The events of recent years – Covid; culminating in the events of recent weeks – the tragic loss of the Founder of Big Blue Michael Spjuth; and coinciding with the beginning of the New Year, marks a very significant changing of the guard in the history of Big Blue Diving.

The Past

Reflecting on the last 2 years it’s unbelievable to think where we were in a pre Covid world to where we are now, at what I optimistically hope, is the beginning of a post Covid world.
In that time, we lost 90% of our staff. We lost our Resort, our pool and our restaurant when we realized the rent far exceeded the income during ‘The Apocalypse,’ and moved to a more affordable location at Blue Tao Hotel. Though scattered over a large area within several other businesses we are lucky enough to still be able to offer our normal services thanks to the cooperation we have with Blue Tao Hotel, Thalassa Hotel, and Blue Water Restaurant. It’s wasn’t ideal but it wasn’t the bottom of the barrel either.

We scraped those dregs a few days after Christmas, with the very sad & tragic death of Michael, who had been very much holding the reins of the company over recent years. At the age of just 55, with over 30 years in business, Michael leaves behind a legacy as one of the world’s most successful Scuba Diving Business owners, and a pioneer in the tourism and scuba diving industry on Koh Tao. Michael’s passing means we not only lose a legend, but we’ve also lost our leader, our colleague and our friend.

The Present

So what happens now?
Is that it?
Is that the end of Big Blue?
Who will take over?
What’s the plan?

So many questions, and basically no real concrete answers as such, but a plan at least, and a good plan and one that will hopefully get the gears in the Big Blue engine purring again with the joys of life.

The Future

1. Find a new location.
2. Appoint the team.
3. Assess the product.
4. Improve the product.
5. Market the product
6. Repeat steps 3, 4, 5 & 6.

We’ve been working on point 1 since before Michael passed away so hope to be able to present that to you over the next couple of months, as long as Covid hauls ass! Keep your eyes out for a public announcement shortly on our social media platforms!

Second- appoint the team:
First off, my name is Jim. I shall be taking the reigns and steering the ship forward.
My newly appointed 2nd in Command is going to be Steven Develter, self-appointed Best Divemaster in the World, but to me – my ‘big number 2’. As Dive Operations Manager Steven brings to the job 13 years of experience, a great sense of humor, good organizational skills and a toy dog.
Our Head Instructor/ Pro Training Mentor/ Safety Officer/ and SSI Standards Officer is the super experienced, ever so chilled Graeme Scott from the UK.
Our newly appointed Equipment Technician who will be looking after all of our scuba diving equipment is Tim our Dutch Viking… or our Dyking!
Then we have Jade our in house Marine Biologist and Eco Queen who’s in charge of Big Blue Conservation.
And Andy of course, who is still doing a great job at Big Blue Tech and maintaining its well-deserved reputation as the number 1 Tech Diving Center in Thailand. In addition we also have Will & Ciara, Dakota & Aayush, Fiona, Ste & Verena ready to drop trousers and don boardies and bikini’s as soon as is needed.

So that’s the team. I like it! Heaps of experience and knowledge, and a lot of enthusiasm and great characters. A good start. Next is taking a look at ‘the product’. 3, 4 & 5 – we need to assess it. Then improve it, then market it!

Diving on Koh Tao from January to April.

This time of year diving on Koh Tao is fantastic- flat seas crystal clear visibility & heaps of marine life. We’ve had 3 different Whaleshark visits in the last 3 weeks. We got Brydes Whales and dolphin sightings as they pass by Koh Tao on their way to the Angthong Marine Park. The Pick-handle Barracudas are back at Chumphon Pinnacle. We’ve had a couple of eagle ray sightings and Fiona had a near brush with an Indian Walkman and there’s all the usual suspects including a large amount of turtle sightings at this time of year too.

Koh Tao Dive Guides

Giving you a guided tour of life under the surface, in an enjoyable, educational and safe manner, or teaching you about the joys of scuba diving, the underwater world and the equipment itself, while also making you aware of how to avoid unnecessary accidents, is our product, and we have to maintain an exemplary standard of service at the best price and in the best way possible. Gone are the days of sitting in classrooms and watching a boring 2 hour DVD. More dive time less study time. Our online courses make it now possible to do the normal 4 day Open Water Course in just 3 days cutting out a full day of sitting in a classroom while on holiday.

Dive Boats, Beach Boats and Scuba Equipment

We have 2 big dive boats for our courses and fun divers and a smaller boat for our Tech divers. Big Blue Tech’s boat is actually getting its yearly colonoscopy & short back & sides right now at the boatyard on the mainland, so will be back looking very squeaky clean and dapper within the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile our big dive boats not at the beauticians right now have enough space for the compressors on so we don’t need to waste time moving the scuba tanks on and off, backwards and forwards, from boat to boat and land and back every day.
Shuttling out to the dive boat means leaving directly from our meeting point at Blue Water Restaurant via our beach boat that will take us directly to the dive boat which is way more preferable to jumping on and off taxis and climbing in between boats to get on your boat and driving to & from the pier to your dive center or resort the whole time in a taxi. Leaving directly from the beach saves at least 30-45 minutes of extra travel time every trip and leaving and returning to Blue Water makes it very convenient for a pre-dive mango shake or a post dive ice cold beer!

Equipment wise we’ve just bought 30 new sets of masks, fins and wetsuits and are currently servicing every single one of our tanks, regs and BCD’s so we’re right up there with the best for equipment. The existing set up we have with the equipment on the boats also means less time being eaten alive by mosquitoes around the resort dump tanks too- win win!