATOL.

On arrival at Koh Samui Airport the transfers were waiting and were prepared to take us to the Lomprayah Ferry. The transfer to Koh Tao was quick, pleasant and easy using the Lomrayah Fast Cats.

On arrival at the pier staff from the hotel were ready to pick us up. Koh Tao Regal Hotel is an odd place, long dark corridors, and questionable interior design in the lobby but looking out to a fantastic looking pool and bar area. The concerns were quickly alleviated when we got to our rooms which were quite frankly fantastic. Okay they weren’t spotlessly clean and a few maintenance issues but the room was huge, with an ensuite that included a Jacuzzi. But overall the view was special, looking out over the beach and across the bay. The balcony was a lovely place both to refresh yourself in the cool morning air and a perfect vantage point to watch the sunset over Thailand in the evening.

On arrival at the Dive Resort the company were expecting us and were ready with the paper work so we could enlist upon the course. All the instructors were extremely friendly and knowledgeable, they would happily assign different instructors to different abilities so that no one was leftwaiting. I did my PADI Open Water, PADI Advanced Open Water and PADI Wreck Speciality. Throughout the courses I never had more than 6 in the group with 3 instructors but I mostly had 2 instructors to myself throughout the week.

Another bonus of the resort was that they could find instructors that speak various assortments of languages. We had a Russian trio in our group, who were given a Russian speaking Dive Master for translation.

During my time in Koh Tao I dived at Mango Bay, Twins, White Rock, Sail Rock and HMTS Sattakut, the latter using that for my wreck spec. The coral and sea life is abundantly colourful and diverse at all sites. Diving on and inside HMTS Sattakut was an experience I’ll never forget. With visibility varying between 5 meters and 30 meters on different dives, I truly got a sense that the same boat was an entirely different wreck.

Koh Tao is a place that I will miss, and I wish to go back sometime. Although it is an isolated little island the society is not at all closed and tight knit. The varying array of restaurants from all corners of the world were fantastic. I do not think I had a bad meal the whole time I was there. Everyone is friendly and helpful and the internet provisions are fantastic. The climate was exceptionally comfortable, around 30-35 with a constant sea breeze ridding the island of the expected humidity. Also if there are any problems Koh Tao has a good medical centre and everyone was more than happy to go out of their way to help you.

One of the more unexpected highlights was Koh Samui airport. The departure lounge is basically an outdoor shopping street, with various brands and restaurants. The architecture was quaint and well thought out. Spending a few hours at Koh Samui Airport was a pleasant way of ending our holiday."

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View from Koh Tao Regal Swimming Pool

The Great Scottish Diving

This summer in Scotland we've had some spectacular weather with some days hitting over 30 degrees.  Usually the Scottish summers are very hit or miss, sometimes just having a summer of rain.  With the weather being so good it meant I had to benefit from it, that meant getting back into Scottish diving in a wetsuit! 

Portknockie Harbour

North East Dive's Boat

Conger Eel,

I've spent many an evening this summer diving in the North Sea with some great dives.  I think the weekend just past has been my best day of Scottish diving.  I was on a day dive trip with North East Dive out of Portknockie Harbour, which is near Banff in North East Scotland.  It was another stunning day and as we arrived at 10am there was children playing on the beach, this is

Scotland at the start of September!

Standard Lobster

Gearing up into my wetsuit we headed out of the harbour to the Moray Wreck, which is a scattered wreck lying at around 29 metres depending on the tide.  There isn't a huge amount left of the wreck but that didn't stop there being a lot of marine life around the wreck, especially in the boiler room.  As we went down the shot line hardly being able to see a thing I wasn't convinced this was going to be a good dive but at about 20 metres it just open out to about 5-10 metres visibility, a true Scottish dive.  We saw giant lobsters, conger eels, giant crabs and plenty of fish.

Giant Lobster

 During the lunch interval we went back into Portknockie harbour.  It was so warm my wetsuit managed to dry off during the 2 hours we spent back onshore.  Tanks changed over it was time to head out for the second time, this time we were diving Caple Rock.  Gently cruising out the harbour we came across 7 dolphins just playing around in the bay, another example of how vast Scottish wildlife can be! 

