Diving at the Shark Point, Phuket, Thailand

The las dive of the dive was at the famous Shark Point diving site. The place is know for the local leopard shark population who gives great pictures for the photo hunters of the deep sea. I came here to see them too. But it is just by luck to catch something underwater. I learnt that long before. Anyway, I worn my shorty to taste the water for the last time in Thailand till the next visit. So that made me even more excited and sad at the same time not only because the place was like a paradise but also I had to wake up from this tropical dream soon. 

The shark point is actually composed of a massive reef and a group of smaller ones located very close to the larger reef. The dive normally starts at the large pinnacle whose peak is just 2 meters deep. Then you may choose to take a turn around this one till 25 meters and then move to the second pinnacle and an see that one around 25 meters and ascend to 16 meters where the most of the beautiful things are located. If you are lucky you may see the leopard sharks during this part of the dive around the small reef. 

Nevertheless, the site embraces so many different species that you might not look for a shark meanwhile. That was my case at least! First of all the place includes many murray eels. You can almost see them every hole in the reef and they give great shots. The anemones, besides, host many clowns fishes. If you are a nemo like me then you will love the picture you take. There is also a beautiful sea horse on the west side of the 1st pinnacle and it is not shy at all. 

Apart from this particular beauties of the site, you constantly see the passing crowds of small fishes around you as well. This makes an extra flavor to the ambiance of the dive route. You may also see, like me, some interesting scenes. There were a dead murray being eaten by the other fishes slowly on one side of the 2nd pinnacle. Nature was calling and I was there. That might be the most interesting shot of mine up to now.

There were also several tritons wondering around with their funny and curious eyes looking both sides at the same time. I ended my dive again at the large reef but this time with a small sting ray slightly levitated from the sea bottom. It was moving so slowly that I thought this guy was really want some pictures to be taken.

Overall, I think the Shark Point was the best of all dive point I dived for the day.  The visibility was great. There variety of the fishes was amazing. And most importantly, we haven't seen any bamboo or leopard shark whose supposed to be seen at this point. As a final word, I can say that every diver must see the depths of Andaman sea one day. One should be very careful about the dive school and the dive boat in Phuket. I can definitely recommend the guys at Rumblefish Adventure but I have some doubts about Jolly Roger. 

Enjoy you dives and stay safe!

Diving at King Cruiser, Phuket, Thailand

I'm not gonna lie! After the terrible visibility at Kho Doc Mai, I needed a pallet cleanser to fresh up the taste of Andaman underwater. We have reached our destination for the second dive of the day. The king cruiser is located between Kho Doc Mai and the famous Phi Phi Island of the beach movie. You can actually see it if the visibility is good. Anyway, we started to suit up in our lovely boat Jolly Roger with ultimate interference of the mothers and wives at the divers area. I guess there is no need to talk about the super respectful customers of Jolly Rogers anymore after the previous article. 

I wish to say that the visibility was great in King Cruiser but I was not. However, it was not supposed to be great anyways. So this time the disappointment is less than previous time. Nonetheless, King Cruiser was hiding much more for us! The place is great for the lion fish chasers. Lion fishes are thriving around the wreck. I have seen at least 8 as individual and in groups. So the wreck was not really a deep one. The rock bottom is around 30 meters and most of the must-see parts of the wreck is around  16-18 meters. So she lets see her for an almost hour long dive.

Apart from the all the crowds of fishes and the sneaking hunter lion fishes, there are a couple of places you should check when you dive King cruiser. First of all don't forget to take a pee! Well yeah! On the back of the boat you can see the toilets of the cruiser. The ceiling was opened and the toilets are visible. So fun time! 

The other hot spot of the site is the chimneys of the boat where a shrimp colony was thriving. They are not shy at all and you can have great picture over there too. The color of them were so crisp and the scenery was amazing!

The gate of the vehicle deck is almost completely destroyed. Thus you can go in and have a nice trip inside the parking site of the cruiser. If you have a good flash light, I believe you can see many beautiful things inside.

All and all, King Cruiser dive was a great experience and it is a location for all levels of divers. She gives beautiful shots and you can see many different rate sea creatures down there... or up above. We have accompanied by a giant jelly fish during our ascent. The combination of sharp sunlight and the jelly fish gave great pictures to make this beautiful place unforgettable. 

