Thank you Kath and Nicolas for a great trip on boat MV Scuba Adventure to the Similans this week
What a fantastic trip.
On board for the 4 days 4 nights were Steve and Jo, repeat customers of Scuba Cat Diving, last time they were on board MV Scuba Cat where Steve proposed to Jo underwater. That was 5 years ago as well as Wendy, Andreas, Mikkel and John.
Needless to say, a couple of hours later they were there enjoying the moment with the manta and 30m visibility. Very lucky indeed, they had the manta to themselves. During the second Dive on Koh Bon the manta made came back and joined them all to say goodbye!
Manta Ray
The next day Richelieu Rock had fantastic visibility with so much action. Many glassfish being hunted by their predators, school of barracuda’s, bent stick pipefish, cleaner pipefish and SO much more including the tiniest sea horse sitting on a sea fan. They did 3 dives there with minimal current.
Ghost Pipefish – photo Steve Willett
Back to Koh Tachai, for the sunset dive. “Just like being in another world” quoted Jo Willett. The huge school of barracudas were there for the duration. Kath’s favourite dive site delivered with the trevally feeding frenzy, snappers, napoleon wrasse & marble groupers. This site was repeated the next morning and the highlight saw 2 large schools of barracuda merging together. Thankfully Koh Tachai was also kind with almost no current.
Sunset Dive – photo Steve Willett
Koh Bon, for the third dive of the day and yet again…. Mantas!!!!
The gangsters of the ocean, the Trevallies were feeding on glassfish and for good measure a Napoleon wrasse graced them with its presence. When they surfaced there were many other liveaboard boats, the decision was made to leave the manta experience on a high and head back to the Similans, Christmas Point on Island 9 to enjoy the unique swim through’s. Amongst other things Kath spotted a white tip reef shark as it swam straight across her.
Feeding time
Next West of Eden, Island 7…. they didn’t need to go diving! A teeny-tiny whale shark came alongside MV Scuba Adventure, 2m maximum! (Doesn’t sound tiny does it!) The lucky customers were kitting up on the back deck when it came to say hi.
Whale Shark
Day 4, Deep Six for the morning dive. Hoping to see the whale shark as it was in the area the day before. Great swim throughs and a white tip spotted again by Kath at 27.5m. Unfortunately, no one else saw it. Many fusiliers and banner fish.
The last dive of the Northern trip was on Shark Fin Reef, declared as “incredible” with 40m visibility. It was like diving in an aquarium. The neon fusiliers were like a train that never stopped!!! They were very fortunate to see a bump head parrot and an eagle ray. What a treat!
Huge Congratulations to John who completed his Advanced Open Water on board Scuba Adventure.
Some lucky customers were staying onboard to continue their Andaman Sea adventure with us to Hin Dueng, Hin Mueng, Koh Haa, and Phi Phi
Posted on November 9th, 2012 by admin-scubacat-dw | Comments Off on PhiPhi Live-Aboard Dive Trip September 2012 on the Scuba Adventure.
Due to more erratic weather during the low seasons here (it can be blue sky and calm/clear seas or it can be raining and rough) live-aboard trips are better planned for the more local dive sites around Phuket, where shelter is easily found and diving schedules are much less affected. Rather than taking day trips, the local dive sites are so much better done from a relaxed live-aboard, with long surface intervals and schedules that best to avoid other divers on the day boats – all in all, much better diving!
Day 1: Shark Point 1 – Stronger currents occur twice a month, so it was nice to have a leisurely 1st checkout dive that enabled us to explore most of pinnacle #1. A mass of anemones, colourful soft coral, sea-fans and barrel sponges make this marine-life rich dive site a must on any trip. Always cool things to see, we managed to find 4 tiger-tail sea-horses of various shades and a nice variety of morays.
Palong Wall Bay (Phi Phi Le) – We chose this dive site partly to avoid the currents on the other side of the island but also because it’s one of the best places to see black-tip reef sharks. Vis at about 10m was lower than Shark Point but once you tuned into looking for the sharks, it was easy to see them (some very close). There were individuals to be spotted throughout the whole dive and some groups of 3 or 4 sharks at a time. There were a couple of turtles munching on the hard corals and things like a white devil-scorpion-fish to entertain us as we waited for more big fish!
Turtle Bay (Phi Phi Le) – As it suggests, this was our dive site for turtles. It didn’t disappoint with our divers seeing a combined 5 hawksbill’s of various sizes.This site can also be awesome for macro, with some colourful nudibranchs and we found a Maldive sponge-snail too.
