koh chang snorkelling diving

koh chang snorkelling diving

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Koh Chang Diving

There are some excellent diving and snorkelling opportunities around Koh Chang and the region is rapidly developing into a major centre of diving in Thailand. Diving Koh Chang is mainly at reasonably shallow depths with good reefs located at 5 to 25 metres. Visibility can reach 30m but is variable. You can dive year round but the best time is between October and the end of May since rougher seas during the rainy season can reduce visibility or make it difficult to reach the dive sites. However there are calmer periods in the rainy season when diving conditions are OK.

The Dive Sites

There are impressive reefs in the area with a variety of soft and hard corals including Massive, Columnar and Stagshorn Corals. These support a range of tropical reef life including Blue Tipped Rays, Moray Eels, Trigger Fish, Grouper and Batfish. Turtles can be spotted and Whale Sharks are also seen in the area from time to time.

There are a series of dive sites offering good diving at 5-18m around the seamounts and small islands to the West of Koh Chang. These include Koh Man Nok and Hin Sam Sao. The deeper dive sites are located off some of the islands and seamounts to the South of the Archipelago. Hin Luk Bat has a lot of good coral and some good swim-throughs. Hin Raap is a deeper rocky site with good soft corals.There are also some good dive sites around Koh Rang Island. This is slightly further away from Koh Chang but well worth the journey to dive some interesting pinnacles and see some of the best coral reef in the region.

Wreck Diving

Koh Chang’s new wreck, the HTMS Chang, lies in waters to the South-East of Koh Chang. The 100 metre long vessel provides all kinds of pleasure and technical diving opportunities to those who fancy something a little more adventurous. 

koh chang snorkelling diving

Dive Trips

You can book your diving by visiting the offices of the dive shops or from resorts and travel agencies on the island. You can find more about some of the dive businesses by going to the pages listed below.

The price for a two-day Discover Scuba course is around 4,500B whilst full PADI certification costs around 14,500B. Pleasure dives cost in the region of 2,700-3,000B, depending on site, for two dives with lunch. All other PADI courses are also available.

Koh Chang Dive Supply is a large retailer of all kinds of Diving equipment. They also offer a full repair and servicing workshop for all sorts of Scuba equipment. Their office is located between White Sand Beach and Chai Chet.
Siam Watersports is another dive equipment retailer. Their recently remodelled shop has a huge stock of gear from diving and snorkelling equipment to free diving and spear fishing kit. They also specialise in Technical diving and equipment for Nitrox and Trimix diving. If you’d like to do some Nitrox diving whilst on Koh Chang then you can take advantage of Scandinavian Chang Diving Center’s Nitrox compressor.
If you fancy taking the effort out of diving it is worth noting that B.B. Divers now have six underwater scooters that you can use to make like James Bond as you cruise the reefs.

Snorkelling

Whilst the beaches of Koh Chang themselves offer little opportunity for snorkelling other islands in the chain can be reached by boat trips and there is some excellent shallow reef for snorkelling at these sites. On Koh Chang the rocky shorelines at Hat Kai Mook and Bang Bao Cliff Cottages offer some good snorkelling.

Additionally most of the dive shops will take snorkellers on their boats. Contact them for prices and details.