Caple Rock is a gentle reef/rock dive with plenty of life about.  The current was up so there was a slight drift which is always good fun.  Overall the day was a great success and I never felt cold in my 5mm wetsuit!  I urge those who are qualified divers who haven't tried cold water diving to give it a shot, it's defiantly worth while!  North East Dive in Banff run weekly diving days from their boat, all excellent value and excellent fun! 

Diving in the North Sea again

After just over three years of not diving locally I finally dived again last night in the North Sea with North East Dive.  I'd been meaning to go diving with them for a couple of weeks but was concerned it was going to be too cold as I was mainly used to warm water diving.

Prepared for the worse I wore a 5mm full wetsuit and a 5mm shorty with hood, on the way out to the dive site on the rib I was talking to the other dives who said on Friday the water was 16 degrees.  At that I didn't think I would need my gloves after having been in 20 degree water in Malta a month before without a hood or gloves.  The moment I rolled back off the rib and hit the water I knew it wasn't 16 degrees and regretted not wearing my gloves.  However I continued without and descended down for the dive.

The visibility was around 10 metres and it was a shallow dive along the coast.  After spending the first few minutes getting used to my kit and the conditions again we started the dive.  There was lots of little swim throughs and getting thrown around by the current near the coast was a new experience which made me feel sea sick, so had to quickly descend again to get away from the waves.  The marine life was pretty good, lots of little spider crabs around the kelp and a lots of big edible crabs in the fisherman's pots.  Navigating in and out of the coast line never really exceeding 12metres we managed a 42 minute dive.  I was starting to feel the cold without any gloves on as the actual bottom temperature was only 9 degrees! 

North East Dive's Boat- Picture from Facebook

I will defiantly be back for more dives and next time will be wearing a pair of gloves!  I urge anyone who is a qualified diver and has diving on their doorstep to give cold water diving a try.  Yes, you have to wear a lot more equipment than warm water diving but cold water diving just lets you keep up your diving experience and that next time you go on holiday diving you don't spend the first days diving to refresher courses!

Speaking with Hannah about her experience learning to dive in Egypt

Another series in the Scuba Duba Dive Blog posts of peoples first diving experiences.  This time we're speaking with Hannah who learnt to dive in Egypt.

"The first time I donned scuba kit and descended into the ocean was off the east coast of Australia at the Great Barrier Reef.  This was a novice dive during which I swam around happily looking wide eyed at a magical under water world.  I loved the underwater world and was instantly at ease with the scuba equipment.  As such, a year and half later in Cairo, Egypt, I had the opportunity and signed up to do the PADI Open Water course.  After the theory and pool sessions, friends and I traveled to Safaga on Egypt's Red Sea coast to board Legends - it is a legendary dive boat on which I spent many subsequent weekends bobbing about in the Red Sea going from one spectacular dive site to another.  At 0900, on this inaugural morning, the sky was blue and the sun radiating heating, I kitted up and stepped off the back to the boat into a clear blue sea.  El Shehr was the location of the first dive during which I swam around looking wide eyed at the magical under water world.  In fact, on every dive I swim around wide eyed looking at the colours, shapes & sizes of the majestic under water world.  Dolphins, corals, moray eels, octopus, turtles, my favourite blue spotted rays and so much more - it is breathtaking every time. "

Did this post inspire you in wanting to learn to scuba dive?  Check out the range of courses Scuba Duba Dive offers at our website

Hannah in Egypt

Speaking with Charlotte about her first time scuba diving

Second in the serious of blog posts which we will be doing speaking with people about their first time scuba diving.  Today we hear from Charlotte who learnt out in Fiji.

Charlotte, First learnt to dive on Yasawa Islands, Fiji in 2007 aged 25;

"In April 2007 I went on holiday to Fiji to meet some friends who had spent a year travelling.  We travelled up and down the Yasawa Islands, stopping at various Backpacker resorts on the way.

We stayed at a beautiful place called Manta Ray Resort.  One night I got asked by one of the dive reps if I'd every dived.  I hadn't and didn't fancy it because of the thought of sharks.  However I found myself signed up for the first dive the next morning!

Beautiful sunshine it was NOT! I went to the dive hut in the pouring rain hoping it would be cancelled…. No such luck!

As I'd not dived before the lady instructor said she would hold my hand the whole time to keep an eye on me, my buoyancy and my depth.  She sorted out all my gear as I had no clue and showed me what was what.

