Good to know
Good to Know
- If your priority is the Similan Islands, Richelieu Rock, Koh Bon or Koh Tachai, plan on a liveaboard (or basing yourself in Khao Lak instead of Phuket) — these are not realistic shore or short day-boat dives from Phuket itself.
- The Similan/Surin national park closes every year for the monsoon, roughly mid-May to mid-October/November — outside that window this whole northern circuit is simply off-limits, and Phuket's own local sites (Racha Islands, Shark Point, Anemone Reef, King Cruiser Wreck, Phi Phi) become the only realistic options.
- Racha Yai and Racha Noi, Shark Point, Anemone Reef, King Cruiser Wreck and Koh Doc Mai are all straightforward day-boat trips from Chalong Pier and can be dived year-round, weather permitting.
- National park entry fees for the Similan/Surin/Richelieu Rock area are collected separately on the boat and are not usually included in the trip price.
- Course pricing varies more by which beach/boat itinerary you pick (shore dives vs full-day boat trips to Racha or Phi Phi) than by which shop you choose — cheaper 'bronze' packages usually mean fewer dives or shore-only diving, not necessarily lower quality instruction.
- PADI eLearning (completing the theory online before you arrive) can shave a full day off your course and is worth doing in advance if you're short on time in Phuket.
- If you plan to fly onward shortly after diving, build in at least 18 hours between your last dive and a flight, a standard flying-after-diving safety guideline that several Phuket shops flag directly.
- Because PADI 5 Star CDC and Instructor Development Centers are common here, Phuket is a genuinely popular place regionally to do Divemaster/Instructor-level training, not just entry-level certification — worth confirming a shop's specific IDC dates if you're going the professional route.
Local Day Trip Accessible Sites
Racha Yai (Koh Racha Yai)
- Type
- Reef / coral garden, a couple of easy small wrecks
- Access
- Day-boat trip, roughly 90 minutes from Chalong Pier
- Best Season
- Year-round; during May–September diving is mostly on the sheltered east coast
- Marine Life And Notes
- Described by operators as home to reef fish such as parrot fish, snapper, grouper, angelfish and butterfly fish, with rarer leaf fish, ghost pipefish and occasional leopard sharks. Numbered bays (Bay 1–5) hold named reefs like Home Run, Staghorn Reef and Lucy's Reef, plus small wrecks including a sunken motorbike. It is the island most used for PADI Open Water training dives, so visibility and conditions are consistently easy.
Racha Noi (Koh Racha Noi)
- Type
- Granite boulder reef / drift / occasional wall
- Access
- Day-boat trip, about 45 minutes past Racha Yai (roughly 2+ hours total from Chalong)
- Best Season
- Year-round, though currents are stronger than Racha Yai and some sites suit advanced divers only
- Marine Life And Notes
- Known for big granite boulders, excellent visibility, and larger pelagics including manta rays, spotted eagle rays and occasional whale sharks, with leopard sharks toward the southern end. Named sites include South Tip/South Point, West of Eden, Marina Bay (also called Marita's Rock) and Banana Bay; South Tip in particular is flagged by multiple operators as one of the better spots for manta encounters.
Shark Point (Hin Musang)
- Type
- Submerged rock pinnacle reef (actually several pinnacles)
- Access
- Day-boat trip, roughly 1.5–2 hours east of Phuket, usually combined with Anemone Reef and/or King Cruiser Wreck
- Best Season
- Year-round, protected as a marine sanctuary since 1992
- Marine Life And Notes
- Named for resident leopard sharks resting on the sand at the pinnacle's base, plus dense soft coral and gorgonian sea fan cover, moray eels, lionfish and large schools of reef fish. Most day trips dive the northern 1st and 2nd pinnacles, though locals note there are several more sections in total.
Anemone Reef (Hin Jom)
- Type
- Submerged pinnacle reef
- Access
- Day-boat trip, a short distance from Shark Point, same general run east of Phuket
- Best Season
- Year-round
- Marine Life And Notes
- A completely submerged reef covered in sea anemones with resident clownfish, plus leopard sharks, large schools of fusiliers, snapper and sweetlips, and macro subjects like moray eels and ghost pipefish. Larger pelagics such as tuna and barracuda also pass through.
King Cruiser Wreck
- Type
- Wreck dive
- Access
- Day-boat trip, part of the same east-side run as Shark Point/Anemone Reef
- Best Season
- Year-round, weather-dependent
- Marine Life And Notes
- A car ferry that sank in 1997 between Phuket and Phi Phi with no loss of life; the hull now hosts soft corals plus lionfish, moray eels and batfish, and is a common training-dive site for wreck specialties.
