Barry Coville- has been living in Koh Tao a number of years already & has now found himself enjoying life as a PADI & soon to be SSI Instructor at Big Blue. He’s served a number of years in the military & learnt a number of invaluable skills as part of his training. Interestingly enough Scuba Diving wasn’t one of them! Barry is also the founder of the Facebook Group “ Just say no to speedo’s “ which actually has more members than our own “Big Blue Diving Koh Tao” group, with over 1000 members! Which doesn’t say much for our group but we don’t blame Barry for that! It just means there are more people out there who like revealing their personal photo collection of men in their budgy smugglers!
James Caliendo- James is a fully qualified acupuncturist & has been working aboard cruise ships sailing the Seven Seas. He came here on holiday & dived with us just as a fundiver & had such a blast he came back the next year & did his Divemaster Course with us. He was very quickly snapped up by another Dive school on the island before we nicked him back from them with our offer of free needles to acupuncture people with people.
Hal Thorsford- Hal has been a professional snow boarding instructor & now is a PADI & SSI Dive Instructor. He speaks a mind bogglingly impressive 7 languages – English, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, German & Spanish- a different one for every day of the week! Hal is originally from Norway and finds Koh Tao a refreshing change to the violently biting chill of a Scandanavian winter. Hal has never ever liked A-Ha music & flatly denies ever having had his hair cut modeled on the lead singers look. 
Filip van der – Filip is another recent addition to the team at Big Blue who comes with a wealth of experience having worked for 3 seasons on Liveaboards in the Similans, Instructing in Greece & he also operated Koh Tao’s first Liveaboard in the Gulf of Thailand. He is an SSI & PADI Instructor & hails from some dodgy town in Belgium. Filip speaks English, German, French, Dutch , Spanish & Greek though he claims his knowledge of the Greek language isn’t really suitable in a classroom.
Scandanavian Queens. Sanna has only been with us a few months but has a wealth of experience behind her. She can teach in English, Swedish, Danish, & Norwegian & before starting at Big Blue has worked as a Divemaster in West Coast Australia on the Ningaloo Reef, & Krabi & Koh Lanta in Thailand. Sanna is very unassuming & friendly & has been a very well received addition to the team.
Eberhard Kirchner- More commonly known as Church! We wanted to call him cherry as the literal translation of the name suggests but Church said he wasn’t keen on being referred to as a soft red fruit but would rather be referred to as a revered towering concrete erection! He is one of our very experienced team of Divemasters & has already logged almost 1000 dives in the crazy chilly lakes of Austria before he even became a Divemaster. Church is a very accomplished diver & knows just where to look for the underwater good stuff! He has an excellent command of Austrian though his German could do with improvement. 
Dan Bolton- Originally from the beautiful suburban paradise of Gravesend, UK, Dan has torn himself away from his busy , responsible job of Manager of a Construction Site Company to become one of Koh Tao’s most sought after Divemasters. When he’s not busy ‘sharing’ he can be found hard at work leading divers around Koh Tao’s many sites. He’s a very friendly soul our Dan & definitely a customers favourite!
Helen Sabin- Helen is a sort of Old School Koh Taoian in that she first arrived in Koh Tao in 1995. She has however been away a while & has only recently joined the team after working a number of years at different dive schools around the UK. Having seen sense she realized working in diving would actually be a little more enjoyable if she did it somewhere where it wasn’t so bloody cold so came back to Tao! Helen is our Big Blue Environmental Campaigner aswell & organizes monthly dive site & beach clean ups & reef check projects aswell as recording Whaleshark sightings.
Klaus Faustenmeier- From Bavaria! Klaus has worked in diving for over 10 years as a Divemaster, an Instructor & a Videographer. He’s dived all over the world & has most recently been operating a liveaboard on the West Coast of Thailand in the Similans. His likes are sausages, tauchening, lederhosen, Bayern Munich Football Team, speedos, moaning, Becks Beer, Sauerkraut & Herr Kartoffel Kopf! His dislikes are watching national football games with English supporters, Liebfrau Milch, big nights out, a good sense of humour, & his current boss.
Jim Donaldson- SSI & PADI Instructor (retired!). Has worked as the Manager at Big Blue now for almost two years and has been in Koh Tao since the millenium. He has worked at various different Diveshops as a cook! a Divemaster, an Instructor & a Manager & now sits around wasting away his retirement years filling in & keeping updated the Big Blue page on Facebook. He's been poncing around now for quite a while making out like he actually knows what he's doing but just like his rugby team, its all just a show! Speaking of which, Jim is getting married this year to his longterm German babe as a means of getting over his depression from the New Zealand All Blacks failure to win last years Rugby World Cup... again!
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