Latest news- May 2014

What Coup? 
We've been posting regular news articles about the recent coup over the last week onto our facebook page, in order to get the message out there that there really is nothing to worry about for people thinking of coming to Thailand. Life is continuing as if nothing has happened, especially on Koh Tao- no curfew, no army, nothing. Even in Bangkok the only real difference is that there are a few soldiers on the street, and that a curfew has been in place between 9pm and 5am. But even that has now been relaxed to midnight until 4am. Apart from that, anyone coming to Thailand would have no idea that anything was happening at all. Many tourists are now getting their photos taken with soldiers, who seem more than happy to oblige them!
The problem is that once something like a coup gets out to the worldwide media, panic mode is activated, with national media and Governments warning their citizens not to travel here. Completely understandable if it happened in a country like Zimbabwe, but coups in Thailand seem to happen pretty regularly, and always very peacefully.
It has gotten a little quieter on Koh Tao, but it's quiet season anyway until July. We are still teaching a lot of people how to dive that are having a great time regardless. Very few of our customers have even asked about the coup, because they can see that nothing has changed. In fact, there are actually advantages to what's going on at the moment, flights to Thailand and hotels are massively discounted! So you could have the holiday that you planned to do anyway, but now it will cost you a hell of a lot less!
So please don't allow yourself to be scared off by the news in Europe and America. The reality is very different. Governments obviously need to be seen to give advice to their citizens, even though it is (especially here) being overly conservative advice.
Get yourself over to Thailand as planned, and don't bother spending time in Bangkok, come straight down to Koh Tao and get diving!

Motorbikes more dangerous than any coup
Regardless of what's going on in Thailand at the moment, and people's perception of the danger they think they may be under, the reality is very different. The main hazard faced by people coming to Koh Tao is motorbikes. Motorbike crashes happen a lot here, and they are almost always tourists who rented one and had no idea how to ride them, or were just drunk at the time. Both not very good ideas. Thais have a very different attitude to riding a motorbike than westerners- they don't look right when turning left at a junction, and drive pretty erratically. Unfortunately, westerners seem to copy this approach too.
The worst culprits are the boy racers that drive around like nutters all day because they have experience of riding bikes and know there are no speed limits being enforced. Sadly these are also exactly the type of people to go out, get really drunk, and then crash.
Then there are people who've never even sat on a bike that hand their passport in and suddenly have possession of a machine that they have no idea how to ride. It seems easy as most bikes are full automatic- throttle and brakes. But they have no control, and zero understanding of the danger of sand on the road. Usually they ride a lot slower though so most crashes cause superficial injuries and just hurt the wallet.. a lot!
So please be sensible, don't even think about getting on a bike here in Koh Tao. You can easily walk most places or get a taxi.

Fantastic review- by the reviewer!
Always nice when you receive a pat on the back, especially when it's because of all the great feedback you get from your customers. We're really proud to have been recently awarded a certificate of excellence from Trip Advisor. The letter we received reads:

Celebrate Your Certificate of Excellence!
TripAdvisor is delighted to award Big Blue Diving with a 2014 Certificate of
Excellence.
This prestigious award recognizes businesses that consistently earn top ratings from
TripAdvisor travelers. Showcase it to guests and staff with pride!
Congratulations.
Marc Charron
President, TripAdvisor for Business

That's amazing! We have over 1,200 customer reviews now, and the overwhelming majority are excellent or very good. Now, we're not perfect and don't get it right all the time, and we have a very small number of poor reviews. Some of them were legitimate criticisms, and we always work hard to address them, but others are a little strange or ridiculous, to the point where we have had people come to Big Blue solely because they read them and decided they were rubbish!
So we're pretty chuffed and will continue to work really hard to ensure that everyone coming to Big Blue has the best possible experience. But once you've left Big Blue, don't forget to leave a review on trip advisor! You can also leave a review at Divezone, Tangareef, Scubadviser, and World Diving Review

City DiversDivers like to dive dive sites... obvious fact and tongue twister all rolled into one. But sometimes dive sites don't mean the usual wreck or rock pinnacle. Occassionally they involve an entire submerged city! Here's a list of the top five that any diver with a heartbeat would want to see:

• Port Royal, Jamaica: Once one of the largest European cities in the new world, it was hit by a huge earthquake in 1692, leaving it 12 metres below the surface!
• Pyramids of Yonaguni-Jima, Japan: No-one knows whether they are natural or man-made, but they look a little too designed to be natural. Plus, they rise 76 metres off the sea floor!
• Dwarka, Gulf of Cambay, India: Situated in the bay of modern-day Dwarka (one of the oldest cities in India), it sits at 40 metres and is apparently the city of Lord Krishna. Artifacts from 7500BC have been found there!
• Lion City, Quiandao lake, China: As big as 62 football fields, and lying at between 25 and 40 metres, it was intentionally flooded in the 1950s to create a dam.There are incredible sculptures on the buildings, and its the place I would like to dive the most.
• Cleopatra's Palace, Alexandria, Egypt: Believed to have been sunk by an earthquake 1,500 years ago, archaeologists think it is the actual palace of Cleopatra. over 140 artifacts have been recovered to date, and scientists believe that they have even found Cleopatra's tomb!

Still Diving

You probably saw the news yesterday that the Thai Army has initiated a military coup, brought about by the political stalemate that's been happening in the Thai Parliament. Now, hopefully you're not thinking that Thailand doesn't sound like a particularly attractive place to go on holiday right now. Because, although a coup sounds pretty scary, not much has actually changed, and in Koh Tao, NOTHING has changed.. nada, not one thing.

Let's provide a little bit of context. It's usually always a pretty big deal when a coup, military or otherwise happens in any country. But in Thailand, there have been 30 coup attempts since 1912, and 11 actual coups since 1932! So the nation is actually pretty used to it. But the crutial thing to note is that the army have gotten pretty adept at doing it peacefully. In Bangkok, yes you may see some soldiers, but in the main tourist areas, Khao San road for example, you're really not going to see anything. Plus, the main focus of what's occurring is in Bangkok (nowhere near touristy areas), so if you're worried, just fly in to Bangkok and spend your time elsewhere in the country! Get yourself down to Koh Tao and you'll be lucky to even see a policeman.. and keep it to yourself but I'm not sure that anyone on Koh Tao is paying much attention to the curfew either!

Our SSI and PADI instructors are still teaching people to dive, and our divemasters are still taking qualified divers out to see the best dive sites in the Gulf of Thailand. So don't let what's going on in the news stop you from having an amazing time. Get yourself booked in to come to Big Blue!

Engine's running...

