Racha Yai is popular with day-trippers, it offers several dive sites, most of them suitable for all levels with good visibility. Spend the day swimming amongst the staghorn and table coral gardens, they’re a playground for the many devil scorpionfish, moray eels, and yellowtail barracuda. Follow the trumpetfish and flute fish as they hover over the coral, and watch out for the googly-eyed titan triggerfish belligerently guarding their territory.
As you go deeper, you’ll see spotted garden eels, blue-spotted stingrays hiding in the sands below, and the curious-looking bent-stick pipefish.
At the northern-most point of Racha Yai is Siam Bay where you can dive amongst large sunken stone elephants, there’s also a replication of a temple entrance guarded by Yaks. Yaks are mythological giants who protect the temple from evil spirits, these have been put here to attract diving tourists so make sure you stop and take some great photos!
Shark Point might sound scary but no need to panic, these are passive leopard sharks, creatures that lie around in the sand surrounding the pinnacle. At least you can boast to your friends about swimming with sharks when you get home!
Several underwater pinnacles explode with a rainbow of colours, from the purple and pink soft corals that hug the rocks to the giant gorgonian fan coral. The sheer density of fish around the pinnacles makes diving here a magical experience. Fusiliers all dressed in blue pass by, hunting trevally dart in and out of the rocks, moray eels hide away in the rock cavities, lionfish, and blue-ringed angelfish swim past, you might even spot ghost pipefish and seahorses against the multi-coloured corals.
About 600 metres to the north is Anemone Reef, an underwater pinnacle cloaked with spectacularly vibrant Anemones swaying in the current. A rich marine life reveals huge numbers of barracuda, schools of snappers, groupers, butterflyfish, trevallies, and angelfish, cuttlefish, sea snakes, and even turtles swimming in the warm waters.
If conditions are good, you’ll see all kinds of creatures here, keep an eye out for cuttlefish, snapper schools, batfish and pufferfish, well-camouflaged scorpionfish, rabbitfish and goatfish. Leopard sharks can sometimes be seen at the bottom of the wreck and big red octopus and hawksbill turtle have been known to show their faces.
The sites around Phuket and Ko Phi Phi are protected under National Park regulations, but not all dive sites are. Please remember that coral gardens are fragile environments and protect and preserve them for the benefit of future generations.
When you’re not diving there’s plenty of other fun activities to explore around Phuket. Spend a leisurely morning stand-up-paddle-boarding or visiting some of the Buddhist temples, an afternoon at the spa, or listening to the chilled-out tunes at one of the exclusive beach clubs.
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