PHUKET

Our island is often referred to as the 'Pearl of the South' and for scuba divers it's certainly the crown jewel of the Andaman Sea; one of the most renowned diving regions in the world. This island paradise lies only 8o north of the equator, enjoying a tropical climate with average water temperature of 24oC (78o F) with an unmatched variety of aquatic life. The best time for a dive is between October and May between the two monsoons, but good scubadiving is available all year. A fleet of dive boats now roam the azure blue water of the Andaman Sea that for thousands of years served as the main trade route for merchant vessels, pirates, explorers and missionaries from India, the Arab nations and Europe on their way to China, ancient Siam (Thailand), and Japan.

In spite of its strategic location and long maritime history, many areas of the Andaman Sea remain largely unexplored. This underwater frontier continues to yield exciting new dive sites that are only now being made available. Even today, in some areas like Hin Daeng to the south and the area around the Burma Banks to the north, and virtually the entire Mergui Archipelago, you may enjoy the added pleasure of being one of the first ever to dive in many sites.
For divers the true treasures of the Andaman Sea are hidden below the surface where the vast panorama explodes into a virtual symphony of colors and corals. The warm, clear nutrient rich water draws vast schools of tropical fish, manta rays, a host of other pelagic fish, and the awe inspiring Whale Shark. The diverse underwater scenery, and abundant marine life combined with good (and sometimes great) visibility will delight underwater photographers and marine naturalists. The dive sites available vary enormously and offer a full range of dive-profiles. Start with a lazy drift dive through vast gardens of coral, or try swimming through some of numerous caves and grottos, exploring a ship-wreck, or maybe embarking on a multi-level dive along a sheer granite wall with a different creature in every nook and cranny.
The professional dive shops will offer three major services in addition to equipment sales and rental, PADI certified training classes, one-day dives, and multi-day liveaboard dive excursions.

North Beaches




By taking a tour or Beach Safari of the northern beaches of Phuket you will certainly be leaving the crowds behind. The north part of the island is less developed and gets only a tiny fraction of the visitors to Phuket. Many of those waiting to be loaded like cattle on to a boat and shipped off to Phi-Phi Island or one of the other tourist Islands seeking a remote island experience would be well advised to keep their feet dry, and drive for an hour to the north end of Phuket. Miles of unspoiled beaches, and good food await you. The rugged beauty of the northern beaches can only be enhanced by the feeling of having them all to yourself.
As you travel north you will encounter beaches dominated with casuarina pine trees rather than palm trees. These unusual trees are like a natural beach umbrella and offer cool shade from the blistering tropical sun, and a if you listen carefully they make slight singing sound as they sway to the call of the offshore breezes. Expect a quiet enchanting experience if you break away from the herd and visit the north end of the island.

Phuket Beaches



South Coast Beaches


Everywhere on Phuket Island is beautiful but the south part of the island is straight out of a tropical daydream. The southern coastline is blessed with magnificent mountains covered with lush jungle forest that stretch out to meet the azure blue sea and are framed with white powder sandy beaches and fringed with coral reefs. When you see a photograph of Phuket, it is likely to have been taken in the south part of the island. The southern beaches offer superb vistas and some of the most glorious sunsets in the world. The South Coast Area covers the part of the island that lies south of Relax Bay on the west and then across the island to include the Cape Panwa area. Many of the best hotels and restaurants in Phuket and some of the most beautiful beaches in the world are located here.

Phuket Thailand Travel Information

Phuket, Thailand, is commonly referred to as the ‘Pearl of South’ and is the largest island in Thailand. Phuket Island runs 48 kilometers (34 miles) north to south and 21 kilometers (16 miles) east to west. Phuket is broken by a chain of mountains and valleys mainly from a north-south range running down the west coast. This accounts for about 70% of the land area. The tallest peak, Mai Tao Sip Song (12 Cane Peak) is 529 meters. The other 30% of the island is flat land located mainly in the central and eastern portions of the island. Laying in the Andaman Sea off southern Thailand’s west coast, the island’s terrain is incredibly varied, with rocky headlands, long broad sandy beaches, limestone cliffs, forested hills, small estuaries, lagoons, and tropical vegetation of all kinds. Its large size has allowed microclimates to develop in different areas of the island.
The island offers many different looks and feels for you to discover and enjoy. Kata Beach with its spectacular tropical scenery compared with the stately cassurina trees that are found on Nai Yang Beach just a few kilometers north. The triple canopy rainforest of Khao Phra Thaeo National Park to the mud flats and mangrove swamps of Koh Siray. Limestone outcroppings line the east coast and solid granite boulders on the west. Phuket is truly a tropical wonderland and offers something for just about everyone.

