We’re not the type of dive school to just sit back and watch the world change around us – we’re constantly on the lookout for new opportunities and new niches in our industry. And that’s why Big Blue Diving, the best dive school on Koh Tao, has shaken the dust off and moved to a new location right in the heart of Sairee Beach. We’ve also partnered with two incredibly popular island businesses to give our customers a new experience from our dive school – the boutique diving experience!
In 2015, Big Blue Diving left its location on the north end of Walking Street in Sairee and moved to the north end of Sairee Beach. This new location gave us more space to build a variety of accommodation options, allowed us to offer a more immersive experience to our customers, allowed us to build our own training pool, and would give us the room we needed to grow as a dive school. And boy did we grow.
We spent 6 lovely years operating solely out of this location and it gave us a great environment for our customers and staff alike. With classes happening in our beachfront restaurant, students filling the rooms and bungalows scattered around the resort, dive trips leaving right from the beach, and an active and social night scene, our time on North Sairee beach was full of fun, excitement, good memories, and even better friends.
And then 2020 started and changed everything.
As borders slammed shut around the planet, including here in Thailand, it was clear to us that our world was about to change drastically. In a move to protect our staff, and to protect our entire island community, we closed our doors for two months at the beginning of 2020. It wasn’t an easy decision for us but it was one that we felt was necessary. Big Blue Diving has always been a business built on the efforts of incredible people and now it was our time to step up and protect the people that made our dive centre the island hotspot that it is.
In May 2020, we reopened our doors, albeit slowly, and were able to put on a few dive trips a week. A saving grace for our staff and DMTs who were starting to go a bit crazy not being able to get out scuba diving! We were still wary of catching and possibly spreading COVID-19 so we enforced social distancing on all of our longtails, ran dive boats with well under half capacity, supplied our staff and customers with as much alcohol gel as they could handle, and we encouraged people to limit their contact to those outside of their immediate groups.
While life here on Koh Tao continued almost as normal, things around the world kept getting worse. International travel was all but stopped, country borders remained closed, and the customer base that Koh Tao relies on to survive was stuck outside of our borders. While we kept smiles on our faces, we could tell that our hopes of returning to normal during 2020 were going to be dashed.
Despite all odds, we stayed open and operating throughout the rest of 2020. Domestic tourists and expats were our lifeblood during this time and we would not have survived without them. But we were about to come to another crossroads in our history.
Our lease on our beautiful dive resort on North Sairee Beach was set to expire in early 2021 and suddenly we had a large choice to make – stick with a large, expansive resort or move locations and reorient Big Blue Diving as the best boutique dive school on Koh Tao. If we’d had to make this decision before the pandemic, honestly, our decision would probably have been different. But as we pondered our options and looked out over the empty restaurant we knew that there really was only one choice to make – it was time to go.
On March 1, 2021, Big Blue Diving officially moved to the heart of the action on Walking Street in Sairee. And so began yet another phase in the history of the best dive school on Koh Tao.
You’ll now find us right next to Blue Tao Beach Hotel, and for good reason. We’ve partnered with them not just for office space, but for accommodation options as well. Big Blue Diving customers can enjoy the comfortable, beachfront rooms at this popular (and almost brand new!) boutique hotel after their diving courses or fun dives. Wash away the saltwater in the modern bathrooms with hot showers and watch the sunset over the ocean from your private balcony. It is the PERFECT space for our customers to experience what island life is truly about.
If you’re not into staying right in the middle of the action, we still have accommodation options that are a bit removed from the centre of Sairee Beach. Check out our accommodations page for more information on our options at Thalassa Hotel in Sairee and Baan Sawainam in Jitsin.
All of our dive trips now leave from Blue Water Cafe, just a few steps north of our main office at Blue Tao Hotel. Blue Water is a really popular beachfront spot with island visitors and locals alike because it’s a restaurant with delicious food and an all-day menu, and a bar with stylish cocktails, great music and a relaxed atmosphere. We teach our courses either in the comfortable restaurant seating or on the second floor of the building if we have a larger group or if the restaurant is particularly busy. Whether you want to grab a bite to eat while you’re doing the academic portion of your dive course or sneak a quick beer or two after you’re done diving for the day, Blue Water Cafe is the perfect spot.
We are really excited about this new phase in our history and we hope all our customers, past, present and future are too. With a smaller, more streamlined operation we can focus our efforts on providing the highest level of service and the best diving experiences. We may have changed locations but our core goals are the same as they’ve always been – give everyone that walks through our doors the same kind of island experience that each of us received when we first came to Koh Tao.
Come visit us on Koh Tao and experience the new Big Blue Diving!