We waded out from the beach in front of the resort, had a couple of tests with the regs and then went under!  To say I was amazed is an understatement! It was beautiful! As the colours and tons of tropical fish, it was such a fantastic experience!

The instructor swam me around pointing out all sorts of weird and wonderful sea creatures.  At one point we stopped in front of what looked to me to be a dead lump of coral.  The instructor started wiggling her fingers in front on a hole in the coral no bigger than a 50 pence piece and all of a sudden an Octopus emerged, one tentacle at a time and then swam off!  It was fascinating!

Before I knew it my 40 minute dive was over and we'd swam back up to the beach.  I didn't see any sharks (phew!) Although I think I was secretly hoping I would!  I had fallen in love with diving after 1 dive and had discovered a whole new world that I wanted to see more of!"

Talking with Ian about his first diving experience in Thailand

Diving is not a very common sport but is becoming more and more popular with it being ranked as the do-to sport in 2013.  We're going to be spending the next couple of days talking with some divers about there first time experiences underwater.  Here's what Ian Roberts had to say;

First learnt to dive in June 2010 on Koh Tao, Thailand aged 21

"I went travelling around Southeast Asia with some friends in 2010 who were all aiming to do some scuba diving as part of the adventure.  Initially I wasn't sure what I thought about the idea of diving, looking at all the equipment required it seemed very obvious to me that humans are very much not designed to go underwater, making the whole idea of it seem very unnatural.

With some convincing from my friends, and not wanting to miss out, I signed myself up but still had my reservations.  After an introduction in the swimming pool under controlled conditions I got used to the idea of breathing underwater, became comfortable with all the diving gear and more confident that I was in good hands.

Feeling more at ease after the pool session I signed up to do my PADI Open Water course on Koh Tao which was an absolutely fantastic experience.  Koh Tao is an interesting, somewhat crazy, place which offered awesome diving facilities.  Completing the Open Water turned out to be the most memorable few days of the entire trip which, if it wasn't for my persistent friends, I would have missed out on.  I enjoyed the diving so much I also completed two adventure dives which count towards my PADI Advanced Open Water qualification, including a night dive which added a totally different dynamic to the experience, which I aim to complete in the future.  Gaining my PADI Open Water Qualification allowed me to easily undertake fun dives when I visited Nah Trang in Vietnam as we continued on our travels.

I urge anybody who finds themselves in my situation, with the opportunity to go scuba diving, to say yes.  Ask friends or family who have been diving before for their opinion, I guarantee it will be a positive one.  You will not regret it!"

Many thanks for your time Ian and hopefully we will see you underwater again very soon!

Lieve's Diving Journey

Lieve, Dahab Rep

I started diving during a holiday in Egypt and I was hooked from my very first dive. There was a whole new world out there to discover! My plan was to stay for some time in Dahab and do my PADI Open Water course before heading to Cairo. However, loving the underwater world and the diving so much, I cancelled my ticket to Cairo and signed up for the PADI Advanced Open Water course. For some weeks I enjoyed getting to know people sharing the same passion for diving, visiting nice dive sites with the most colorful reefs, learning how to become a better diver, watching fish and trying to remember their names.

Once back in Belgium, I immediately checked when I could plan my next trip to get some more dives in my logbook. After holidays of diving in Dahab, Sharm El Sheikh, El Quesir and Jordan, I felt ready to start the PADI Rescue Diver course. I found a counter job in a dive center in Dahab, which I could combine with the PADI Rescue Diver course. This training showed me so many new aspects of diving, that I got curious to learn more about it. The PADI Divemaster training was the logical next step and, to me, the most fun and interesting course of all the diving courses I had taken so far. It makes you a different and more confident diver. You learn more about the organisation and planning of dives, about dive equipment, you learn how to demonstrate all the skills you practiced during the PADI Open Water course, you get familiar with how to guide dives and so much more.

Now working as a PADI Divemaster feels very rewarding. I enjoy every dive and can’t imagine to work in an office again, far away from the sea and this incredible feeling of freedom you have under water. When I am in Belgium, I truly miss the Red Sea and the diving.

For sure, an adventure and experience I can recommend to all of you!

Diving Dahab, Red Sea, Egypt