Congratulations to Eike for passing the Assistant Instructor Course with top marks and a big thank you for you efforts in the coral research program.

Well done Haz on finishing your Assistant Instructor course in style..Good luck with your open water scuba Instructor course and with your professional career.

Okay, Instructor Development Course is finished now, and we have seven brand new Instructors ready to rock and roll! Congratulations, Steven, Adam, Eva, Greg, Raf, Nods and Baby Alex! We wish you a nice career in diving, and lots of grateful students! And as student divers reading this, look at the pictures and remember those faces — they are going to be your teachers!

Three days ago, they started the exams with PADI Instructor Examiner George Wengmann, who came from Philippines to check our Instructor Candidates.

This was the first Instructor Development course on Koh Phangan, so tension and responsibility were really really high. But they managed, everyone’s passed!

The car has arrived packed with new dive teachers.

Every new instructor is happy to get a new profession...

Final briefing at the bar

And now, after all, our heroes get their certification papers!

Eva Oberhauser

Stephen Goodwin

Greg Sheehan

Adam Veitch

Naomi Smith (Nods)

Raphael Wendÿk

And Alex Attewell-Dean — our youngest certified Instructor! Instead of Baby Alex, call him «Instructor Alex» from now!

Guys, we wish all of you an exciting life in the world of professional diving!

Special thanks go to Mark and Darius from Buddha View, Koh Tao, and Neil and Steff from Sail Rock Divers. Many thanks to our staff and all friends, who made this possible. Those are first Instructors bred on Koh Phangan, and we hope to see more!

P.S. And special big respect goes to Alex Arnold from Sail Rock Divers, who organized all that

Yesterday we started our first PADI Instructor Development Course, which is also the first PADI IDC training on Koh Phangan. In the next two weeks our seven Instructor Candidates will be studying theory in the classroom, practicing teaching skills in the pool and open water, and hopefully becoming fully qualified dive Instructors. We wish you all good luck!

Instructor candidate performing confined dive briefing.

Master Instructors Alex and Neil doing lessons in the pool.

Deep water skill training

Classwork...

Sail Rock divers clean up of samran pinnacles, Koh phangan, Thailand

Our clean up of Samran started at 7.30 am where 10 eager divers had gathered to Clean up a group of submerged pinnacles  12 km north of Phangan. We had been given reports from local fishermen that a huge trawling net had been snagged around the entire dive site.
After a 15 minute boat ride we arrived at the GPS coordinates for the pinnacles. First in the water was Alex Arnold the owner of Sail rock divers to assess the damage and to formulate a plan of action.
Logistics and Dive Briefing out of the way we all entered the water and descended to the top of the pinnacles at around 15meters. The net looked as though it was choking the dive site, hard and soft corals where barely visible due to the amount of net. A solitary anemone fish hovered over the discarded net unable to reach the protection of the anemone trapped below. Many fish where cut free, but for some we were far too late. After 2 dives we are glad to say that 90 % of the reef and pinnacles were clear. We are now starting a weekly monitoring program of Samran pinnacles to ensure the dive site remains rich and vibrant.

A big Thank you to Neil, Steve, Alex, Eva, Caro, Eike, Tony, Amber, Bo and the dedicated divers who without your help this would not have been possible.

Our youngest diver had the dive of her life when she managed to see 4 bullsharks on a recent trip with sail rock divers.
We miss you Isis, your our lucky charm…

We recorded this footage in July last year. This was just one of the many whale shark encounters in 2009. More shark videos of 2010 coming soon, we will keep you posted!