I was pondering whether to write about the history of coups, then I thought I'd write something about pigeons, because, you know. But instead I think I'll just give you the top 7 (yes 7) countdown of the weirdest/funniest things said or done by students or instructors during their open water course:

7- "I really like the current simulator"- that'll be the pool filter then.
6- "I don't understand how you work out this residential nitrogen".
5- "ok, you just did everything I didn't want you to do, and nothing that I did want you to do".
4- "I don't understand how you put the fins on, then the boots over them".
3- "Have you ever taught anyone as thick as me before?"
2-"Will I need to put this in?" Pointing at the regulator before going underwater.
1- The scared student needing to be carried from the shallow to the deep end underwater, then being held in the instructors arms on his lap until he felt brave enough to kneel down by himself.
Changes at Big Blue Tech
We are proud to announce that we have new management in place at Big Blue Tech. Instructors Rick and Donny will be taking over from the 25th May. They are both pretty weird people, and we're not sure whether putting them together will cancel out the weirdness or make it much worse. Donny is on the right in the photo, looking pretty special, and Rick is the one looking like Brick Tamlin in Anchorman 2 when he realises he's not actually dead. Regardless, they are both really passionate about technical diving, and all joking aside want to get people interested in tech diving, and show recreational divers that are already aware of it that the impression they may have of what it's all about is probably wrong.
People have many different reasons for going diving. Most just want to see the marine life that's out there. Some want to get into marine biology and see diving as the perfect way to study ecosystems and fish. It might surprise some of them to know that some of the most prolific and famous marine biologists are also technical divers who found a niche to study> Richard Pyle is a very well respected marine biologist who dives beyond the photic zone and collects fish that live at depths of 70 and 80 metres. He's identified numerous species throughout his career, and he couldn't have done it without being a technical diver. Others study life in the Arctic and Antarctic oceans, and need to become technical divers to allow them to do that.
These are just some of the things that Rick & Donny will be engaging divers about over the coming weeks and months. They'll also be announcing some enticing offers for technical diving courses such as the entry level course- TDIs intro to tech.
They are currently going through a handover process with outgoing manager James Foheler, who has decided to move on to another adventure, and Ian Jordan, who will be continuing to teach at Big Blue. Big Blue would like to thank them for all their hard work over the last two years, and wish them well in the future.
If you'd like to find out more about technical diving, have a look on the Big Blue Tech website, or pop in to the tech shack to have a chat with the weirdos that dwell there.
Aquatic Lizards 
I saw a recent photo on facebook the other day of a monitor lizard walking along the rocks at about 6 metres depth at Mango bay. I had no idea that they could dive and for a minute thought it was a bit of a hoax, but no, it turns out that they really do partake in a bit of freediving from time to time. Their apparent ability to stand on two legs and "monitor" what's going on around them is apparently where their name comes from. But what makes them go for a bit of a duck-dive? Well it's all to do with the fact that they are cold-blooded. All cold blooded reptiles need the heat of the Sun to allow them to get warm enough to allow their muscles to work so they can move around and hunt for prey. Now seeing as April and May are the two hottest months in Thailand, especially in Koh Tao, it can easily go the other way and they can find themselves overheating. Sometimes the shade just isn't enough, so a nice refreshing dip in the ocean makes perfect sense. But they must have been listening in on the freediver's yoga sessions to learn how to hold their breath for, wait for it... up to 30 minutes at a time!

Staff birthdays
It seems that May is the month for the vast majority of dive professionals to be born. This past week we have had what can only be described as a lot of staff birthdays, with more to come! The 3rd of May saw SSI instructor trainer Simmo celebrating whilst on his holiday in Morocco- wherever that is. May 11th was former instructor and current clown Anke's, May 14th was Daisy and outgoing Big Blue Tech manager James's. May 15th saw Neil and incoming Big Blue Tech manager Rick's. But the month is not over yet. On the 22nd it's divemaster trainee mentor Rich's, and the 27th is Rod's 30th.. blimey.
If we had any sense, we'd just have one monumental party. But no, we're way too greedy/hedonistic for that. We have to have about 10 instead, you know, because living on a tropical Island doing something we love for a living is not a reason for celebrating in itself.. Anyway, happy birthday to all of them, some much much older than others (James). We hope you had and have a great day, and don't remember any of the night!

Shark repellent
Some pretty clever people have come up with a different approach to repelling sharks. Marine biologists Professor Shaun Collin and Professor Nathan Hart have been studying shark vision, and have made some fascinating discoveries that have potential real-world applications. They discovered that sharks see in black and white, and also that, in spite of them using their mouths to sense the world around them by biting stuff (not good for humans), vision is also crucial to being able to understand whether something is potentially prey or not. This has led to the initial development of wetsuits that are designed to either convince a shark that the wearer is dangerous or unpalatable to eat, or just very difficult to see in the first place. The wetsuits are striped black and white. Lets hope that sharks don't like zebras much.
The simple idea could be used for wetsuits, scuba tanks, kayaks, surf boards, water skis, and anything else that involves humans potentially coming into contact with sharks. It will be fascinating to find out more about their effectiveness once more people are applying the concept.

Big Blue Wedding!
You may have noticed that it's been a little quiet at Big Blue over the last week or so.. not because we haven't got anyone diving with us, but because half of the instructors dissapeared on a jolly to Udon Thani to watch PADI and SSI instructor and Big Blue hearthrob Luke White get married. Sorry ladies, he went through with it, and the man previously known as the Grimsby platinum bruiser shall henceforth be known as the Grimsby newlywed schmoozer. There was a little bit of merriment in Bangkok, some poker playing, hours of trying to find the perfect shoes for instructor Neil Draycrott (we went with acceptable instead of perfect in the end- and I use the term acceptable loosely), and even a Thai Ska band thrown in for good measure.
The day itself went like clockwork, the ceremony was really interesting but baffling, as it was delivered in a local Udon Thani dialect. Not that I would have understood any of it if it was in standard Thai either! After the ceremony it was on to the reception for a bit of a Thai feast and quite a lot of whisky. Perhaps the most memorable part of the day was a powerpoint slideshow that Luke's dad had prepared, showing pictures of him as a baby and teenager, which was a bit of a shock as we all thought Luke was fully formed when he came out of the lab.
So now we're all back at Big Blue and expecting it to get even quieter now that the ladies know that Koh Tao's most elligible batchelor is off the shelf and fully taken.
Anyway, from everyone at Big Blue we'd like to wish Luke and Pekky all the best for the future, and, as Pekky's uncle said immediatly after the ceremony, when will we see the little Lukes?

