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Scuba Diving in Koh Tao, Thailand
Reader Reviews:
Dive Site: Mango Bay
Location: Koh Tao, Thailand
Description: Reef
Depth: 18 - 20 metres max (59 - 66 feet)
Visibility: 10 - 20 metres (30 - 60 feet)
Rating: ****
Mango Bay is located on the north side of the island. It is an ideal site if you have a partner that does not dive but loves the sun or likes to snorkel or you have a young family that wants to have their first underwater experience.
As you pull into the bay the most beautiful blue calm water greets you. The dive boats go right up to the beach with its nice sandy bottom so getting on and off the boats is no problem. The bay is ideal for all divers but may not hold the interest of the more travelled and advanced diver (I personally love it there is always something to see or photograph). The maximum depth is around 18 metres, there is no current and the visibility is usually between 10 and 15 metres, with the addition of 30°C water temperatures you can't go wrong.
You will see various soft and hard corals on the dive, small clams that are the lushest purple/blue you can wish for. There is an abundance of fish to see most of them small but very colourful all the same. These will include blue spotted rays, six banded angelfish, parrotfish, wrasse, triggerfish, white-eyed moray eels, pufferfish and many more that I can't name. You will come across a large shoal of fusiliers that checking back through my log I have described as a wall of fish, there are that many. They look like little silver and yellow bricks all lined up. If you are careful you can actually get inside the shoal of fish - it is a great sensation to be literally surrounded by them.
As I mentioned earlier this might not be the best dive for the more travelled and advanced diver but the dive schools will take care of that. Ask to dive Chumphon Pinnacle and after that dive get them to take you to 'The Drop Off', an area that enters Mango Bay. This is the deeper area of the site at about 18 metres. The boat will then go to your love ones who have been enjoying the delights of the bay while you do the 45 minutes plus dive back to the beach for your lunch and surface interval before moving to the next dive site.
Brinley Meredith, PADI Advanced Open Water
I dived Mango Bay in March '08, we dropped off the boat west of the bay and made our way eastwards to the bay along the shore. I am sorry to say that there is quite a bit of coral death on this dive site. I don't think I have seen anything like this at any other site at Koh Tao, must have been aprox 30-40% dead and bleached corals.... I have dived most of island as I have visited it 3 times since 2006 and did my DMT there. Mango Bay is really only for confined dives during training now.
Martin, PADI Divemaster
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