Water Sports
and Diving

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Diving
The Gulf of Thailand is a great place to try diving, get certified or sample some of its great reefs on half or one day dive trips. If you have never dived before there are many options available. Discover Scuba Diving gets you straight in the water with an instructor and can take as little as half a day. If you enjoy this and want to learn, you can choose to gain full certification by taking the Open Water Diver course. The operator will offer you a choice of options for completing the course – different locations, boats and even islands. The course takes only four days and will give you an international PADI diving license with which you can go diving all over the world. For the certified diver, you will find the operators on Samui offering a choice between trips to the National Marine Park, Sail Rock and Koh Tao. These are day trips with travel times between one and three hours by boat. The National Marine Park is a beautiful archipelago, with the best diving and clearest waters offered by the islands to the far north called Koh Wao and Hin Nippon Yai and Lek. Further north, Sail Rock is the best-known site in the Gulf, offering a wall dive on the rock, while Koh Tao offers a choice of over 20 dive sites for all experience levels.

Sailing

Thanks largely to the success of the third annual Samui Regatta, sailing in Samui is becoming increasingly popular. The island has excellent weather conditions for sailing — a good all-year-round breeze that is a solid northeasterly between December and April, and a more challenging strong westerly with the occasional violent gust between May and November. Craft available for a day on the ocean waves include yachts, catamarans and more modest windsurf boards.

Kayaking

You can glide across the water’s surface near Samui’s shores or around the cave-riddled islands of Ang Thong National Marine Park. Sea kayaks are very stable and easy to use. A number of hotels in Chaweng rent kayaks, and several kayaking companies can arrange a full day tour complete with guides and kayaks in the marine park.

Easy Divers Divesite of the Month

Sail Rock
Sail Rock is known as one of the most beautiful divesites in the Gulf of Thailand – and this is not just a rumour! Located in the middle of the ocean north of Koh Phangan, this huge granite rock formation comes out of the sea from a depth of 40 m – and it offers a huge variety of marine life to see. Besides big schools of barracuda, king mackerel, batfish and giant groupers, there is even a good chance of spotting whalesharks. If you have a closer look at the rock, which is covered in hard corals and anemonies, you might find moray eels, scorpion fish, nudibranches and hermit crabs.The most spectacular attraction of Sail Rock is the ‘vertical chimney swim through’, which is located on the northwest side of the rock. It allows you to enter the rock at a depth of 18m and ascend inside the rock. At 12m there is a ‘window’ in the chimey which allows you to exit or just keep ascending to 6m, where you will find the top exit. The chimney is wide enough for two divers. Whilst ascending slowly you should have a look into the little crevices, maybe you’ll find some colourful boxershrimps, busy cleanershrimps or a rare pipefish.

Great Underwater Cleanup Event At Marine National Park
Koh Samui Easy Divers will be joining tens of thousands of scuba divers, snorkelers and ocean lovers from around the world for ‘Dive In To Earth Day’, an international Earth Day event that brings attention to the need to protect our planet's coral reefs, oceans and underwater world. Dive In To Earth Day activities, sponsored by local organizers such as Koh Samui Easy Divers, will be taking place in more than 50 countries during the week of Earth Day, April 22.

In addition to the Great Underwater Cleanup Event, hundreds of Dive In activities will take place throughout the world, including underwater cleanups in the Cayman Islands, reef surveys in Cambodia, diver awareness classes in Australia and educational activities for kids in Bali.

This marks the sixth year of Dive In To Earth Day, which was launched by the Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL) in 2000 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Earth Day (held annually on April 22). Dive In has been a huge success from the very beginning. In the past five years, Dive In organizers have held 1156 marine conservation events in 89 countries and territories around the world, removing trash, educating children, supporting coral reef protected areas and much more. CORAL, a non-profit coral reef conservation organization, is once again coordinating the event with the help of Project AWARE Foundation, West Marine, Air Pacific, Earth Day Network and International Coral Reef Action Network (ICRAN).