Marine Protected Areas
Here's a statistic that's pretty scary- only 2% of the world's oceans are covered by some sort of Marine Protected Area (MPA). What's a MPA I hear you ask. Well, it's an unbrella term for ocean sanctuaries, marine parks, and no-fishing zones, which are places where marine life is supposed to be left alone to allow it to thrive, free of human interference (or, at least, subject to limited human interference). There are around 5,000 MPAs in the world, and they include well known sites like the Great Barrier Reef and the Galapagos Islands, but they can also simply be areas where either fishing is not allowed, or greatly limited.
We clearly need many more of them as the oceans have never been under greater threat from human activities than they currently are. But there are encouraging signs. Forward thinking countries are starting to realise that preserving their territories and opening them up to scuba divers and tourists is worth more money than opening them up to commercial fishing. However, this still leaves 59% of the open ocean available to commercial fishing. But even the UN is starting to loko into the feasibility of closing this down, in order to allow stocks of migratory fish like bluefin tuna to recover. Let's hope that actual action is taken to make this a reality!

Waverunner refurbishment almost done

Good news for our fleet of dive boats, MV Waverunner, our newest aquisition, is almost fully refurbished and will be ready for action in the next few weeks. This means that we will have FIVE boats flying the Big Blue flag.. FIVE!!!
We have rented waverunner on and off for a number of years, but decided last year to actually buy it. It's been a big help during busy periods, helping to ensure that the other boats weren't overcrowded. However, it had seen better days, and to say it was looking "rustic" would have been an understatement. So the decision was made to take it into dry dock, strip it back to the hull, and re-build the thing exactly how we want it. There was lots to be done, and it has taken a while, but by god it will have been worth it when it comes back. It will be one of the biggest dive boats on Koh Tao, and will have a huge area for divers to set up their equipment. There will also be a large area upstairs for people to relax in between dives, and it's pretty damn nippy in the water too.
There isn't a divemaster, divemaster trainee, instructor or tech instructor that isn't excited to see it in it's final glory. But i'll bet the day it comes back, when it finally moors up in front of Big Blue on Sairee Reef, not one person will recognise it until it's pointed out to them what it is! The captain, P-Choi, will probably be the proudest captain the world has ever seen, and he may even wear a different coloured singlet to mark it's maiden voyage with divers on board, but it's hard to tell with him.. he may just stick with his "I love Thailand" one.
Anyway, watch this space when she finally arrives, we'll be showing her off to anyone and everyone, and she'll take pride of place alongside our other boats- Ao Meung, MV Banzai, Big Blue, and Porponawa (our fundiver only boat).

Fashion show

There was a fancy swimwear fashion show held on Sairee beach the other night, in part to promote a new range of swimwear from one of the shops in Mae Hadd, but mainly so that people can ogle some of the local hot men and women as they strutted around and showed off their hour glass 6 packs. Big Blue instructors Denja and Daisy power-walked their way down the catwalk and did us proud. Actually not a bad idea for Big Blue to do to promote our own range of beachwear- Drift, by Big Blue, as sold in our retail shop in Sairee village. I can only imagine the horror if instructors Neil, Luke, Alex and Ian decide to show us what they're made of. Maybe we can hold off until we launch our monsoon range of wetsuits instead!!

SSI videography course

Get your reading glasses on and look at the photo to the right. I'm no expert in photography by any stretch of the imagination, but i would immediately assume that it was shot by a seasoned underwater photographer, wouldn't you? But we'd both be wrong- it was actually taken by a student undertaking their SSI underwater videography course with our resident expert instructor, James Emery.

This is an amazing course that is very high on my list of "want it, need it". It's designed to give you all the tools you need to be able to take stunning underwater photos and video. The package includes dives to improve your buoyancy- after all, what's the point in having a camera underwater if you can't keep it, or yourself still? Once you've got the hang of that, then you can focus on learning all about how to take the shots you want. You'll learn all about composition, lighting, framing, exposure rates, shutter speeds, infinity settings, use of filters, and all manner of other stuff that I know nothing about!

Then, once you've had a bit of experience in recording video clips, you'll learn how to use editing software, so you can get all that raw footage into something spectacular. Once you know what you're doing and get your qualification, you can work as an underwater videographer, and get paid to do something that you love!

If you want to find out more about the SSI videography course, get in touch with us.. the email address is at the top of our homepage.

UNESCO gets tough

Interesting news about the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Unesco has threatened to list it as a World Heritage in Danger site, due to controversial plans to allow dumping of dredged sediment within the reef. The dumping plan arose because Tony Abbott's Government wants to build one of the world's largest coal ports. But scientists have warned that any sediment could poison or smother coral in the area, which could have disastrous effects to marine life, and also a knock-on eceonimc effect in terms of loss of tourism.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral structure, rich in marine life. It stretches for more than 2,600km (1,680 miles) along Australia's eastern coast. The proposed area for dumping sits just 16 miles to the East of the planned coal port, which lies within the marine park!

So hopefully, sense will prevail, and UNESCO's rhetoric will highlight the utter stupidity of dumping waste materials so close to one of the most incredible places on the planet. Let's see how it unfolfd with fingers crossed.

Busman's holiday

Some of our divemaster trainees (DMTs) have just come back from a 4 day jolly to the East coast of Thailand to dive with Big Blue in Khao Lak, on one of our luxurious liveaboards. By the looks of the photos they had a great time! Some of them finished off their deep speciality course, which qualifies them to dive to 40 metres, but the rest just went fun diving. There's probably not enough room on the website to fit in all the marine life they saw, but the highlight has to have been manta rays, lots of manta rays!

Because Big Blue is located in both Khao Lak and Koh Tao we were able to give them a heavily discounted rate for the trip, which is probably enough of a reason to sign up to do your divemaster in itself! With DMT mentors Rich & Nick, and Big Blue Tech manager James Folehereherherher also on the trip, the DMTs couldn't have been in better hands to help them improve their diving and find new and exciting marine life. I would say having that many DMTs on one boat should mean that in the evenings it turned into a booze cruise, but with four dives a day on offer they were probably all tucked up in their cabins by 9pm.

The DMT program at Big Blue trains people up to be professional divers, which means they get to spend their days diving in tropical waters, looking at incredible marine life and showing people around a variety of dive sites. They are also able to assist instructors on diving courses, and are elligible to become dive instructors themselves. It sounds too good to be true but it really isn't. All you need to do is decide to jack in your boring job, hop on a plane and go diving, as many times as you like! You'll have an amazing time and meet some fantastic new people, and you'll be completely addicted to diving. If you like the idea of becoming a dive professional, have a look on our website and get in touch with us. If you've already got your heart set on it, and you know you want to work in the diving industry, consider doing some technical diving courses in conjunction with your DMT with us. It will help a lot with your DMT, and allows you to take your diving even further. It will also look good on your diving resume if you want to stand out from other dive professionals. Have a look at Big Blue Tech's website here.