Tonsai Cave (Phi Phi Don) – As it suggests, this site has a cave but it was the wall, covered with coloured soft-corals and polyps, that was the subject of our night dive. Active with shrimp and decorator-crabs it was a green/grey, free-swimming, barred moray trying to eat a small crab that provided the best entertainment (the crab got away!). We had a bar-tailed moray, another interesting, though un-identifiable, small moray poking it’s nose around and also a nice beige tiger-tail sea-horse.
Day 2: Koh Bida Nai – We easily managed to work our way round most of the smaller of the 2 Bidas, with a nice drift down the west side, providing beautiful scenery, schools of trevally and tuna, plus vis up to 20m. Once we got to the other side, vis was around 10m but that was where we found 3 zebra sharks (two 1.5m juveniles and a larger adult) – so not too shabby then 😉
Koh Bida Nok – Again making use of the moderate current, we took drift down the longer side of Bida Nok. Always active with large schooling fish, we also had a few black-tip sharks and 3 very large ‘pick-handle’ barracudas. The terrain on the west side is varied and interesting, followed by a purple and yellow wall (complete with split level cave) on the northern end. Palong Wall North (Phi Phi Le) – Getting another dive in on the east of Phi Phi Le really paid off. With the best vis of the trip (a clear, blue 30m), lighting up the stunning beauty of this site. Clusters of jagged rocks in the shallows, forming channels and swim thrus (with a few sharks and turtles), dropping down to the white sands at depth, that slope up and down to the large, soft-coral covered boulders. 2 big, playful cobia in the depths were the stars of this show plus a handful of squid and some good size spiny lobsters kept our safety stop swim interesting.
Viking Cave North (Phi Phi Le) – We were also running some specialty courses on the boat, so this site was ideal for both a course dive and spending a bit more time in the shallows (4th dive of the day). We had a leopard flounder and a white bent-stick pipe fish in the mid-depth sands, another turtle at the dives end, but it was diving real slow and finding lots of nudi’s that made a nice contrast to the days ‘landscape’ diving. Nudi’s included; some small blue-dragons (Pteraeolidia Ianthina), a large Halgerda Stricklandi (bright orange spots on a bumpy white body with black-frilled on white rhinophores and gills – if that helps you imagine?) and lots of small but oh so pretty Flabellina Exoptata with their bright orange tipped, deep-purple ringed cerata (lots of pointed tubes down their back) on a violet body. Have fun looking them up!
Day 3: King Cruiser Wreck – With such an abundance of marine life it’s often hard to see this 80m long, 25m wide wreck! During the day, vis can be anything from 3m to 30m here, but there is nothing like an early morning dive at the cruiser. Vis is often at it’s best and you’re normally the only divers there. It’s absolutely the best way to enjoy the thousands of schooling fish and also the macro and soft corals that have grown on this rusty wreck.
Shark Point 3 & 2 – Due to this time having the strongest of the currents during our trip, we decided to use pinnacle #3 of Shark Point as our focus for this dive, giving us protection from the in-coming tide and then a nice drift over to the vivid soft corals of pinnacle 2. Pinnacle 3, being a little deeper on average than the others, has more varied hard corals amongst the soft and attracts an awful lot of fish. A school of chevron-barracudas added yet another thing to our list of cool critters. Koh Doc Mai – This was a great easy dive to finish the trip with. Vis was around 15-20m and we decided to make the most of the sunshine and visit the deeper rocks on the west side. Lots of nooks and crannies to find grey-bamboo sharks in and coral covered crests to peer over, then finishing off on the south wall for more macro and morays.
Summary: Some mixed diving in terms of conditions (currents, waves, sunshine and light rain), with visibility a good average (min of 10m, max of 30m) and many fewer dive boats than high-season. Great diving, be it special critters to see on a dive, marine-life rich seascapes or a wreck all to ourselves. Diving with a small group of people, on a live-aboard during the low season has a lot of advantages to having a great time below and above the water – we had the opportunity to visit Phi Phi for an evening out too!
Posted on June 23rd, 2012 by admin-scubacat-dw | Comments Off on Congratulations to our new E learning Divemaster
Bryan Donaldson is Scuba Cat latest Divemaster having completed all the requirements for the course this week.
"Bryan"
This is a very proud moment for all of us here as we have known Bryan for a while now and he has completed all of his courses with us here at Scuba Cat. Bryan is very unique to us as I am sure he is to , nearly all of his theory training has been done using Elearning, even one course that he has yet to complete the Practical training for!