Diving at Koh Doc Mai, Phuket, Thailand

In the boat Jolly Roger, which I have mentioned in detail in the previous entry, that was the first dive of the day at Koh Doc Mai. This little island has a very nice reef underskirts of her! You can think of it as a very large reef that you can wonder around. The dive can last a reasonable amount of time without turning around of the island more than once. The depth of the reef is around 30-40 meters if you keep yourself close to the vertical cliffs. Therefore the site is quite suitable for a range of divers from beginners to the experts.

Normally, the site supposed to have a good visibility especially in the early morning and for calm surface as you can see above. However I was not that lucky I guess. The visibility was quite poor and it was not possible to have a good shot unless you go for a macro shot. Nevertheless, the fauna down there was really great. Especially the nudibrach population was quite stunning. Other than that you may check out the groupers, box fishes, and random gang of fish crowds!

However the impressive part of the dive was, for me, to see the bamboo shark hiding underneath a big rock. I assume it is a regular inhabitant of the neighborhood because I encounter similar sceneries on other websites before.

Overall the spot is a nice dive point with variety of the fishes. I totally recommend you to check out if you pass by Phuket to dive. I hope you will be luckier than me and have great visibility so that 100% or your shots are clear.

Diving in Phuket Island, Thailand

Phuket, as I have mentioned before, is a great island to have a laid back holiday. She contains all necessary ingredients: tropical weather, golden beaches, turquoise sea, gorgeous people, good food... On top of all, there is another great feature of the island. That is the beauty of Andaman Sea's underwater life and uncountable number of diving points which are accessible from the island.

When I get to Phuket, I am not gonna lie, I didn't think to dive. I had good time under the Balinese sea and I hadn't had the time to make a search about the dive centers there. However, I hadn't also know that there was no way to hide from my destiny. As soon as I settled down in my "temporary hotel room", I realized the dive center across the street. Despite I spent such a long time to recover from long Bali-Phuket flight and the shuttle ride, the dive center was still open. ...and I knocked the door of Rumblefish Adventure. There I met great people. They were quite friendly and helpful. They explained me how diving business runs more or less and it actually has nothing to do with any other place I have dived before. 

In Phuket, the dive boats and the dive centers are almost completely separated. When you go to a dive center, as an experienced diver, they will show you the schedule of the available boats with their route of dive points. Every combination has its own price roughly changing between 1000-1500 THB/dive. According to your preferences and experiences, the guys at the dive school help you to choose the appropriate dive boat. Here the things start to bifurcate. You may be accompanied by the dive buddy/leader from the dive center or you may stuck with the guys of the boat or the buddy might be a freelance instructor, like in my case. So this separation of power has its own benefits and disadvantages, which I will explain later. Anyway, the complete gear is supplied by the school for 500 THB/day. You can also rent dive computer for around 300-500 THB/day. In my case, they were quite cool to me and let me use their good old Aladin UWATEC computer.

In the morning, a shuttle bus picks you and your gear up from your hotel and takes you to the harbor where the boat is. From this point on, you are with the dive boat crew and thus I will try to summarize my experience about the dive boat called Jolly Roger and her crew. I will tell about the three dive points of the day, Koh Dok Mai, King Cruiser and Shark Point,  in separate entries.

She is quite long, pretty new and well maintained dive boat. The main deck is composed of a preparation space for the divers and the dining room. There you can have a fresh and substantial breakfast in with lots of varieties. They also serve the lunch in the afternoon and it is also equally good. Highly recommended! There is also an espresso machine, cold and hot water and several munchies at your disposal at anytime on-board. There is also on-board WiFi which is very convenient. There are two shower/toilets right next to the preparation area. The upper deck is very roomy to socialize with the other divers, as well. Beer is also serve on-board but subjected to charges. From all the facilities provided, she is a great dive boat. But nothing can be perfect right. Here are the beasts inside the beauty!

