Koh Phangan Dive Sites

The islands Koh Phangan and Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand are some of the most preferred dive sites in Thailand. Koh Phangan is more famous for its Full Moon Party and the relaxed atmosphere on the island, but it also offers some exciting dive sites, even if there’s less diving than on the sister island Koh Tao.

We did Koh Phangan and Sail Rock by speedboat off Koh Samui because it’s easier and you don’t lose so much time than you would using the SeaTran Express ferry. The speedboat takes about one hour to Sail Rock which makes for a much shorter day, and you are back in Samui at 1pm and not at 5pm like with the SeaTran.

After a pleasant speedboat ride, we arrived at Sail Rock – a big rock halfway between Koh Phangan and Koh Tao. It is said to be the most popular dive site in the zone. Lamentably we had bad visibility so we couldn’t fully enjoy the number of exotic fish and different marine creatures present here on this boutique dive site.

Sail Rock has an incredibly rich marine life that includes big barracudas, groupers, angelfish, triggerfish and lots of anemones. Whale Sharks and Bull Sharks are reported here frequently (we couldn’t see them because of the bad visibility). The visibility issue forced us to do the second dive on Koh Ma, which is just adjacent to Koh Phangan. A beautiful spot with a quite shallow dive at about 20 meters but with excellent visibility. From the surface, you can already see the water is completely clear, and you can even spot the blue colored anemones. A beautiful vista.

We were pleased with a beautiful reef with lots of fish, blue-spotted eagle rays and some huge groupers. They are very shy but cute to look at if you have the chance to come near.
After this day I decided the speedboat is the way to do it if you stay on Koh Samui, so I booked another day going to Koh Tao, which delivered two amazing dives on Twins and the Japanese Garden.