We would like to give a warm welcome to you and thank for your visit. This is a choice out of many for the information about Phuket Island where is our home-town. Even though , for more than 20 years, I have spent my life in this wonderful island. There are still so many places wait for my visit either the first or second , third , ....
Due to the limitation of the page , I could not give you all about how wonderful it is.But if you are interesting in Phuket , the Pearl of Paradise , we provide you the Tourist Information which gives you the general information , how & where to go , interesting place in Phuket , Phuket culture & festival , Phuket photos gallery and some tips for Thailand visitors.
One of the most important is "how to choose service in Phuket".Click at the Business Zone , you will be exposed to varieties of service , where to eat , travel agencies , cool tour ,....
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Underwater Photography

By : Ashley J Boyd
Transcribe from Phuket Magazine Vol 7 No 2

Compared to land photography, the success rate in underwater photography is relatively low . So don't expect too much from your first attempts. Even a veteran will probably have a maximum success rate of only 10-15%.

Ninety percent of the exposures taken may be less than satisfactory. Why Should this be so?

A diver first; a photographer only second

The most important difference between surface and underwater photography is that, underwater, you have to be a diver first and a photographer only second. You can nerver devote 100 percent of your attention to the photography.

To begin with, you have constant concerns about your life-support system. Time, pressure and depth limits need constant monitoring. Especially on deep dives, it could be dangerous to lose track of how long you have been underwater and how deep you have gone. Caught up in the fascination of your work, you risk running out of air or getting the bends -- the very painful and often fatal penalty for exceeding time or depth limits.

In the meantime, you also have to keep track of your buddy who, according to a cardinal rule of safe diving, should never be out of your sight. (And you have to find a diving companion in the first place who 's patient enough to hang around for 10 or 15 minutes at a time while the photographer sets up a shot)

Composition

Getting the precise composition you want may not be easy. Underwater, everything appear closer than it really is (objects are magnified 25 percent), and estimating distances can be tricky. At the same time, the mos widely available and affordable underwater camera systems are not SLR, so you have to deal with parallax error. This effect is exaggerated, furthermore, bye the gap between the diver's facemask and the camera eyepiece.

Beyond that, visibility is often poor, and flashback from sediment and plankton will produce roughly the same effect on film as you get driving with your high beams in fog. Even when initial conditions are good, other divers in the area may stir up sediment where they don't actually intrude arms and fins into your carefully framed composition.

Equipment failure

Given all the equipment you haveto rely on, there are lots of ways things can cock up. If the batterties for your flash go flat, for instance a minor thing in itself you have to return to surface to change them. And it's often very difficult to get back down to the same spot again to finish your shot, even assuming circumstances have remained the same in your absence. There 's no such thing as putting in a new film or changing a lens underwater, either. Consequently, you may want to carry two cameras on a dive, perhaps one with an 80mm and another with a 15mm lens. Except, that is, where it's too much trouble to manage both cameras, for instance where there is a strong currents.

Plus, of course, you can have problems with flooding camera or lenses. You should always test your camera in shallow water or a pool before taking it on a dive. better still, check it for bubles in a rinse tank; if it does flood, then, it will only be with fresh water.

The use of models underwater

A human figure can add much interest to a shot, but most inexperienced underwater model freeze up the moment they realize a camera is pointed at them, hanging there in the water looking ungainly, much like some thing you wouldn't want in your photo.

Flashes

Because as you go deeper more and more of the colour spectrum is absorbed, with reds, yellows, and oragnes going first, you should use a flash in all but the shallowest sunlit waters. (If you are not using a flash, then the best hours for underwater photography are generally 10.00 am till 2.00 pm, when the sun is at it highest.

