Following my 10 most favorite places in Southeast Asia I decided to post my favorite dive spots. I haven’t been to many of the world class dive sites in the area, like Richelieu Rock or Sipadan, so this list reflects merely my personal top 10.

1. Hin Daeng & Hin Muang, Koh Lanta, Thailand
   These are my absolute favorites. There’s the big stuff, like Mantas and Whale Sharks, and little critters, like the Harlequin Shrimp. Because of the depth and the sometimes quite strong current both those sites are not really suited for greenhorn divers.
2. Batu Bolong, Flores, Indonesia
   I had a fantastic dive here with three octopus. They were following and holding on to each other while weird patterns were pulsating down their bodies. Looked like an octopoda threesome to me. Just awesome!! The current was just unbelievable; in places so strong that our bubbles went straight down…
3. Shark Point, Gili Trawangan, Indonesia
   Probably the only dive site on earth, where you are surrounded by 15 turtles when doing your safety stop. Loads of different kinds of sharks and a gorgonian fan at around 20 m populated by pygmy seahorses. There can be some current, but here you always dive with the flow, so no worries…
4. Tulamben USS Liberty, Bali, Indonesia
   Loads of nudibranchs, scorpionfish, hundreds of garden eels waving in the slow current and extremely nosy parrotfish all within the remnants of a WWII freighter. Loads of little swimthroughs with fantastic light shining through holes in the hull.
5. Koh Haa Lagoon, Koh Lanta, Thailand
   This is an easy dive, but can nevertheless be breathtaking. Directly in the lagoon there are a few very curious and very cute porcupinefish, quite a few boxfish, and some garden eel. On the outer edge of the lagoon with it’s two pinnacles there’s barney, the hawksbill turtle and, if you look closely, a ghost pipefish hidden somewhere!
6. Sail Rock, Koh Tao, Thailand
   I did easily 50 dives here. If I would dive there now, I’d probably still know every fish by name. Great pinnacle dive with a chimney starting at 7m and going down to about 20m and a chance to see some big fish.
7. Tulamben Drop Off, Bali Indonesia
   I haven’t seen that much fish here to be honest, but the colors are just stunning. There are loads of huge gorgonian fans all over the site. Their colors made all the more brighter and vivid by the black vulcanic sand that’s everywhere.
8. Chumphon Pinnacles, Koh Tao, Thailand
   Chumphon, Koh Tao’s premier dive site, is a submerged rock formation covered in all different kinds of coral. There’s grey reef sharks around and the chance to see whale sharks. Loads of small critters as well. Can be quite crowded with divers, even for Koh Tao standards.
9. Simon’s Reef, Gili Meno, Indonesia
   This is a huge site starting at 14 m, going down to like 45 m, so it’s an advanced site. This is the place where I managed to capture three beautiful cuttlefish on film. Can be fantastic with visibility reaching 50–60 m. I once missed the whole dive site, due to current and bad visibility and promptly saw a huge stingray, easily 2,5 m long…
10. Temple of the Sea, Palau Perhentian Kecil, Malaysia
    Visibility wasn’t good, when I went diving here, but I could see the potential. There’s bamboo and nurse sharks and loads of barrakuda and jacks. The Temple is a pinnacle covered in soft and hard coral. When you’re in the area and you dive, then this spot shouldn’t be missed!

There are so many more dive spots I want to go to, most of all a liveaboard trip to the Burma Banks near Myanmar and to Alor in Eastern Indonesia. And I haven’t even been to the Philippines yet. If you’re not a diver yet, but would like to learn, then you should check out Koh Lanta, Koh Phi Phi or, for the more adventerous, Koh Lipe in Thailand, the Perhentians in Malaysia and the Gilis in Indonesia. There’s loads of dive sites for beginners there, loads of stuff to see and courses are not too expensive.
What’s your favorite dive sites?

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I had been living on Koh Samui in Thailand for almost half a year and it had been exciting and fun. I was sharing a house with Laurent, a french frogman, opposite Big Buddha Pier in Ban Bang Rak and we had a ball there. Diving by day, watching the sunset by dusk and going dancing, meeting friends for dinner or having a party or a barbeque by night. Life was easy, chilled out and great fun. Nevertheless, I felt ready to leave, go some place else, move on. Six months in one place was a long time for me then. Most of us left Samui around the same time.

About a year later said frogman asked me to work for him at his new dive school over on Koh Lanta. I took the chance to visit some friends on Koh Tao and Samui before getting stuck into work. But while being on Koh Tao was fine, I couldn’t stand Samui. Everything seemed sad, miserable and sleazy. Where before the island had been a fun place to be, now that my friends from before were missing, ‘my Samui’ had lost it’s soul. At least for me. I only stayed a couple days and haven’t been back since.

Meanwhile I hardly return to my favorite places. I like to keep the picture I have of them, as they were then, in my head. Thinking back on my travels, going back hardly ever worked out for me. The more recent bad experience then also seemed to overshadow a little the great time I have had the first time round and I don’t want this to happen. What about you? Do you like to return to your favorite places?

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We tend to humanize animals. We give them traits. A dolphin is friendly, constantly smiling at us. A dog is our trusted companion, always loyal. A chimpanzee is almost human, if a little clumsy and not as intelligent, but all the more likeable because of it. And a shark… Well, a shark is just evil. A beast with huge sharp teeth. sharks rouse ancient fears in us and movies like ‘jaws’ or ‘the deep blue’ have just been aggravating the matter. So let’s have a look at the sharks, shall we?

