'Koh' means island in Thai and we read about some great snorkeling to be experienced around Koh Tao, a small island about 90 minutes away by speedboat from our base on Koh Samui. We decided to book with the same great dive outfit that took us to Angthong Marine Park and again we were super well taken care of.
P.S. this blog entry is being guest written by me, Z to give Lory a blogging break and to give me a chance to rave about amazing Thailand and Koh Tao! :)
The day started with an early wake up and 7:15am pickup. Breakfast at our bungalow resort does not begin until 8am so we planned ahead and picked up some banana bread, yoghurt and drinks from Tesco Lotus (a big grocery-supercentre store) the night before and had a quick bite before heading out. Having a car to get around, explore and make pitstops like this is great - once you get accustomed to driving on the left in crazy Koh Samui traffic!
It turns out that a mother and daughter from Wales and staying at an adjoining resort to ours were also on our tour so we all got picked up together and made our way to the 100 Degrees East dive shop.
Koh Tao is renowned for diving so this tour had 6 other folks who were set to dive while we snorkeled. I was very tempted to dive myself as I have my license but it has been a while and I really enjoy the freedom of snorkeling, plus, by snorkeling, I would be able to experience this together with Lory which made the decision an easy one :)
The first snorkeling spot was located off a quiet beach where we entered the warm water with our great snorkeling guide Nuwin. As soon as we popped our faces into the clear water, you could see fish everywhere! Yellow fish, black fish, long tail fish, rainbow fish, all kinds of fish! The water was calm and we spent over an hour snorkeling around the beach cove which was surrounded by rocks near the outer edges. It was nice having Nuwin as our guide but to be honest the fish were so plentiful that it was easy to just swim around on your own.
We used the underwater camera case that we picked up right before leaving Vancouver on this trip and this time I made sure to keep the lens clear as we discovered our previous photos came out with smudges in the middle probably from fingerprints and sunscreen. The case is great and fits our Canon camera perfectly! It allowed me to take photos like the one above and many more including some amazing 1080p videos!
An amazing Thai curry lunch with cold sodas followed on the boat and then we were off to the second stop. This time we anchored just off a secluded shallow reef area surrounded completely by rocks and quickly made our way into the water to snorkel some more. This area had even more fish, some of the same and some new ones like a school of big grouper fish and angel fish that Nuwin pointed out. We also saw some great coral, including brain coral, leather coral, table coral and tree coral. Colourful clams around the coral were everywhere and they would open and close as we were snorkeling by. Nuwin also took us out into some deeper ocean and Lory who is now becoming snorkeling junkie was comfortable making her way around in some deep water. Out here, Nuwin showed us an old car that has been submerged for divers/snorkelers to check out. He claimed it was his car and proceeded to free dive down into the drivers seat :)
Snorkeling done, we headed back to our resort, had another mango shake (pure mango heaven) and spent the rest of the afternoon in the water and on our beach reading and chilling. Quick shower before we headed to dinner at a place called Dr. Froggs which overlooks the ocean. After 10 days of eating delicious Thai food, I decided to have a pizza at Dr. Froggs since they were known to make tasty pies...and it was delicious! Lory had an interesting version of chicken with cashew nut which was super spicy and required her to cool down with two more mango shakes!
I have to say that Koh Tao definitely ranks as one of the best snorkel spots I have been to and would definitely recommend as a stop in the Gulf of Thailand!
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