Or you could just carry on with the rat race, running round and round in the wheel that goes nowhere... Gee, let me think...

Manta Ray facts

Here's a few interesting facts about the beautiful manta ray. Because that's all the DMTs will be talking about in the Big Blue bar for the next few days!

1. Mantas are not generally very social animals unless they want to mate. Though you will often find them in the same place as long as there is plenty of food.

2. They spend a lot of their time at so called "cleaning stations", where they sit still as if getting their hair cut, whilst fish eat the bacteria off their bodies.

3. Mantas only give birth every two years. They usually have only one pup, or two smaller pups that come out looking like they've been introduced to a rolling pin.

4. Mantas have a tendancy to leap completely out of the water, though why this is is unknown. It may be to impress a female, to get rid of parasites, or it may even be an elaborate form of communication.

5. They can be up to 8 metres long from one wingtip to the other, and are thought to live for up to 25 years.

Vacancies at Big Blue!

We have two new vacancies for full time staff members at Big Blue. First, Big Blue Tech needs a new Manager! The last one will be exploding come the end of May so we’re going to need to replace him!

If interested in taking on this very exciting & challenging role managing one of Thailand's leading Tech Dive Centres you will need to submit your CV & put together a brief proposal listing ideas as to how you feel you can contribute, grow & better our already extremely successful Tech Diving operation. Please submit all applications to jim@bigbluediving.com

The boss Jim would also like to take this opportunity to thank James Foleher for his contribution to Big Blue Diving & especially Big Blue Tech over the last 4 years, and wish him every success in his new chosen path. Our loss is the Koh Tao Cabarets gain! All the best James Foleherdyher.

The second position is for a full-time divemaster. This role will be highly sought after by any divemaster worth their salt. You'll get the opportunity to work with some of the best divemasters in the world, at the best dive resort in the world.. period. We have extremely high standards at Big Blue in terms of professionalism, customer service, prepping the boats and ensuring that our day to day diving operations run smoothly. The job is pretty demanding but also very rewarding. We have an amazing team of divemasters and instructors here, and the successful candidate will have the opportunity to be a part of that. As with the tech manager position, to apply, email jim@bigbluediving.com, with a cover letter and CV. The cover letter should include a summary of your experience within the diving industry, and an outline of what you think you can bring to the role that would make you stand out from anyone else.

Good luck!

Razorfish

Teaching a TDI decompression procedures course the other day involved diving to 45m at Chumphon pinnacle. Heading back to the pinnacle I came accross my favourite fish, the razorfish. These cool looking fish swim vertically with their heads down. So in homage to them, here are a few facts about the fish with the best underwater balance:

- They swim vertically, in sychronised groups, with their long snouts pointing down.

- The term razorfish can refer to five species in the Centriscidae family, and most species act in a similar manner.

- The razorfish is closely related to pipefish and the seahorse.

- They can vary in colour depending on their habitat, but are generally light silver with a red or greenish-yellow stripe along the top and bottom of their bodies.

- Razorfish tend to hide in the spines of sea urchins to gather food and protect themselves.

- They are characterised by an extremely thin or flattened and almost transparent body, which is encased in an integument of thin, sutured plates, whatever that means! 

- They are capable of rapid bursts of horizontal swimming when chased by a diver or predator. 

- They are restricted to the tropical Indo Pacific region and contains two genera and four species, 3 of which occur in the East Indian region.

- Their diet consists of a variety of zoo-plankton and minute crustaceans. When in captivity, they are fed bait shrimp and a variety of small, live marine food. They swallow their food whole. 

- This fish, like its closest relative, the seahorse, is toothless. As a young fish, it is prey to many larger fish. As an adult, however, the fish is thought to have little, if any, predators. This is thought to be because of its great camouflage and its “armor”. The life span of the fish, unlike the reproduction method, is unknown.

Their maximium size to about 14 cm.

Coral sex!

It's all happening at the dive sites off Koh Tao at the moment. The coral is getting a bif frisky and is fit to burst in a sexual crescendo of epic proportions apparently. It's really not something that i neither know, or would pretend to know about- Big Blue Conservation are the people for that. Over the last two days, head honcho Lizzie has been taking interested fun divers and DMTs to some of the dive sites in the hope of seeing this x-rated undersea event. It's a pretty rare thing to happen, and even rarer to actually catch the coral in the act, but if you don't get out there and have a look you'll never see it!

Like most perverted things, coral spawning happens at night, so even if they don't manage to catch the coral in the act the divers will still get to see some of the dive sites in the dark, where all the colours are more vivid because of the torch lights bringing back the colours that normally fade with depth.

I can only presume that the coral took itself out to dinner and got to know itself a little bit, before taking things a step further and having a bit of a smooch with itself. The point of spawning must be when it invited itself to sleep over for the first time.

Big Blue Conservation is always running projects and events to either just go out and see some cool stuff happening underwater, to educate and inform divers about the need to be responsible and considerate divers with regard to the environment, or to engage people to actually help maintain the ocean environment, such as building and sinking objects for coral to adhere to, or introducing baby sharks and turtles back into the ocean. They also work hard to keep the dive sites and beaches clean of debris and rubbish, and run regular clean up days. If you'd like to get involved in any of the above, contact Lizzie at Big Blue Conservation here.

What is coral?

Hot on the heels of the coral sex, it kind of begs the question, "what the hell is coral anyways?". So here are some coral facts for your delectation: -Coral organisms, called polyps, can live on their own, but are primarily associated with the spectacularly diverse limestone communities, or reefs, they construct.

- Coral polyps are tiny, soft-bodied organisms related to sea anemones and jellyfish. At their base is a hard, protective limestone skeleton called a calicle, which forms the structure of coral reefs. Reefs begin when a polyp attaches itself to a rock on the sea floor, then divides, or buds, into thousands of clones. The polyp calicles connect to one another, creating a colony that acts as a single organism. As colonies grow over hundreds and thousands of years, they join with other colonies and become reefs. Some of the coral reefs on the planet today began growing over 50 million years ago.

- Coral polyps are actually translucent animals. Reefs get their wild hues from the billions of colorful zooxanthellae (ZOH-oh-ZAN-thell-ee) algae they host. When stressed by such things as temperature change or pollution, corals will evict their boarders, causing coral bleaching that can kill the colony if the stress is not mitigated.

