After 20 years of being based only in Patong, Scuba Cat has decided to open a shop in a new area, NaiHarn.

Naiharn Shop

Two years ago was a big change for Scuba Cat with the closing on the beach road shop and the premises moving to the Kee Plaza and Soi Wattana shops.

During this time we noticed that many of our return customers just came into the Soi Wattana shop to see us again, and so we decided to close the Kee Plaza shop and move out to a new area of Phuket to offer a better service covering a larger area.

So for the first time we are now out of Patong……..

Naiharn at the south of Phuket Island is an quieter area with a what most people think is the best beach on the island.

The bay is surrounded with Palm tree’s and there is the famous sunset viewpoint of Prom Thep Cape close by. There is also the lagoon area behind the beach which is great for children to swim and paddle in all year around.In the green season it is sometimes possible to surf in the area too.

Prom Thep Cape

The area has many good restaurants and cafe’s all along the main area and there are hotels and guest houses to suit all budget and taste, but it is not a big party area, more a chill out place. There are some good bars if you want but people tend to visit just 1 or 2 in a evening rather than many as is the case in Patong.

Rawai is very close to NaiHarn, and although there is no beach there, this area also has good restaurants on the shore area. The Sea Gypsy’s have been resident in Rawai for many years and have small market area where trinkets and fresh sea food are for sale.

Rawai

Along the shore line there are many local long tail boats which offer trips to the close coral island for the morning or afternoon.

The whole area is not really know for the shopping or markets, but these can be easily visited in Phuket Town or Patong with a short taxi ride.

Our new shop is located on Sai Yuan Road opposite the popular Da Vinchi Italian restaurant.

The shop is newly built and has a retail area, fully equipped classroom and office. We will be conducting all courses from both Naiharn and our Patong shops, so you can choose either depending on the location of your hotel.

Classroom

One more improvement we want to offer is free transfers to and from the boat that will now include the Naiharn and Rawai area’s and the hotels along Visit Rd to the pier at Chalong.

The 13th August 2013 was a very good and special day for Phuket’s divers. In fact, in honor of her Majesty Queen Sirikit’s 81st birthday, divers community and volunteers met to cleanup our reefs and beaches.

GO ECO PHUKET is a non-governmental organization recognized by the Thaï government, that takes place every year, this year in August. This year, more than eleven diving companies and 1500 divers and non divers were present to clean up and help to protect the oldest most productive ecosystems on earth. Moreover, a lot of volunteers came, included divers of other countries who were in holidays, Thai people and students and schoolchildren from educational establishments of the island. Everybody was ready to begin this cleaning day at 7:00 am under the sun at Chalong Pier for a small briefing, TV interview and thanks for all those involved in this action.
After that, every diving teams and beach cleaners went to the beautiful Racha Yai, Racha Noi or Coarl Island to begin their job…
Our Scuba Cat Team took about 1.5 hours to go to Racha Yai with MV Scuba Fun, and about 22 people on board, included 10 volunteers.

Our destination once we arrived were the Bay’s 2 and 4 for the day.

Scuba Cat were given the responsibility for putting down 2 new mooring lines at Bay 2, the owner Sarah Kench, has donated the use of 2 1000 tonne anchors for the lines to be attached to, this will enable more mooring opportunities for the dive and snorkel boats visiting the island. Once the equipment  was on the divers went for the dives to try to make the reef of Phuket one on the top diving destination in Thaïland and in the world !!

After approximately two fifty dives each and many efforts, Scuba Fun and his team have collected bottles, clothes, old dead fish for analyses, metalics and plastics debris, ropes, ans fishing nets.
To close the day on the way back, all dive boats stood in line to celebrate this good and productive day and take pictures before going back to the pier to sort and weigh all the collected debris from the day.

We would like to thank our sponsor for the day All About Scuba Diving, the crew and volunteers who donated their time to help in this underwater clean up.

Summary of the day : 4 356 kilos of debris collected in total !

GO ECO PHUKET, it’s doing what you like, while participating in the environmental protection !

Scuba Cat Diving has joined the cause of Shark Guardian to promote the preservation of sharks in all over the world. Shark Guardian started as a non-profit organization but as of the 1st of July 2013 it was granted a UK Charity Status. The founder is Brendon Sing who is one of the course directors for Scuba Cat and is run by him and his wife Liz Ward Sing.