Shark Facts

• Sharks belong to the superorder ‘Selachimorpha’, which is part of the subclass ‘Elasmobranchii’ which in turn belongs to the class ‘Chondrichthyes’.
• In total there are about 370 known shark species living in our oceans.
• They are to be found anywhere from the surface down to 3700m ( like the Portuguese Dogfish or Centroscymnus Coelolepis).
• Sharks range in size from around 20cm (like the Pygmy Ribbontail Catshark or Eridacnis Radcliffei) to probably more than 12m (the largest fish in the ocean, the Whale Shark or Rhincodon Typus).
• Sharks don’t have any table manners. They don’t chew their food, but just swallow it.
• All sharks are cartilaginous, which means that sharks have an internal skeleton made up entirely of cartilage. This is more flexible and lighter than bone. Also cartilaginous fish usually don’t have a swim bladder, so they sink to the bottom if they stop swimming.
• Sharks have 5–7 pairs of gills.
• The oldest found shark fossil dates from about 400 million years ago, so sharks are older than the dinosaurs.
• The brain to body weight ratio is comparable to that of some mammals, so it can be inferred that sharks are not mindless, instinct driven eating machines, but as intelligent as other animals.
• Sharks don’t go to dentists. They have an almost endless supply of new teeth, which normally get replaced every eight days.
• Most fish lay eggs, which then get fertilized by the male. Sharks almost have ‘normal’ sex. The males have claspers, which are not used to hold onto something, but to deposit the sperm inside the female.
• There are up to 12 pups born at one time, with the pups being small, but fully developed versions of their parents.

Are Sharks Dangerous?

Well, there is no doubt that sharks are dangerous animals, as are many other wild animals. But you are more likely to die in a car accident or die from a snake bite than from a shark bite. Quite often attacks are a case of mistaken identity. The attacked person is simply taken for a seal or other type of prey. Most attacks happen on the surface, so swimmers, snorkelers and surfers are more at risk than divers. The five most dangerous sharks are considered to be the White Shark, the Tiger Shark, the Bull Shark, the Short Fin Mako Shark and the Oceanic Whitetip Shark. Of these sharks, only the Bull Shark is a true coastal species. The others may venture close to shore but are more often found offshore. So encounters are very rare. If you should ever encounter a big shark, then it is best not to move around too much, sink down to the bottom (if you’re a diver) to blend into the surroundings and then to move slowly out of the sharks territory. Chances are it’s just passing through.

My Shark Stories

As I said before, I love sharks!! I haven’t had a single dangerous moment with sharks and I have never felt unsafe when in the company of sharks. Most of the times it’s the poor shark that gets scared. You would too, if you had 10 divers swimming furiously at high speed after you to take your picture, when all you want to do is get a quick snack of some tasty Parrotfish.

Manta Point, Gili Trawangan

I had just become manager of Dive Indonesia. It was an exciting time for me. The weather was great, the ocean flat as a mirror every single day. The days were relaxed with a morning dive to a deeper site and a chilled out shallower dive in the afternoon. At this particular day I had four friends book a morning dive with me. They wanted to see sharks, so I decided to go to Manta Point. Funny name that. I don’t think anyone’s ever seen a manta there, but there are sharks. White and black tip reef sharks. I did a current check and because there was none we dropped straight over where the sharks usually hung out. 22 m straight down. At first I couldn’t see any. I told my divers to stay put on the sand, while I had a look under some overhangs and surely there was one resting on the bottom. It seemed a bit startled and started circling around us. The cameras started to take picture after picture. Then another white-tip appeared and shortly after that another three. It was mesmerizing. They came extremely close, as if to pose for a photo, then swam away to give the other sharks a go. Eventually we had to ascend a bit and two of the sharks followed us for a few minutes. A bit later we saw a black-tip shoot past us a couple of times. All in all an absolutely amazing experience. I have never since had so many sharks come so close to me.

My First And Only Whale Shark

I was living and working at the time on Koh Samui, Thailand. There had been rumours going round the diving community that there is a teenage whale shark lurking around Sail Rock, a dive site just off the north-eastern tip of Koh Pha-Ngan. I was having a scuba diver course and having a very hard time. My student was extremely nervous and I was dreading the next day, with two dives on the agenda. When we arrived at Sail Rock the next day, the ocean was calm and the sun was burning down. We geared up and went for our first dive. Everything went uneventful and smoothly, my student having forgotten all his nervousness. And all the time I had half an eye out for my little friend, the whale shark. The second dive went exactly the same as the first. On the way back to our boat we passed another dive boat. The people there were screaming at us that they had just seen the whale shark below their boat. But my student only had about 50 bar left, so it was back to the boat for us. But when my student was safely on the boat, one of the boat boys told me he’d look after him. I took the chance, dumped my air and went down with Laurent, a friend of mine. We found the shark at about 20 meters. He was just beautiful. About 4,5 meters long and swimming calmly through the water. A few remoras and some suckerfish in its wake. At that point we were the only divers in the water. Laurent swam to the sharks right and I stayed on its left. I was so close to him I could have touched the little fella. I moved forward a little bit and looked him straight in the eye and I still think that he was looking straight back at me, trying to figure me out. It was just magical. We swam with him for another 20 minutes, then we were almost out of air and had to ascent and he disappeared below. Here’s a video of the little fella:

So, What Do I Think?

Accidents and attacks will continue to happen as long as we venture into the ocean. We shouldn’t blame the sharks for that, after all it’s their territory. We should treat them with respect, know what they could do to you and remember that they are wild animals. They are the kings of the ocean and they keep the balance in the seas. No sharks in the ocean could have a negative effect on the food chain in the seas. They are truly amazing animals and we know hardly anything about them compared to some land-based animals. Sharks are definitely worth saving. They shouldn’t end up in shark fins soup or as handbags.

Here are some links, which might be of interest:

• Sharktrust
• Wikipedia entry on sharks
• Shark Research Institute
• Global Shark Attack File

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