For more information about the Great Underwater Cleanup, check out info@easydivers-thailand.com , visit the Dive In To Earth Day website at: www.coral.org/divein or contact us personally on 077 413 373 or 077 231 190

The Gulf Of Thailand In May
Now the wind has changed to south-west direction, which brings calm seas - and weather conditions to Koh Samui. Chaweng and Lamai Beach will be shallow and as warm as a bathtub – ideal conditions for swimming and snorkeling. The diving conditions are usually excellent at this time – there might be up to 30 m visibility, no waves and mild currents – so go ahead and get wet!!

International yachting returns to Samui
The fifth Koh Samui Regatta takes place from the 22nd to the 28th May with the yachts again arriving from all corners of South East Asia and beyond. The largest contingent of premier racing class boats is expected to arrive from Hong Kong and includes Frank Pong’s 75 ft. “Jelik”, which in its previous life as “Pyewacket” still holds the record crossing for the trans-pacific race from California to Hawaii. Also from Hong Kong and expected to give reigning Samui champion “Ffree Fire” a run for her money are the hot rods “Mandrake” and “Drum Stick”.

Cruiser Racer division will see the likes of Moon Blue 2 again pushing Marcel Liedts “Hocux Pocux 2” all the way, while Racing Class 2 will see the local favourites from the Thai Naval Academy face some serious opposition from Down-Under with a crack crew headed by famous Australian yachtsman George Snow, who took line honours in the 97 Sydney-Hobart with his maxi yacht “Brindabella”.

Sports Boats class will see another face off between the Phuket Sports 8’s and increasingly hot competition from Pattaya, headed by the new, locally built Buzz 8. Although Jonathan Mahony from Singapore will be looking to retain this class trophy on his boat “Happy Endings”. Meanwhile an ever-increasing multi-hull class will see the Samui built catamaran “Coco Blues” vying to add a Samui regatta trophy to her recent overall win at the Phuket Kings Cup. But her new sister yacht, the recently launched “China House”, skippered by 2nd KSR sports boat winner Mark Jewell from Singapore, might just steal the limelight.

Overall, around 30 yachts are expected and the racing will again be a mixture of two days ‘round the cans’ in Chaweng Bay on Tuesday and Saturday whilst the other three days will consist of coastal passage races taking in courses to the south of Lamai, around Koh Rap, and along the north shore across to Koh Pha Ngan and returning to Chaweng Bay. The starts and finishes can be readily viewed from the shores and headlands of Samui, but perhaps the best way to view the racing up close is to charter one of the many craft available for day charter and head out to the start / finish line or a rounding mark. See below for a list of spectator boats for charter.

The Samui Regatta is not just about the sailing, it’s also about the parties and the legendary island cuisine and hospitality, with many of the local restaurants and resorts joining in as sponsors and competing with each other to throw the best regatta party. New additions to the social calendar this year include a Regatta Tavern close to the beach at race HQ inside the Central Samui Beach Resort. This will be open to all participants, spectators, and anyone interested in sailing. racing action as the sun slides down. Opening hours for the Regatta Tavern will be 13.00 to 18.00 hrs Monday – Weds, and also Friday & Saturday.
Wednesday night will see the inaugural Regatta Festival to be staged at the Bo Phut Fisherman’s Village with live bands, food stalls and much more. This event will also be open to the public, truly making this year’s regatta an event for the island.

And don’t forget the Closing Awards Ceremony – Gala Dinner at the Central Samui Beach Resort on Saturday Contact the Regatta office for more details and pricing. For more information be sure to visit the regatta web site www.samuiregatta.com Koh Samui Regatta Office; tel. 077 430404 or Peter on 09-726-5728

Spectator boats available for charter:
Kia Ora Catamaran ; www.kiaorathailand.com Tel. Gerry 077-425264
Petcherat Marine; http://www.samuispeedboat.com Tel. Tonjai 09-866-9786
June Bahtra; Tel. Pooh 077 430404 or 09-726-5728
Nok Talay; www.castawaycats.net Tel. Martin 09-289-3355

Diving

Easy Divers: 077 413 373

Abyss Dive Centre: 077 427 720, 01 677 4251

Mui Divers: Tel. 077 232 160

Samui International Dive School: 077 422 386

Travel Solutions (watersports consultants): 077 230 203