Bryan spent along time working overseas and used the evenings to complete all of his theory before he came to us to complete all of the diving in Phuket.
Bryan came back to Scuba Cat later that year doing his Rescue Diver Course and EFR with another Master Instructor Claus. And the speciality training with Tony Lock completing 5 specialities, Night, Deep, Search and Recovery, Nitrox and Wreck. He was now with ‘s elite… Master Scuba Diver.
"Bryan"
Returning back to his day job again Bryan embarked on his elearning for the Divemaster, not only completing this but also completing the Dive Theory online too.
Bryan came on board MV Scuba Adventure as part of his training to Hin Dueng and Hin Mueng where he practiced leading dives, got an insite into boat Management and of course drew maps and gave briefings, a great addition to his Divemaster Course. (and still found time to sleep!)
"Hard at Work!"
The practical portion of this course was recently completed, by his original Instructor Sean having been started by Master Instructor, Vince Callahan.
Bryan qualifies as a Divemaster on 18th June 2012 with 120 Dives and lots of experience assisting Courses, on Daytrips and Liveaboards.
We are looking forward to starting Bryan’s IDC (Instructor Development Course) on 1st July, and yes you guessed it he has already completed the elearning portion of this course too.
Posted on June 13th, 2012 by admin-scubacat-dw | Comments Off on What a difference a year makes…….Priscilla’s story
2010 – Diving? Me? No way!
2011 – I can Dive…
2012 – I ♥ diving
I have been scared of the ocean my whole life. Big fish with sharp teeth, dirty water, the idea of not being able to see your feet, etc. etc. Enough reasons to not go into the ocean with much more than my big toe. If you would have met me a year ago, and said that I would be scuba diving now? I would laugh at you and call you crazy! How little did I know…
When my family and I were in Phuket in the summer of 2011, my brother was looking for a dive school to go on some daytrips. Walking along the beach we found Scuba Cat. The instructor we were talking to asked whether I was going to dive too and I told him I was definitely not going to, since there was really nothing that attracted me. The idea of breathing through a tube and having a lot of water above me didn’t sound like fun at all.
I don’t really remember what made me change my mind…but I went back to the dive shop to have a dive at the swimming pool, and I liked it.
I felt very comfortable, the instructor was really patient and we talked about the open water course. After thinking it over and over again, I decided to give it a try and see how far I would go. My Instructor Hielke, was great. From the moment we met I felt comfortable and safe. He was extremely patient (I was a horrible student – and no I’m not exaggerating!) and he has great teaching skills.
After a day in the classroom, we practised the skills in the swimming pool. There were no problems, so why wouldn’t I be able to do the same thing in the ocean? I didn’t like the idea of pulling my mask off (and get seawater in my eyes) though I knew I would be perfectly able to put it back on. And what to think about practising for an Controlled emergency swimming ascent to the surface….looking up, seeing the surface is far, far away, and then take one breath in and ascent to the surface whilst breathing out all the way. But what’s the fun in life if you don’t try new things and cross your own borders?
I went on a complete new adventure, together with my instructor.
The first dive I stayed extremely close to him. No way there would be more than 15 cm between us! I was scared and I didn’t enjoy the dive. It was not horrible, but I didn’t think it was fun either. I didn’t see much of the beautiful marine life, since I was checking air and depth all the time and did my best to keep breathing on a regular base. Repeating to myself ‘breath in, breath out…’ the dive seemed to last an eternity.
The second dive was much better, I saw a glimpse of the beautiful coral and sea creatures, still staying close to my instructor. I saw my first ‘Nemo’!
The third dive was a complete disaster, what broke down all the confidence I gained in the first two dives. We were sleeping on the boat and I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep…all I did was crying. That night, I decided to never go diving again. I was looking for a way to tell it to my instructor. I actually found it more sad for him then for me if I wouldn’t finish the course, he was working so hard! It was quiet (there was no one on the boat besides us) the fish were swimming in the lights of the boat and the stars were absolutely stunning! ( I can recommend live aboards to everyone, just to watch the stars and experience how quiet the world can be)
Later the instructor woke up and found me awake. We spend a lot of time talking. What were my exact reasons for not wanting to dive again? I don’t know how he did it, but he found a solution for everything (and I can guarantee you: I had 1001 reasons) and promised me that we would go back to the boat whenever I wanted to. I only needed one more dive to complete my open water training, so why not finish it? After finishing the course I could always decide to never go diving again, but at least I would have finished the course (well…I am a perfectionist, so I always finish what I started) He found the magic words and I went in again.