Shark Guardian is implicated by the conservation, the education and actions about sharks since 1998. In the mind of so many people, sharks are aggressive and attack people like surfers or snorkelers in so different countries. However the reality is not this one, shark guardian has established a list about shark facts which demonstrate the disappearance of them caused by human’s actions.
Shark Guardian shark facts, do you know these?
97 % of all sharks species are harmless to people and more people are killed by falling coconuts, insects or other animals per year than by sharks.

People killed by animals Source: Le Monde.fr 8 July 2013

70-100 Million sharks are killed each year by humans for shark fin soup, but these one contains a high level of mercury dangerous to humans.
Sharks have existed for 400 million years and there are over 500 species of them. However, today a third of all shark species are nearly extinct.
Sharks are apex predators of the ocean and maintain the balance of all other marine life and ecosystem in the ocean.
That’s why shark guardian need people help for the conservation and protection to survive of sharks in the ocean.
If you are interested by this cause or if you want more information about shark guardian cause join or contact them on
www.sharkguardian.org
or info@sharkguardian.com

If you again think sharks are monsters and kill people in all over the world just take few minutes to know their causes and the consequences of their disappearance.

Scuba Cat is proud to be a Shark Guardian dive center, when you come to the shop we have a stock of the t-shirts where all the profit goes into the charity.

Thanks you to Scuba Cat’s two new Divemaster’s Sarah and Cal who organised this mornings clean up on Patong Beach.

At 7.30 am this morning we met at Scuba Cat Diving in Soi Wattana, Patong.

Just after 8.00am, after two cups of coffee we were ready to get to work!

We arrived at Patong Beach and were each presented with a pair of “Orange” Rubber gloves and a black bin bag. Cal and Sarah arranged us into two teams, starting in the middle of the Beach and working away from the other team. We had 1 hour! Lek, one of Scuba Cats Drivers, was with us all to act as the collection point for the morning. Bottles, cigarette ends, used condoms!, to name a few things we found…… oh how we wish there were ashtrays and trash bins on the beach, what a difference that would make!!!!

Thanks to Sarah and Cal, Divemaster’s for organizing the morning, Bryan and Reidar for helping us during their IDC, Matt DMT and  Max, Ben and Thibault for joining us during their University Internship with Scuba Cat.

And of course a big thank you to the “Bin Men” from Patong, for helping us dispose of the Rubbish afterwards.

We realized an hour wasn’t long enough to really make a difference so we have decided to carry out a beach cleanup in Patong on a monthly basis as part of our IDC, along with our already scheduled monthly Underwater Cleanup.

If any one wishes to join us for either event please contact us for more details.

Scuba Cat Diving received two prestigious awards in one evening.

Reef Check Thailand

and Asia Pacific & Project Aware

A huge THANK YOU to the Staff and Students from Concordia International School, Shanghai, China for their commitment to the Reefs of Racha Yai…..5 years later ……44 days, 60 students, 160 Dives

It all began 5 and a half years ago when we received an email from Terry Umphenour, a teacher from the International School in Shanghai. Terry wanted to start a Marine Ecology Study to enhance the education of  students by bringing it outdoors.

Over the last 5 years the students have collected valuable data from their surveys, recording the many changes that occurred over a 5 year period and learned an important lesson: our reefs are in serious danger.

Many of them have started as non divers, going on to complete multiple Courses, infact during their time on board I think the diver education system has been fully utilized……

• Open Water Course
• Advanced Open Water Course
• Rescue Diver
• Master Scuba Diver
• Many different Specialities
• Dive Master training

and of course the ultimate Goal, Reef Check Divers and Instructors now able to identify different types of indicator species of invertebrates, substrates, and fish by name something taken for granted by most divers, with only a handful round the world being able to do this.

They learned how to dive safely and respectfully to their new environment realizing diving is not a game. They saw first hand the negative effect of human’s on coral reef systems.

This years students were :

• Danielle
• James
• Sydney
• Sara
• Emersyn
• Pan Ling
• Jie
• Jim
• Dana
• Haley
• Yaw Tung (Andy)
• Jing Xin (Jean)

It was an honor to meet you guys and again thank you Paul, Joel and Terry for making this all possible.

and not forgetting Suchana Apple Chanavich, Ph.D and her amazing commitment to the Reef System not only in Thailand but around the world (and the awesome Ice Cream Cake at the BBQ!)