Koh Doc Mai (Koh Dok Mai)
- Type
- Wall dive
- Access
- Day-boat trip, about an hour from Chalong
- Best Season
- Year-round
- Marine Life And Notes
- A small limestone island with a dramatic sloping wall covered in oyster clams, gorgonian sea fans and barrel sponges plus two small caves on one side and a gentler slope on the other. Divers report white-eyed morays, nudibranchs, and occasional seahorses and ghost pipefish.
Koh Maithon / Mai Ton (Honeymoon Island)
- Type
- Reef, similar topography to Racha Yai
- Access
- Day-boat trip, the closest of the southeastern sites to Phuket
- Best Season
- Year-round
- Marine Life And Notes
- Clear water reef with well-preserved coral and a generally easy profile; used as a fallback/alternate site when weather diverts boats from other destinations.
Phi Phi Islands (Koh Bida Nok, Koh Bida Nai, Palong Wall, Turtle Rock, Hin Bida)
- Type
- Reef and wall dives around limestone islands
- Access
- Long day-boat trip (roughly 2-3 hours each way from Phuket) — feasible as a day trip but a full day commitment, and can also be dived on a short liveaboard
- Best Season
- Year-round
- Marine Life And Notes
- The three southern islands (Koh Bida Nok, Koh Bida Nai and Koh Phi Phi Ley) are the most commonly dived; expect blacktip reef sharks, turtles and varied tropical reef fish, with Palong Wall and Turtle Rock also noted for sharks and turtles.
Liveaboard Dependent Or Seasonal Sites
Granite Boulder Reef, Drift and Swim-through Sites
- Name
- Similan Islands (9 numbered islands, e.g. Anita's Reef, West of Eden, Elephant Head Rock)
- Access
- From Phuket this is genuinely liveaboard territory — day trips are really only practical if based in Khao Lak; a Phuket-based liveaboard crossing typically runs 8-10 hours overnight to reach the islands
- Best Season
- National park open roughly mid-October/November 1 through mid-May; closed the rest of the year for ecological recovery. Best conditions and chance of mantas/whale sharks tend to build from February onward
- Marine Life And Notes
- Fringing hard coral reefs, huge granite boulders and swim-throughs; sites like West of Eden and Elephant Head Rock feature batfish, turtles, octopus, frogfish, ribbon eels and giant morays, with a real chance of passing mantas and whale sharks in season.
Koh Bon
- Type
- Granite rock reef / cleaning-station site
- Access
- Liveaboard only from Phuket (day trips only realistic from Khao Lak)
- Best Season
- Same national park season as the Similans (roughly Oct/Nov–mid-May)
- Marine Life And Notes
- A small granite island north of the Similans known as a reliable spot for manta ray encounters, particularly along its steep ridge.
Koh Tachai
- Type
- Boulder / reef
- Access
- Liveaboard only from Phuket
- Best Season
- Same national park season as the Similans
- Marine Life And Notes
- Known for big schools of fish and manta ray sightings, often paired with Koh Bon and Richelieu Rock on multi-day itineraries.
Richelieu Rock
- Type
- Isolated pinnacle reef
- Access
- Liveaboard only — described by operators as reachable only on a liveaboard safari given its distance from any pier
- Best Season
- Same national park season as the Similans/Surin (roughly Oct/Nov–mid-May)
- Marine Life And Notes
- Widely regarded as one of Thailand's best single dive sites; a soft-coral-encrusted pinnacle known for seahorses, harlequin shrimp and macro life, plus a strong chance of whale sharks.
Hin Daeng & Hin Muang (Red Rock / Purple Rock)
- Type
- Steep wall dives
- Access
- Long day trip or liveaboard/overnight from Phuket — south of Phuket and Phi Phi toward the Malaysian border, generally considered only available October–May
- Best Season
- October to May
- Marine Life And Notes
- Purple/pink soft-coral-covered walls with leopard sharks and, at times, manta rays and whale sharks passing in the blue.
Koh Haa
- Type
- Limestone island reef with caverns and swim-throughs
- Access
- Long day trip or liveaboard, seasonal like Hin Daeng/Muang
- Best Season
- October to May
- Marine Life And Notes
- A group of small limestone islands offering cavern and swim-through diving alongside reef life; typically combined with Hin Daeng/Hin Muang on the same trip.
Typical Costs
Divemaster Course
- Description
- First professional level; typically a 10-12 day minimum program, often extended into a 3-4 week paid internship. Multiple Phuket shops (All4Diving, Aussie Divers Phuket, Indepth Dive Centre/IDC Phuket) offer it as a PADI 'Go Pro' pathway, sometimes combined with the Instructor Development Course.