- Corals live in tropical waters throughout the world, generally close to the surface where the sun's rays can reach the algae. While corals get most of their nutrients from the byproducts of the algae's photosynthesis, they also have barbed, venomous tentacles they can stick out, usually at night, to grab zooplankton and even small fish.

- Coral reefs teem with life, covering less than one percent of the ocean floor, but supporting about 25 percent of all marine creatures. However, threats to their existence abound, and scientists estimate that human factors—such as pollution, global warming, and sedimentation—could kill 30 percent of the existing reefs in the next 30 years.

FUN diving!

If you're coming to Big Blue, you will at some point meet one of more of our full-time divemasters. You can't miss them in fact, as they take turns to man the shop on the days they aren't diving. We have, in order of the amount of facial hair- Nick, Phil, Carly, and Steven. They are really good at knowing where things are, and taking you to see them. By things I mean marine life, and by taking you there I mean leading fun divers around all the fantastic dive sites that we have in and around Koh Tao. Oh yeah, and they also keep the place running on a day to day basis. They decide which instructors and divemasters will go on what boats for the morning, afternoon, and night dives. They ensure that there are enough full diving cylinders, regulators, masks, weights, weight belts, plasters, mask straps, and yes pineapples on each and evry noat that goes out from Sairee reef. They manage how many cylinders will be needed for the open water course pool sessions. They organise when and where the next exclusive full day trip is, what mood the captain is in and what kind of washing he should have drying on the boat when customers are on board... (no underwear). They even go so far as to put fundivers with the same divemaster based on how good their air consumption is.. which is pretty damn cool. These guys are the best at their profession that you will ever see anywhere in the world. If you want to go diving, see some amazing things and also have a great time in the process, then these are the guys to do it with. But like anything in life, you can't have everything; Phil used to be a horticulturalist and still randomly recites latin names of plants for no reason whatsoever, Nick used to be a banker and claim to have morals, Carly used to be a man (and still is in many ways), and Steven reckons that he has a wooden leg but a real foot.. ?

We are obviously biased, but you cannot have a better time on Koh Tao than to spend time with these guys on our fun diver-only boat, whilst they get all excited and animated about wanting to show you some amazing marine life, and you know they really mean it and love their jobs.

So get yourself booked in to come and fun dive with Big Blue now.. you really really really really really will not regret it!

Hi-vis

The underwater visilibility is pretty damn astonishing right now. We are getting regular days on most of the dive sites where the visibility is between 15 and 30 metres. Around the Island of Koh Nagyuan it's pretty consistently good, as is Mango bay to the North of Koh Tao and White rock to the West. This is just incredible and everyone that works in the industry is loving it at the moment. In Monsoon in November the conditions become pretty poor in terms of visibility, so it makes it especially amazing at the moment, particularly for those instructors that hang around at monsoon.

So long may it continue. If the whalesharks are around at Chumphon pinnacle then we will be able to see them off the dive site from further away, and all eyes are looking out for exactly that reason when we go there. Lets hope that the school of false killer whales that have been spotted lately will stick around and pay a visit at one of the dive sites that we visit.

Another amazing Songkran

Yesterday saw pretty much the entire Island of Koh Tao suffering from a collective hangover- literally! Today it's business as usual, but two days ago locals and tourists alike were celebrating Songkran- the traditional Thai new year. This is where people spray each other with water pistols or buckets of water, in order to cleanse and purify the soul from whatever debauchery it accumulated over the previous year. It seems that everyone felt that everyone else needed a lot of cleansing!

At Big Blue it all kicked off at around 10am, with some very civilised light-dousings, interspersed with moderate imbibing of alcoholic beverages. Obviously it only took around an hour for the bar and restaurant to resemble a scene from the hunger games, and it quickly became every man for himself. Most people just wanted to shoot water all day and night, some just wanted to sit and watch it all unfold, but everyone had a great time. At around 2pm, SSI instructor trainer, and part-time brigadier-general Simon Garrity commanded the Big Blue divemaster trainees to raid another dive school, and the bar was temporarily slightly quieter than before. But then they all returned victorious and immediately forgot about their dive school alliance of not 5 minutes prior, and proceeded to turn on each other again! There was also a makeshift water slide going from outside the office to the sea. I've been told that health and safety officers had inspected it and certified it as safe for use, and the rumours that some drunken people thought it would be a great idea to build it were completely unfounded....!

Details of the day became more and more sketchy, but what is recalled is that the whole day and night was all very good natured and everyone seemed to have a great time. Songkran is easily the best day of the year for people who live here, and it must come as a big of a shock for people who find themselves staying here when it all kicks off! Ah well, only 363 days until the next one..

Star watching

Living in a city, it's easy to forget that you can't see anywhere near as many stars as you can in places where there is little or no light pollution. In Koh Tao, as long as the squid boats are not out in force, it's pretty damn dark outside of Mae Hadd and Sairee village. So you can get a bit of stargazing in. This month is particularly good for planet spotting; last night I could see Mars next to the full Moon, Saturn, and Jupiter. Pretty amazing. Electrical storms are also common at this time of year, as we approach the hottest time of the year and the warm and cooler air battle it out. The light shows can be mesmerising and you can easily find yourself watching them for hours. So the next time you stumble home from your night out, remember to look up!

Sawatdee Pee Mai Kap!

The fact that all the shops in Koh Tao have recently been selling water pistols can mean only one thing. Today is Songkran! Songkran is the traditional Thai new year, and they sure know how to celebrate in style. Thais roam the streets with containers of water or water guns. All along the streets, people will have small bowls of beige colored talc sold cheaply and mixed with water, which is then smeared on the faces and bodies of random passersby as a blessing for the new year. Sometimes this talc is mixed with menthol, just in case you would otherwise smell like a wet dog. What this all means is that, no matter where you go today, there will be no escaping the fact that you will be doused, squirted, showered, and sprinkled, with water- most of it ice-cold. Everyone gets involved, and I mean everyone.

By around 10am, Big Blue will be transformed into a water park (minus the height restrictions on the rides), with customers, Thai staff, Burmese staff, shop girls, instructors, divemasters, tech divers, freedivers, and divemaster trainees all getting a piece of the action. It's really not a good day to be walking around with your backpack on, or to have anything electrical like your smartphone in your pocket. It's also not a good day for feeling grumpy and getting annoyed with being doused with water everywhere you go- ocassionally there is the odd hapless tourist that hasn't read anything about Thailand before visiting, who is caught unawares by it all and just can't get into the spirit of things. Maybe it would be better for them to stay indoors for the day and let everyone else have all the fun.

