Koh Racha Noi's Scuba Diving - Phuket Thailand

Phuket Scuba Diving and Snorkeling

Koh Racha Noi's Scuba Diving, is great diving for experienced divers. The dive starts with a free descent to 18 metres where you'll find yourself on a large rock formation surrounded by deep water. The fish here are larger and schools of tuna and jacks sweep past. Mantas are really quite common here too. You can also be fairly certain to find some blue-spotted stingrays resting near the reef. The depth and presence of strong currents and surface swells make South Point inadvisable for beginners. For this reason, this particular Racha Noi site is more regularly visited on Phuket liveaboards than on day trips.

However, on the east coast lies Banana Bay, one of the best spots for learning to dive in Phuket. A perfect small white sand beach, lends the shallow waters here a cool aquamarine light, and when the sun is shining, the scene is pure paradise. The visibility here normally exceeds twenty metres, and the protected waters host many small bommies and staghorn reefs to leisurely explore.

In the small bay at the northern point of Racha Noi are some of the healthiest coral formations in Thailand. Diving along in the shallows, you'll find large patches of delicate green sheet corals, porites and formosa bottle-brush corals. Red octopus are plentiful and make for engaging encounters. Moving north, out along the eastern edge of the bay, large boulders take over the scenery. Once out of the bay confines at the extreme north point, currents often come into play, and here you're likely to see large groups of slowly circling chevron barracuda.