First of all, the service crew was acting kinda weird! They were shouting to the customers here and there when people were trying to board. The people who guides you talks mostly in Russian because they and most of the customers were Russian but sometimes they forget there are people of other nationalities. I have to say that the order in the boat was a bit chaotic. Of course that was my experience with the customers of that day but it seemed to me that the profile is more or less the same in every trip after I shared my experiences with the other divers in Kata Beach. The space you prepare for the dive, although it was quite large, was stuffed by non-divers. Especially, the moms and the wives were everywhere and messing up with your gear. Coming back to the lunch room, people were leaving their leftovers on the tables and nobody were collecting them. Of course you are supposed to return your stuff but as you can imagine not everyone was taking care of. In the dives, there were no regular order to get in to the sea. I think for that may of diver (more than 30) the dive masters  need to do some planing before the dives. However, it seems to me the ones of the boat were coordinating themselves without letting know the other dive leaders. And finally on the way back, the shuttles were totally messed up. The chances are you may be left in the harbor if you don't understand Russian because they stop doing regular announcement in any other language. Thus you  need to go an ask if your bus is actually arranged.

To sum up, I think Phuket is a great place to dive. The underwater was flourishing. And that was a great boat in terms of all of the amenities inside. If you are a guy of luxury and can arrange the whole dive for his group, you may want to go for this boat. Otherwise, I recommend you to think twice and go for a second best option.  

Kata Beach Center Hotel, Phuket

In my experience, accommodation is something that you need to pay attention the most in Southeast Asia especially after I experienced the four star, false paradise: Ecosfera Hotel in Bali. But this time in Phuket, I was quite lucky on lodging because I booked Kata Beach Center Hotel. This is a cozy three star hotel which is run by a lovely Dutch family. The hotel is in a small center, Kata Beach center, for hotels and restaurants located in the northern part of Kata settlement. Kata Beach Center Hotel is composed of three buildings with the facilities on the ground floors and the rooms on the upper floors. The main building is with the reception and lobby. Another one, on the opposite side, has the restaurant, swimming pool and bar. The last one is roughly 50 meter away, at the end of the street towards Patak Rd. This building has the jacuzzi, sauna and spa. Among all, I only had a chance to check out the massage although that was the only paid service. It was very good and the price was not expensive. You can get a reduction, actually two times if you have two massage, with a discount voucher given by the hotel upon your arrival. I recommend you to have the aloe vera massage at least once especially at the end of your stay to release all stress on your skin. Other than that, they also have a motorbike rental service through which you can rent a bike for 250 baht per day! Which is quite a deal in Kata where you have to pay 400 baht for a 7 km ride to Phatong beach by taxi or tuck-tuck.

The rooms were not better or worse that it is promised but exactly the same as you see on-line. No disappointment! Though they have everything in the rooms: almost 100 channel international satellite TV with LCD screens, digital locked safe box, A/C, fridge with cold water (they didn't charged me the water I had during my stay!), electric kettle with tea bags and instant coffee etc. I had a chance to experience the double and twin rooms in two buildings due to my mistake on reservation on booking.com. I forgot to ask for the double room hence they put me in the available room which had two single beds. I booked for 4 nights. That would be quite sad to be squeezed in a small bed for all the time. I asked them to change and they changed my room in the next day with a big smile. I really appreciated their attitude towards this problem and this way of approaching customers and their problems was the same throughout the stay. Moreover, the room service was great. They were cleaning my room and changing the towels, upon my request tag on the door, everyday and making it like it was at the beginning. What I liked most in this hotel was the way they value the customer satisfaction through good service and a sincere smile.

Overall,  I had a great time in Kata Beach and a significant part of this satisfaction was thanks to the gorgeous people of Kata Beach Center Hotel. I highly recommend you to check out their web site for their availability before planning a trip to Phuket Island. I think in this hotel satisfaction truly warrantied!

Kata Beach, Phuket, Thailand: Get around, eat and chill

I think Thailand is a must see place at least once in your life time. Among all of the nice holiday destination in the country, Phuket Island is one of the best locations. This relatively big island facing Andaman Sea is located on the south west of the country. It is very easy and relatively cheap to transfer to the island from not only Asian countries but also all around the world thanks to Phuket International Airport (HKT). I personally had a very pleasant flight from Bali, Indonesia by AirAsia Thailand. It takes more or less 3h30 above millions of  islands and Malay peninsula. If you are lucky and have journey with clear sky, you will thoroughly enjoy your flight.