Though this will be my 4th Sonkran, the details of the preceding 3 are, to put it midly a little sketchy, as the Big Blue bar is also open in the morning and throughout the rest of the day and night! It's the biggest day of the year on Koh Tao, way bigger than Christmas, and it's a great opportunity to let loose and have some fun. But for everyone out there enjoying the festivities, please be careful and leave your bikes at home. Sawatdee Pee Mai Kap!!!!

Songkran- why water?

So why is it that the entire festivities at Songkran revolve around dousing people with water? The throwing of water originated as a way to pay respect to people, by capturing the water after it had been poured over the Buddhas for cleansing and then using this "blessed" water to give good fortune to elders and family by gently pouring it on the shoulder. Among young people the holiday evolved to include dousing strangers with water to relieve the heat, since April is the hottest month in Thailand (temperatures can rise to over 40°C). This has further evolved into water fights and splashing water over people riding in vehicles.

Nowadays, the emphasis is on fun and water-throwing rather than on the festival's spiritual and religious aspects, which sometimes prompts complaints from traditionalists. In recent years there have been calls to moderate the festival to lessen the many alcohol-related road accidents as well as injuries attributed to extreme behavior such as water being thrown in the faces of traveling motorcyclists. The water is meant as a symbol of washing all of the bad away and is sometimes filled with fragrant herbs when celebrated in the traditional manner.

Besides the throwing of water, people celebrating Songkran as a Buddhist festival may also go to a wat (Buddhist monastery) to pray and give food to monks. They may also cleanse Buddha images from household shrines as well as Buddha images at monasteries by gently pouring water mixed with a Thai fragrance over them. It is believed that doing this will bring good luck and prosperity for the New Year. In many cities, such as Chiang Mai, the Buddha images from all of the city's important monasteries are paraded through the streets so that people can toss water at them, ritually 'bathing' the images, as they pass by on ornately decorated floats. In northern Thailand, people may carry handfuls of sand to their neighborhood monastery in order to recompense the dirt that they have carried away on their feet during the rest of the year. The sand is then sculpted into stupa-shaped piles and decorated with colorful flags.

Some people make New Year resolutions - to refrain from bad behavior, or to do good things. Songkran is a time for cleaning and renewal. Besides washing household Buddha images, many Thais also take this opportunity to give their home a thorough cleaning. On Koh Tao, Koh Samui and Koh Phangan, Songkran lasts officially 1 day. In Bangkok it is around 3 days, but in Chiang Mai it goes on for a staggering 7 days!

Junkyard part deux
Junkyard is a fantastic place to go diving. Located on Sairee, it's an artificial dive site made up of, literally, junk. The whole area is pretty shallow, 7-12 metres deep, and is all sand. Objects that have been placed there include a bunch of toilets, a weight bench with some free weights on a, er, i guess you'd call it a weight shelf!? There's a replica of the Sydney harbour bridge complete with model cars, a Jeep slowly being eaten by the ocean, and there are wire scaffolds for marine life to adhere to, all over the dive site.
Now, outside Big Blue on Sairee reef, we also have loads of sand, and it ranges from 6 metres all the way out to 15 metres where our boats moor up. We already have our coral nursery out there, but how about we do something similar to what's been done at Junkyard? It would be great to have our very own area full of inert inanimate objects, but if we were to do it, what would we put there?
In an ideal world, it would be fantastic to just build a proper dive site. Get some huge granite boulders, put them on a barge with a crane on it, and lower them over the side in a big stable pile on the sea bed, then just watch the marine life grow. After all, what are dive sites? They're rocks that jut out of the sea bed that allow coral to grow on, and attract all manner of marine life. What is the geology of Koh Tao? Granite. What rocks are the dive sites made out of? Granite. The geologist in me will tell you that granite is made up of the minerals biotite, feldspar and quartz. It's a very hard igneous rock (formed by volcanic activity at the surface of the Earth), and marine life just seem to love living on it. But creating a dive site in this way would be a pretty costly exercise without gaining sponsorship from the Thai Government and large multinationals, such as oil companies. So what could we use instead? Junkyard has lots of interesting marine life all over it, pufferfish, nudibranche, and all the usual suspects that live on the shallower dive sites. There may not be a lot of coral growing on the items, but marine life would certainly find shelter in some of it.
It would be great to get your ideas on realistic and affordable ways to take the junkyard idea further. Plus, it would take a little pressure off junkyard and the other dive sites if there was an additional place to take our divers. So get busy on our facebook page and come up with some ideas. If we get an amazing idea, we may even give some fancy prizes away. You can post on the article for this blog here.

Beer float

It's getting to that time of year when the tide is quite far out in the afternoon on Sairee beach. This means only one thing. Hoards of people up and down the beach lying in the shallow water drinking afternoon beers in the tropical Sun. Tough life I know. The downside to this practice is that if you're a quick drinker you'll have to keep getting up to go to the bar. The upside is that you won't need to keep getting up to go to the toilet! If you're feeling really fancy and are a diver with your own dive gear, you can wear your BC fully inflated, which means you can float all day long getting sozzled. Last year at Big Blue we got around the getting a beer problem by setting up a bar in the sea, with an eski brimming with beers. So maybe we'll do it again this year as it seemed to be pretty damn popular. Just remember though, you don't need to have your mask on and snorkel in, as that would give you some seriously weird tan lines!

  

Photography winners
After a lot of pacing up and down, head scratching (which doesn't fully explain his lack of hair), and a little bit of repetitive strain injury on his eyes, manager of Big Blue Movies, Wayne, finally managed to choose a winning photo as submitted to our photography competition. The standard of pictures was really high and we received a lot of inspiring photos with some great conservation captions, but in the end we could only pick 3 winners. 3rd prize goes to Sebastian Åkerblom of dive4photos, for his photo of the jeep taken at junkyard, surrounded by marine life. 2nd prize goes to Big Blue videographer and SSI instructor James Emery, for his beautiful shot of a saddleback anemonefish taken at Sairee reef, with the caption "I don't need a circle to stay healthy". This highlights the contention in having an artificial stone circle at dive site twins to protect a solitary anemone, which many people believe is doing more harm than good.
But 1st prize goes to our very own divemaster Phil "fishlad" Smith, for his photo of a nudibranche doing a little tightrope walk on a fishing net, taken at Southwest pinnacle. Phidiana Militaris for those of you down with the latin names of these beautiful sea slugs. His caption was "not all fish cages destroy life", which is probably rubbing it in a bit if you're a talking nudibranche sitting on the outside of a cage looking in at the poor fish on the inside, plus you're gloating that you, as an underwater gastropod are actually able to understand English! Pretty clever caption actually as there are abandoned fishing nets all over the ocean, and it just shows that the rope will begin to harbour life given enough time.
So phil wins a free place on one of our full day trips to Chumphon marine park (we may even allow him to fun dive), James wins a free coral workshop afternoon with Big Blue Conservation, and Sebastian wins a Big Blue Conservation bag for life. Congratulations to you all!
The photography competition was a huge success, so much so that we will run another one in the future. All proceeds to the competition will go to Swim4sharks 2014, to raise money for various shark conservation projects in and around Koh Tao. If you'd like to view the winning 3 entries, go to our facebook page here.