I’m so glad that he found a way to convince me to go back in!
He showed me how much fun diving could be and how beautiful the marine life is. Because all I did was follow where ever he was going and watching everything he showed me (and checking air and depth of course) I enjoyed the dive very much. We saw beautiful corals, many different fish in all the colours of the rainbow. They say ‘time flies when you’re having fun’ and it was true! When coming up we had spent an hour down below and I thought we were only there for 25 minutes.
After this dive we went in two more times and with every dive I made I gained a lot of confidence.
I enjoyed the dives so much that I was actually sad that we were moving on to national park Kao Sok, away from the ocean.
During our journey home all I could talk about was diving. When diving I felt like Alice in Wonderland and I felt like I need to explore that world more. As soon as we got home, my brother and I booked a flight back to Thailand for December. Within a few weeks I booked our live aboard with a Advanced Open Water course for me and EFR & Rescue course for my brother.
Before going back to the ocean I went to the swimming pool in the Netherlands to dive there. I wanted to check if I still knew everything, just to make sure. I’m glad I did, because now I had no reason to be nervous at all and I could relax during the flight. That flight was horrible, we had a major delay and missed our connection. We’ve spend Christmas day on the airport instead of under the palm trees. The staff of Scuba Cat was very friendly and helping with putting us on another daytrip and friendly and helpful words on the phone.
My brother and I went on the liveaboard to dive the Similans.
I read a lot about it before we went, but it was even more beautiful then I imagined….
There were some challenging moments (night dive, bad visibility after the rain,etc) but being with an instructor, Kiwi and my brother and a lot of nice people on the boat, I felt comfortable enough to face them. I know that at certain moments I would never have gone in the water if my brother wasn’t there to hold my hand, an instructor to watch over us and many nice people on the boat to share experiences and give some advice now and then. Being on a liveaboard is great. The food is better than in a restaurant, you meet new people and you all have something you share, so you don’t have to worry about awkward silence….I made new friends there and learned a lot.
I was diving more on my own, not so (literally) attached to my instructor or buddy anymore. I swam with big groups of fish, went deeper than ever before, I saw turtles and seahorses and it felt like I was swimming in an enchanted world.
As long as I stay between my own, newly discovered borders, I can explore that world and enjoy it too. The staff of Scuba Cat helped me with that and will help me to learn more things and enjoy diving more and more in the future.
This summer I’m going to Indonesia, but in December I’m returning to Thailand and dive more with Scuba Cat. I can’t thank my first instructor enough for all his patience, calming words, teaching me how to dive and showing me the magic world of the ocean. Thank you to the other instructors and guides (daytrips and courses) for all your help, advice and guidance. I can’t imagine a life without diving anymore! A big thank you to all the staff of Scuba Cat to make everything happen, from booking, to food, from diving to have a drink at the bar to celebrate the happy end of our combined story and our future return to you all. I will highly recommend you all to everyone who wants to dive in Thailand and see you again in December. I’m looking forward to it very much!
If you book and pay in full anytime during June 2012 you will receive 10% discount not only for this month but for the rest of the year…… plus you will receive a free Scuba Cat T-Shirt with all Courses during the month.
The future for Scuba Cat:
Vision
Scuba Cat Diving aims towards creating interaction between people and aquatic life which is fun, safe, educational and sustainable.
Sustainable for customers means someplace they can come back to where there is a wide range of services which satisfies and/or challenges them for years.
For the environment it means interaction with the environment in such a way that the benefits for the environment/ecology outweigh the drawbacks.
Mission
To be the best Dive Centre in Phuket through good diving practices, great instructing, increasing ecological awareness and responsible interaction with environment.
Values
Everything we do are based on the following set of values. They are not stand-alone values but all apply at the same time one way or the other.
Good intention – What we do is not as important as why we do it
Value for money – We have no intention to be the cheapest, only to be the best. Our prices are competitive, and represent great value for money
Quality – Only the best is good enough
Safety first – There are always expectations, however, we will only do what we consider to be safe
Entertainment – We don’t just provide great courses and dive trips – we provide great experiences from the start to the end…….Fun!!!!
Come and see for yourself, we believe we are achieving our goals but dont just take our word for it see what people have said about us on Trip Adviser!
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