Lenses

Judge the prevailing conditions carefully before diving, and try to anticipate what sort of shots you want. Unlike with surface photography, you can't change lenses while shooting. Most divers will also find it awkward to carry two camera bodies, each equipped with a different lens.

Your decision will be easier if you know what type of site it is. Does an interesting bottom photography offer opportunities for scenic shots? What sort of marine life might you expect to encounter? Does most of the interest lie in the type of coral growth found there, for example? Or are there more dramatic possibilities? It would be a shame, for instance, to run into a whale shark when all you had with you was a close-up lens.

It can also be important to know what sort of underwater visibility there is; if the water is really turbid, close-ups may be all that are practicable.

If you decide you want scenic shots or people pictures, however, then you 'll opt for a wide-angle lens.

Film

ASA 100 is a good all-round film, reasonably fine-grained and widely available. ASA 64 and ASA 50 are more fine grained still, and perhaps better for professional use. Though most shops in Thailand don't stock it, particularly outside Bangkok,. ASA is often recommended for macro photography in particular, Kodak is now producing a special ASA 50 underwater film which is highly recommended. It enhances the warmer colours while reducing the blue-green effec; but you have to use a blue filter with it.

Advantages of night photography over day

On the one hand, you find certain creatures that are hard to photograph in the daytime become more accessible at night, many crustaceans and molluscs among them. At the same time, more hard corals extend their polyps in the search for plankton, which adds colour to underwater scenes.

Similan Islands, are a group of nine virtually uninhabited tropic islands approximately 80 kilometers (50mi) northwest of Phuket. The group was declared a Marine National Park and increasing efforts are being made to keep them in their present pristine condition. The islands encompass some of the best dive venues in Thailand.

The dive possibilities range from viewing coral gardens to adventurous drift diving in strong currents. In the judgment of Asia Magazine (issue of October 18 to 20, 1991: "Every diver has particular favorites, but few would dispute that the Similans... are one of the best. The visibility tops 100 feet between the November-April peak season, revealing a wonder world among the giant granite coral-coated boulders stacked one atop the other to depths of 90 feet and more." Ko Huyong, the southernmost island of the Similan group offers a magnificent coral garden in 7-14m (23-46ft) depth. The garden consists of many varieties of soft and hard corals and abounds with small colorful coral fish. This site frequently has over 30m (98ft) visibility, only slight currents and is considered a very safe site.

An extensive reef runs off another of the southern islands and provides at least 4 different dive sites. One bottoms out at 25m (82ft) and has many large rocks which provide a most interesting contour; many large schools of fish inhabit the area. Another part of the reef has an excellent 20m (65ft) dive, with a lot of small lava type rocks which provide a home for colorful anemones, hydroids and soft coral as well as moray eels and red grouper. The visibility is seldom less than 30m (98ft) and frequently more. There is often a strong current here, a good site for drift dives.

The central island of the group, Ko Miang, is the only island which is inhabited. There is also a number of excellent dive sites around this and the small adjoining island including one which features huge boulders leaning together forming many interesting tunnels and small caverns. This dive often has a strong surge which attracts a large variety of marine life. Small white tip sharks, rays, snapper and turtles are just a few of the species of marine life at this site.

An excellent night dive site is just around the corner and close to a safe overnight anchorage and a beautiful white sand beach. This dive site is a coral drop-off and depths range from 10m-20m (33-66ft). The almost complete absence of currents is what makes it ideal for night dives. Lobster and large red crabs are usually seen here.

Hin Pousar or Elephant Rock is one of the best known dive locations of the area; it has at least 3 more excellent sites. There are again many big holes and caverns created by the unusual rock formations. Anemones and coral provide a kaleidoscope of reds, yellows, blues and browns. Frequently large rays, tuna or barracuda can be seen.