Pufferfish
You may call them pufferfish, but if we wanted to be fancy then you would say that they belong to the family Tetraodontidae, of the order Tetraodontiformes (Ever learn the classification series- Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species?). There are at least 120 species of puffers in 19 genera. They are most diverse in the tropics, relatively uncommon in the temperate zone, and completely absent from cold waters. They are typically small to medium in size, although a few species can reach lengths of greater than 100 cm.
The puffer's unique and distinctive natural defences help compensate for its slow locomotion. It moves by combining pectoral, dorsal, anal, and caudal fins. This makes it highly manoeuvrable, but very slow, and therefore a comparatively easy predation target. Its tail fin is mainly used as a rudder, but it can be used for a sudden evasive burst of speed that shows none of the care and precision of its usual movements. The puffer's excellent eyesight, combined with this speed burst, is the first and most important defense against predators.
Its backup defense mechanism, used if successfully pursued, is to fill its extremely elastic stomach with water (or air when outside the water) until it is much larger and almost spherical in shape. Even if they are not visible when the puffer is not inflated, all puffers have pointed spines, so a hungry predator may suddenly find itself facing an unpalatable, pointy ball rather than a slow, tasty fish. Predators which do not heed this warning (or which are "lucky" enough to catch the puffer suddenly, before or during inflation) may die from choking, and predators that do manage to swallow the puffer may find their stomachs full of tetrodotoxin, making puffers an unpleasant, possibly lethal, choice of prey. This neurotoxin is found primarily in the ovaries and liver, although smaller amounts exist in the intestines and skin, as well as trace amounts in muscle. It does not always have a lethal effect on large predators, such as sharks, but it can kill humans. known as pakpao in Thailand, they are occasionally accidentally eaten believe it or not as by-catch.
For us divers, they are common all over the Gulf of Thailand, and we see them regularly on the dive sites close to Koh Tao, with perhaps the most common one being the masked porcupine fish.
If you see one, give it a bit of distance and never try and touch it. If it has to puff up, it's a very stressful event for it to have to go through.

Big Blue award winners

We're all pretty tired at Big Blue at the moment. Not because, you know, we work hard or anything like that. We're tired because we've been hosting some dignitaries. We even had to get the best china out to impress them. No it wasn't Bill Wyman looking for a new wife, or Tony Blair hoping to start a war between the dive schools (and then get a job as an ambassador for peace). It was the top brass from SSI worldwide. They were here on a two-pronged mission; to talk about the future of SSI after its aquisition by Mares last year, and also to recognise and award individuals and dive schools that have excelled in their training of SSI divers over the years. 

A few nights ago they held an event at the Big Blue bar, which was an excuse to provide Big Blue staff with free beer. They also honoured the boss, Jim, by awarding him the Platinum Pro 5,000 diver award- the highest SSI diving certification available. So he joins the ranks of Jacque Cousteau, who also received the award, in basically becoming a human fish. A hufish if we want to be taxonomically accurate. But that was nothing special compared with the free SSI beach towel he received. He also won the informal "sweatiest man of the evening" award, overtaking instructor trainer Simmo by a hair's breadth. Anyway, a good night was had by all, even though the free bar lasted for about 10 minutes. 

But just when we all thought we could get back to reality, we had a SSI conference two days ago. It was held at a fancy resort in Mae Hadd, with no expense spared (apart from the buffet). A few dive schools received awards, but Big Blue basically stole the evening. Instructor trainer Simmo won an award for certifying 500 instructors. Let me explain that in a little more detail. Since working at Big Blue, Simmo has taught over 500 hundred people to become SSI dive instructors- a phenomenal achievement. Big Blue Freediving also won an award for having certified over 100 people in their first year of operation, and divemaster mentor Nick "sloth" Bufton won an award for having certified 1,000 divers! That's 1,000 people that had never been underwater, who are now able to enjoy scuba diving! Again, an incredible achievement. 

The buffet however, was far from incredible. The spring rolls and onion rings ran out in about 30 seconds, so they went with their back-up plan of providing about 12 tonnes of crisps, which was great but the plates we had were essentially teacup saucer-sized; a disaster in finger food terms. 

SSI showed us some exciting developments that are in the pipeline. In a nutshell everything is going digital. You will be able to do your SSI open water academics on a tablet or smartphone app, and it'll hopefully be available at the end of this year. That will make the course a little easier to do seeing as everyone is pretty much living in the internet nowadays. Not sure how instructor Neil will adapt to this change though, he still uses a feather and ink to write his letters as far as i'm aware. There will hopefully also be some news forthcoming with Big Blue being able to offer SSI technical diving courses. Whatch this space.

So in conclusion, Big Blue is THE most successful, forward-thinking SSI dive resort in the world- fact. We have some incredible dive professionals here, and we have the awards to prove it. So you know there is only one place on Koh Tao that you need to come to, to learn how to dive, take your diving further, fun dive, or freedive. So get booking online now!