After that nice journey, landing in Phuket Airport was even nicer with the runway right after and perpendicular to a golden beach as you can see above. It was also a nice experience to see, if you are an aviation fan, the approach lighting system sunken in the sea.

Phuket Airport is quite convenient one for a small island's airport. It looks quite modern with its kind staff (including the border police), nice ground transport options and restaurants (especially for departure).  The route from the apron to the exit of the airport is quite short. On the way, you have clear immigration. The border police is quite nice. Here I would like to remind you that you have to fill an immigration form before hand. So don't forget to get it from the fight attendants and fill on the plane. After the immigration you will immediately see the luggage belts. When I arrived, there were GSM card salesmen. That was a free GSM card with 3G network and you can buy the top up card in 7elevens.I recommend you to buy it because the ones that I was trying to find and finally had to buy were much more expensive than this one. In order to get to your destination in the island, there are some options to enjoy. You have the taxi option for yourself, which was around 800 baht to get to Kata Beach, more or less the farthest point you may go in the island. There were a limo option and luxury van as well. I didn't check the price of them but they were definitely more expensive than the taxi. However, what I checked was, thanks to the screaming people trying to sell the bus tickets, the mini bus service which takes you directly to your hotel for a price of 180 baht. That was the cheapest and the most convenient option for me and it will most probably for you as well. There was only one crazy thing on the way. After they got out of the airport region, they stopped the bus, made all passenger go out and asked for the hotel names. First you might thing that it is a fraud, which I though to be honest. But then I realized that they agency explains the detailed routes to the drives who was not able to speak a word of English. The guy dropped every passenger to their hotels one by one and of course I was the last one. Finally, I arrived to my lovely hotel: Kata Beach Center Hotel about which you can find the detailed review on my blog post.

Kata beach is a very calm neighborhood of Phuket Island, especially as compared to its crazy neighbor Pathong Beach. Yet there are many things to do around. For example, you have to check out the golden beach with a great sun set you cannot miss. There are many restaurant where you can taste nice Thai food as well. On top of it, the street food along with fresh tropical fruits is also nice option you can check out. There are two market places you can make grocery shopping. One is located on the Patak Road between Taina Road and Patak Soi. That one is open everyday but as pricy as the hawkers on the Kata Road in the center, not recommended! The other one is the local vendor's open  market which opens every Sunday and Thursday. It is open all say long and you can find anything and everything for very good prices. I highly recommend you check thr place out. It is established on the isle in front of the Kata beach center. On top of those, I highly advise you to have the breakfast at Kata @ Sports Bar at Taina Road. You can have delicious 5 items out of the international breakfast menu for 150 baht. For the dinner, I strongly recommend you all you can eat Thai BBQ. It is served in a restaurant located at a short dead-end on Taina Road. Thai BBQ is basically do-it-yourself type of food. The waitress just places a clay pot full of burning coal and close it with an aluminum dome shaped lid. It has a saddle shape around so that you can pour water to boil your veggies and noodles. The dome has many small hole to let heat penetrate to your meat and fish you grill on top. The place I checked out was 180 baht/person and must try stuff. You may a bit of discomfort due to the hygiene of the place but get over it! I guess I had food for at least two people and nothing really happened.

When you come to Kata beach, the first to check out is the golden beach. You can get to the beach on foot. The pedestrian is by a small creek, not stinky but dirty for sure. Don't forget to tip the local beggar!

Then forget about everything because you are in paradise.This is roughly a kilometer beach whose shore is mostly shallow till more or less 100 meter away. Then it gets deeper. You can rent a lounge chair and an umbrella for around 100 bath per day. There are some restaurants on the south end of the beach. I highly recommend you to try the Thai restaurant. They have very nice Thai dishes around 100 bath. Among all of those thing, you must drink the official beverage of the beach: cold coconut juice. Another tip which I mentioned in more detailed on Diving in Kata Beach post is don't go to the diving centers close to the beach they are considerably pricy compared to the ones in the center, beware!

I hope the video of preparation of fresh coconut juice below increases your appetite for Kata beach and its tropical attraction. Have fun!