Big Blue Diving Resort is the best dive centre on Koh Tao. Period.
We’re an all-in-one diving holiday experience offering awesome diving, great food, numerous accommodation options, a friendly bar, and a relaxing beachfront spa. We opened way back in 1991 too when there was only one other dive centre on Koh Tao. When it comes to diving the Gulf of Thailand, we’re simply the best.
So let’s go through the most important reasons why Big Blue Diving is the best dive centre for your vacation on Koh Tao.
We’re the best dive centre with the best Koh Tao dive team.
Staff can make or break a dive centre and one of the biggest reasons why Big Blue Diving is so popular is because of our amazing team members. Besides the fact that each one is hilarious and exceptionally friendly, each one has also been trained right here at Big Blue Diving. That means that each Divemaster has spent countless hours exploring each dive site around Koh Tao so that they can show you all the special marine life, and each Instructor has been trained by our resident Instructor Trainer, who also happens to be the highest-ranked SSI Instructor Trainer in the world.
Every member of Big Blue Diving Team is a fully certified to administer 100% oxygen in case of diving accidents. They’re also all trained in first and CPR. You can be sure that while you’re diving with Big Blue Diving you’ll be in safe, qualified – but amusing – hands!
We have the best dive boats.
Our fleet of dive boats is one of the largest on the island. And of course it is. The best dive centre on Koh Tao needs to also have the best dive boats!
We haven 3 large, custom-built dive boats, 1 dedicated technical diving boats, and 3 longtail shuttle boats all ready to shuffle divers around Koh Tao’s dive sites. Our boats – Banzai, Waverunner and Enzo – are all custom-built dive boats. None of this converted fishing boat nonsense that is common on the island. That means that you get boats with dedicated sun decks for relaxing and chatting, large dry decks for eating and dive briefings, and large wet decks with multiple exits for easy gear setup and quick access to the water. Each boat is also equipped with several onboard compressors so that you never have to wait for a tank to be filled.
Our smallest boat, Big Blue, is our original boat and still has the same captain from when we opened back in 1991! Big Blue is now a dedicated Technical Diving and Freediving boat. Technical divers and freedivers often have different schedules that don’t always match up with our fun divers. So we fixed the problem by giving them their own boat and now everyone is happy!
We choose the best equipment for Koh Tao diving.
We’ve been a success in the industry for many years and we’ve been approached several times by equipment retailers looking to partner with us. But we don’t partner with companies we wouldn’t use ourselves. The gear we give our to our customers is gear that we know works best in the conditions around Koh Tao. With racks of Aqualung and ScubaPro BCDs, Aqualung regulators, Mares and Technisub fins and masks, you’re always going to be properly equipped for your dives.
We’re a dive centre and a resort.
Big Blue Diving Resort has 10 air-conditioned dorm rooms that can sleep either 4 or 6 people to a room. We also have 7 private fan rooms and 7 private AC rooms all with either a pool or ocean view. Or maybe you’d be more interested in a villa tucked away in a quiet neighbourhood? We have that too.
Right in the centre of the resort, you’ll find our large training pool. With a shallow and a deep side, it’s the perfect place to take your first underwater breaths or practice and perfect a tricky dive skill. Designed to hold 4 student groups at a time with ease, it’s an important part of our training activities.
Our beachfront restaurant and bar is a constant hotspot. During the day, you’ll find the tables filled with people enjoying a delicious lunch and students learning the fundamentals of scuba diving. After sunset the bar is a great place to chat about the dives of the day and get to know other divers. It’s also where we hold our social events like quiz nights and movie screenings. Being right on the beach with an awesome view, it’s everyone’s favourite spot to hang out.
The best dive centre on Koh Tao is more than what it seems.
Big Blue Diving is a large diving resort and that means we do so much more than just scuba diving. Our Koh Tao dive centre is split into seven sections; Big Blue Diving, Big Blue Pro, Big Blue Tech Diving, Big Blue Freediving, Big Blue Conservation, Big Blue Movies, and our retail arm, Drift by Big Blue. Each section has it’s own goals and objectives, but we are all one amazing dive team.
Big Blue Conservation was one of the founding partners in the Save Koh Tao movement and the Koh Tao Operators Club. One of the first dive centres on Koh Tao with a conservation branch, we were an integral part of many conservation projects on Koh Tao including constructing and maintaining artificial reefs, installing dive site mooring lines, underwater and beach clean ups, and local conservation-based charity work.
Our Big Blue Tech manager, Andy Campbell, has been awarded the TDI award for most certifications in Technical Diving for 3 years in a row. He’s a Twinset, Sidemount, and Rebreather Instructor and has organized many expeditions to unexplored dive sites and wrecks in the Gulf of Thailand and in the Philippines. Big Blue Tech is also the longest established Technical Diving Center in Thailand having been started over 15 years ago before Tech diving was even regarded as a recreational sport.
It’s not every dive centre that can claim to hold the best Instructor in the Industry on their books, which is why we are very proud to have Simon Garrity heading up Big Blue Pro for us. Simon has been an instructor for 20 years and an instructor trainer for the last 10 years. He has certified more SSI Instructors and Divemasters than anyone else in the world and is also responsible for training most of the International Team at SSI. Together with his team at Big Blue Pro, Simon is responsible for having certified over 10000 diving professionals. There’s no better teacher to start your career as a scuba diving instructor!
Big Blue Movies has been in operation for almost 5 years and is responsible for training aspiring underwater photographers and videographers. Our Big Blue Movies staff film the final dives of Open Water Diver Courses, full day trips, and take photos of fun divers and students.
We are extremely proud of our clothing line and retail outlet at Drift by Big Blue, located on the busiest high street in Sairee Village. At Drift, we design our own t-shirts, shorts and bikinis, and sell all the scuba and snorkeling paraphernalia you could ever want. We are also Koh Tao’s premier retailer for all Go Pro cameras and accessories, and the leading dealer in Suunto dive computers and Feel Free Drybags.
It’s not easy to stay at the top after so many years, but we think we’ve managed to do it! We have the best dive centre, on the best beach, being run by the best dive team on Koh Tao and we’ll continue to be a leader in the dive industry. Come join us at Big Blue Diving for your Thailand holiday. It’s only up from here!
