By: Ian Shaw of Reefwatch Krabi

Krabi lies in the heart of Phangna bay some 190km (119 miles) from Phuket Island.

The limestone rocks that feature in so many picture postcards make for a striking landscape both above and below the waves. If Krabi was in the United kingdom the people would all talk with broad Yorkshire accents and have the faces of craggy moorland people, flat caps and whippets. Thankfully Krabi is in Thailand and so the people wage war with bulls and chicken fights and a huge betting scene that goes hand in hand with their favourite pastimes. There is a mixed population of Buddhist and Muslim religions with a small Anglican percentage thrown into the mix, somewhere in all of this a few Europeans are operating dive businesses and other tourism-driven operations.

Text and photography by: Ginny Stubbs and Craig Ballard.
Vol 4 No. 1

The best subtropical diving in the world” (Jacques Cousteau). That’s a big reputation to live up to! We are here to test it out. Will the Poor Knights live up to the claims made about it?You betcha it will. Imagine diving in open water in a ball of 5,000 schooling trevally, on top of several hundred kingfish? Or diving with over 20 schooling rays? Or in a tunnel filled with iridescent blue fish, so thick that you can’t see past them? Seeing birds under water, or swimming through a tunnel into a lagoon walled by sheer cliffs? These are only some of the delights we experienced at the Poor Knights.

Text by: Brock Wright
Vol 4 No 1.

It was a great day of diving on one of Pattaya’s well known but rarely dived wrecks the Bremen when the idea of preserving the Suddhadib was born. Until recently the Suddhadib was known as the Hardeep. The name Hardeep is believed to have originated from the mispronunciation of her name by the foreign divers that dove on her during the Vietnam conflict. There are several stories concerning the World War II sinking of the Suddhadib that range from the French dropping bombs on it, to the Thai resistance fighters blowing it up.

Vol 4 No 1

Mystery Marus

Dozens of Japanese Maru, or large commercial transport vessels, were sunk in the Gulf of Siam and South China Sea during the latter stages of WWII. Most were sunk as a result of American submarine action and Allied Forces aerial bombing runs from India. Many of these wrecks are huge and would need several dives just to get a feel for any one of them.

The MV Trident has surveyed the locations of many undersea anomalies in the Gulf of Siam, and has positively identified the following large wrecks within a days steaming of Koh Tao.

By: Steve Burton

One of many WWII wrecks recently identified in Thai waters by Koh Tao wreck research vessel MV Trident.

The Gulf of Siam with Bangkok as its hub, has been an important international seaway stretching back over millennia. Until recent years, trade routes into Thailand overland from all neighbouring countries were tenuous at best. With either mountains, wide, fast-flowing rivers, or impenetrable jungles preventing all shipments by land larger than what could be carried by pack mule.