Partial Costs Found
- Crew Pack Materials
- THB 8,650
- PADI Application Fee Note
- One Phuket source cited a PADI Divemaster application fee of roughly 187 AUD, but that figure was dated (2016) and PADI direct fees change over time, so it should not be treated as current.
Open Water Diver Course
- Typical Low
- THB 8,000
- Typical Mid
- THB 9,900
- Typical High
- THB 16,000
- Notes
- Higher-end 'gold' packages with more dives/boat days run up to roughly 14,900-16,000 THB; budget beach-based options run as low as 8,000-9,900 THB. PADI eLearning is sometimes billed separately (roughly an extra 2,500 THB or a PADI eLearning fee of about $150 depending on shop).
- Description
- 2-4 day beginner certification (pool/confined sessions plus 4 open-water dives, usually at Racha Islands, Phi Phi, or Kata/Karon beach dives). Prices vary a lot by operator, number of dives, and beach-dive vs boat-dive format.
Advanced Open Water Combo
- Notes
- Exact combined pricing varies by operator; specific combo total price wasn't consistently published across shops at the time of research.
- Description
- Often sold as an OW+AOW combined package (about 4 days, ~9 dives at Racha/Phi Phi/Shark Point) to save time versus doing them separately.
Operator Density
- Summary
- Phuket has a very high density of dive operators — this is one of the most saturated dive-training markets in Southeast Asia.
- PADI Listed Dive Centers
- PADI's own directory lists 18 PADI dive centers in Phuket alone (a subset of all operators, since SSI-only shops aren't included in that count).
Named Operators Confirmed
- All4Diving (PADI 5 Star CDC, Patong & Chalong)
- Aussie Divers Phuket (PADI 5 Star CDC)
- Dive Asia (Phuket's first PADI 5 Star CDC, Kata & Karon, est. 1988)
- Pray Dive
- IDC Phuket / Indepth Dive Centre (PADI 5 Star Instructor Development Center)
- Sunrise Divers (Karon Beach)
- Phuket Dive Tours (Patong/Kata, SSI)
- Thailand Divers
- Sea Bees Diving (SSI Diamond Instructor Dive Center)
- Local Dive Thailand
- No Gravity Dive Center (Chalong)
- Aum Scuba Phuket
- Tech Dive Asia (technical diving specialist)
- SSS Phuket Dive & Surf Center (SSI & PADI)
- SiamDivers.com
- Manta Dive Phuket
- MMA Divers Phuket (Chalong Pier)
- ACDC Diving Phuket
Phuket diving splits into two very different experiences: a cluster of local reefs, pinnacles and a wreck that are genuine day-boat trips from Chalong Pier (dived year-round), and the famous Similan/Surin/Richelieu Rock sites which are seasonal, offshore, and in practice liveaboard territory (or day-tripped only if you base yourself in Khao Lak, not Phuket).
Certifying Bodies Offered
Certifying Bodies Offered
- PADI
- SSI (Scuba Schools International)
Certification Levels Commonly Taught
Certification Levels Commonly Taught
- Discover Scuba Diving (try-dive, non-certification intro)
- Open Water Diver (entry-level certification, most commonly taught course)
- Advanced Open Water Diver (often bundled as a 4-day OW+AOW combo)
- Rescue Diver
- Divemaster (first professional level)
- Instructor Development Course (IDC) / Instructor Examination (IE), i.e. Assistant Instructor and Open Water Scuba Instructor
- PADI Freediver / Basic Freediver (a non-scuba freediving certification offered by some scuba-focused shops)
Dominant Body
PADI — the large majority of Phuket dive centers are PADI shops, several holding PADI 5 Star Career Development Center (CDC) status, which is PADI's highest classification and focuses on training dive professionals. A smaller number of shops (e.g. Phuket Dive Tours, Sunrise Divers, SSS Phuket) teach SSI as an alternative or in addition to PADI.
Freediving Crossover
- Details
- Some scuba-focused Phuket dive centers also offer a genuine PADI Freediver / Basic Freediver certification track as a side offering to their scuba courses — for example All4Diving runs PADI Freediver courses (confined pool session plus open-water freedive sessions at Racha islands) and Aussie Divers Phuket lists PADI Freediving among its programs. This is a minority offering rather than the norm across all shops — most Phuket operators remain scuba-only, with freediving being a specialty add-on at a handful of larger PADI centers rather than a city-wide dual focus.
- Genuine Crossover Confirmed
- Yes
AI-generated estimateData refreshed July 2026
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Data last updated July 2026 · Verify anything important.