diving day trips Phuket - the dive sites

Raja Yai about 1½ hours South of Phuket is a beautiful tropical island with a lot of good hard coral reefs, colorful shallow water coral gardens and a great opportunity for some enjoyable drift diving.

There are several excellent dive sites particularly suitable for the beginner and snorkeler, making this island a favorite destination for everyone.

Raja Noi offers in addition to Raja Yai's attractions some truly spectacular sites with giant underwater boulders and scenery almost like the Similans and a great chance to see manta rays and whale sharks.

Shark Point, a small rock outcropping about 1½ hours East of Phuket, is a famous marine sanctuary due to its tremendous variety of marine life.

Particular attractions you should look out for are the colorful soft corals and sea fans decorating the limestone pinnacle, the great range of tropical fish and the famous leopard sharks, found on the sandy bottom.

This submerged reef located not far from Shark Point is similar in character and you will be amazed at its extensive fields of sea anemones.

Harmless leopard sharks are also to be found together with some massive schools of smaller fish and some larger pelagic such as tuna and barracuda.

3 hours due East of Phuket, the Phi Phi Islands are a famous destination even for those unaware of the great diving available.

As a diver, you will find that the spectacular limestone cliffs above the water become sheer drop-offs and craggy coral encrusted landscape under the water with a rich and colorful diversity of marine life and even whale sharks are known to visit.

On the 4th of May 97 King Cruiser, a 85 m catamaran passenger ferry, strayed off course and hit Anemone Reef ripping one of her twin hulls open. Subsequently King Cruiser sunk within an hour with no loss of life.

With it's multiple decks, great open passages and depths between 12 and 30 meters the King Cruiser is an ideal wreck dive site for all divers.

This small, jungle topped island lies halfway between Shark Point and Phuket. It provides some of the best wall diving in the area with sea fans, soft corals and colorful sea life decorating its underwater cliffs.