Further to the north lies an off-shore reef which comes up to within 8m (26ft) of the surface and drops off to over 35m (114ft). More tunnels, hollows and chimneys provide a site that never fails to impress even the most experienced diver. Two large sea cod and a huge resident moray eel add to the many interests of this site. Seldom is the visibility less than 25m (82ft) and usually much more. These are only a few of the many dive sites available in the Similan archipelago. Each island provides its own special sites and there is something to be found to interest both the novice diver and the much traveled diver.

Similar conditions can be found at Surin islands and Tarutao Marine National Park though no regular trips to these island groupings are yet available.

Tours to the Similans generally last five days, though some are much longer in order to explore other nearby islands including the Surin group, some 30km (19mi) to the north. For accommodation, divers have the choice of tents, dormitory bungalows and on-board berths. During the trip all meals are provided and at least nine individual dives are organized.

Phi Phi Islands (Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Le), some 40km (25mi) southeast of Phuket and about 2hrs by motor boat, are among the most beautiful islands in the world. They also have some excellent dive sites between 10m and 30m (33 and 98ft), with a visibility of 15m-25m (49-82ft). In particular, the islands offer several cave dives and many impressive wall dives. In addition there are many hard and soft corals and an abundant marine life. In the tropical reefs one can see, among other fish, white tip sharks, sting rays and moray eels.

Dive Site

Ko Racha (Racha Islands), to the south of Phuket some 2 hours by motor boat, has dives down to 30m (98ft) and a visibility range of 20-40m (65-131ft). In addition to the excellent visibility Racha's attractions include huge rock formations, sloping coral reefs and steep drop-offs. From January to March manta rays and whale sharks can occasionally be seen, in addition to varied tropical marine life.

Shark Point and Ko Dok Mai, approximately 1.5hrs east of Phuket by motor boat, are beyond doubt two of the most popular dive sites in the area.

Shark Point, a submerged reef, is a favorite sleeping spot for leopard sharks and sting rays. More daring divers have been hand feeding moray eels and leopard sharks (not with the diver's own limbs). The visibility at Shark Point is 10-22m (33-72ft) with dives down to 25m (82ft).

The island of Dok Mai, offers dives down to 30m (98ft) with visibility of 10-25m (33-82ft). In addition to a variety of coral this dive site offers an impressive wall dive and a number of cave dives.

Diving Trip

One of the major assets of Phuket as a flourishing vacation resort is its abundance of diving destinations both in its vicinity and off islands several hours boat-ride away, all offering a fantastic underwater world of tropical fishes and coral formations, so exotic and colorful.

From Phuket, all sorts of diving tours are organized lasting from half a day to 2 weeks. The nearest are sites off the west coast where you can explore soft and hard coral reefs, with a large variety of tropical marine life. There are good close-up photo opportunities with dives up to 35 meters.

Much more popular are trips to islands lying to the south and east of Phuket about 2 hours away by motor boat, including Ko Racha, Shark Point and Ko Dok Mai , Ko Phi Phi where you can see white-tip sharks, stingrays and moray eels besides colorful reef fishes,

Near Phuket, on Thailand's west coast from Ranong down to Krabi are a large number of excellent dive sites (ex. Similans Island, Surin Island, Tarutao Island). However, the area is sometimes tricky and can be difficult during the southwest monsoon from June to November.

Good sheltered water is found around the island at all times of the year. Spear-fishing though not encouraged, is fair to good down to a depth of some 15m (49ft). Thereafter, coral mostly run out and give way to a plain, fairly flat, sandy ocean bottom between 18-36m (60-120ft). The reefs are very colorful and picturesque and are particularly suited for snorkeling and photography. As Phuket's popularity among divers of all nationalities has increased, so has the number of dive sites. Nowadays, regular trips lasting up to two weeks are made to distant island groups in the Andaman Sea. Many of them are uninhabited and absolutely pristine, with dive sites to rival the best in the world .

In Phuket, half day tours are available to the west coast where a short trip by motor boat takes the diver to the coral reefs. By far the most popular tours, however, are the full day trips to the islands off Phuket's south and eastern coasts. These islands include Ko Racha, Shark Point, Ko Dok Mai and Phi Phi islands.

There are so many dive schools and diving operator in Phuket, all staffed with qualified instructors who are members of PADI or NAUI and provided with all sorts of modern equipment.