SSI facts

Seeing as we've just hosted the top brass from SSI, it seems only fitting to provide a bit of background information on the fastest growing diving agency in the world:
- Started in 1970, SSI has expanded to include more than 30 Service Centers, is represented in more than 110 countries with over 2.500 International locations, and has materials printed in more than 30 languages.
- Since June 1, 2010, Scuba Schools International is one of the few training agencies who qualified for a Global ISO Certification.
- SSI is a founding member of the RSTC (Recreational Scuba Training Council) and is present in all major national committees to ensure that the diving community´s interests are been taken care of.
- For more than 40 years, SSI has provided training, scuba diving certification, and educational resources for divers, dive instructors, dive centers and resorts around the world.
- On the open water course, the skills that you need to learn can be done in a way that is more flexible for both the student and the instructor. Other dive agencies are less flexible, which is not great for people that learn at different speeds and in different ways.
- International Headquarters is where the important standardization of SSI diving certification and education happens. This is where SSI Training Standards are written, and where the skills and techniques for SSI courses are created. This is also where we produce educational materials and, with the help of our Service Centers, translate them into many languages.
- SSI Dive Centers and Dive Resorts are professional businesses, that operate a scuba diving or freediving school for diver and dive professional training, as well as provide a variety of diving holidays, both local and destination for their customers. This network of Dive Centers and Dive Resorts around the world, where you can learn how to scuba- or freedive or further your diving education and experience, is extensive.
- SSI offers internationally recognized Scuba training programs for all levels - starting with Snorkeling and entry level diving courses up to Instructor Certifiers. The most common programs are: SSI Open Water Diver (OWD), Advanced Open Water Diver (AOWD), more than 30 different specialty courses (like EAN Nitrox, Deep diving, Underwater navigation, Night diving and Limited Visibility, and many more). Dive leader training programs start with the Dive Control Specialist (who is qualified like Assistant Instructor) followed by Open Water Instructor and above.
- SSI's training program for children aged 8–12 years is called Scuba Rangers.
- The Training Program for technical Divers is called TechXR (Technical Extended Range) and includes decompression diving, trimix and other courses that exceed the limit for recreational divers.
- SSI Scuba Training programs are certified/recognized throughout the world (such as RSTC - Recreational Scuba Training Council, EUF - European Underwater Federation, CUA - China Underwater Association and others).
- SSI certified more open water divers in Australia in 2013 than PADI did.

Perfect diving at the moment

The diving on Koh Tao at the moment is fantastic. Having just finished teaching a SSI open water course, my group were treated to four amazing dives where the conditions were absolutely perfect. White rock was calm, the Sun was shining, and the underwater visibility was around 20 metres. On top of all that, the ocean is like getting into a warm bath- 29 degrees Celsius! The sea in front of Big Blue is like looking at a mirror; flat calm. Chumphon pinnacle was also amazing, and again the visibility was around 20 metres. Once we'd descended to the pinnacle it seemed like rush hour for all the marine life, there were huge groupers all over the dive site, big shoals of fusilier and barracuda on the North, and pickhandle barracudas on the aply named barracuda rock to the Southwest. There were also a lot of golden trevaly hunting their prey, darting around at ludicrous speed hoping to catch a quick snack. To top it all off there were a few pretty big Spanish mackerel hanging around. Not a bad way to introduce diving to some enthusiastic open water students! We have the feeling that we'll be seeing whalesharks at Chumphon soon, they seem to be around again, with one showing up at Chumphon marine park on the last full day trip, and another one swimming with our divers at Southwest pinnacle on Tuesday morning. A whale was also spotted at Chumphon on Tuesday morning, followed by cries of incredulity by everyone (it was April fools day), until they saw it spouting at the surface in the background of an open water video! On the open water course we will take you to the best dive sites that Koh Tao has to offer, on the best dive boats, with some of the best dive professionals in the world. With the conditions being as they are at the moment, and the abundance and diversity of marine life on every dive site, you'll realise exactly why it was that you wanted to learn to dive, and want to do more and more and more diving. Don't bother with Koh Samui, and Chiang Mai can wait. Come to Koh Tao and let us teach you how to dive. Book your open water course on our website and we'll see you soon!

Restaurant boycott in Koh Samui 
Some sad news from Koh Samui. A member of Marine Conservation Koh Tao recently saw shark being sold at a number of restaurants. Apparently much of it was caught in Koh Tao. We probably don't need to tell you that sharks are being taken from the ocean in huge numbers, and this practice needs to end. On Samui, the restaurants selling shark include Smile house, The address, and cococabana. I would urge you to avoid eating in those places and if you feel brave enough, explain to them why you will be going elsewhere. If you see sharks for sale in other places please take a photo and email it to Lizzie at Big Blue Conservation, so that we can help raise the profile of this awful practice. You could also go on their trip advisor pages and leave a review as to why you chose not to eat there. If they can't be persuaded to stop, we can make them stop by hitting them were it hurts the most- their wallets.

Big Blue Boffins
We've been working hard behind the scenes on something big over the last couple of years, and it's been frustrating not being able to say anything about it. But i've now been given the go ahead to shout it from the rooftops. So today i'm very proud to announce the grand opening of Big Blue Boffins- a brand-new part of the business dedicated to conducting scuba diving research. Now it's going to take time to get off the ground, but we're fully intending to revolutionise the diving industry and make it easier than ever for people to enjoy diving.
We're currently working on a number of revolutionary inventions. One example is synthesising sea cucumbers to excrete treacle, so that over time the ocean will become more and more viscous. So if you accidentally inflate your BC to go up, no problem, you'll still ascend nice and slowly! Plus, if you accidentally swallow a bit of water it will just make you crave pancakes! We also think it's pretty wasteful to have to put air in your BC from your diving cylinder to make yourself neutrally buoyant. So we're developing a kind of reverse-regulator to attach to your underpants, so that you can add air to your BC by utilising air from your bum. The first-stage will take the low pressure air from your bum and increase it to an intermediate pressure. The trials are going well, but we're going to have to spend more time on oral inflation at the surface- you don't want to be leaving your finger on the deflate button as you blow air into your BC! We'll let you know when it's ready to hit the shelves but we think we're onto a winner.
But perhaps the most important developments will involve looking at the bigger picture. We're currently in top-secret talks with the descendants of Robert Boyle, Archimedes of Syracuse, William Henry, John Dalton, and Jacques Charles, to gain permission to change the laws of physics relating to diving, as inspired by Willy Wonka. If we can re-arrange all the formulas, then it stands to reason that the underwater world will also change. Imagine if an increased partial pressure of nitrogen just made you a bit peckish instead of getting you narced! But don't worry, none of this will go to our heads when we receive the Nobel prize. We'll still take you diving to the best dive sites in Koh Tao, but it might be on a dive boat powered by Barracuda poo, with an in-built flux capacitor in case you missed the whaleshark.
So, just to summarise, Big Blue Boffins, as launched today, April 1st 2014.... you fools.

Giant groupers
Seeing as Chumphon and White rock seem to be covered in giant groupers at the moment, how about some lovely facts about these amazing lazy predators:

- The giant grouper is the largest bony fish found in coral reefs. It’s also known as the brown spotted cod and the Queensland grouper. In fact, it is the emblem of the state of Queensland, Australia. Groupers are a large family of fish and the giant grouper is one of the biggest in the family.
- It’s found throughout the Indo-Pacific area except the Persian Gulf. They’re a huge species and can grow as large as 2.7 m long and can weigh up to 600 kg. There are rumors that even larger groupers have been found but these are unconfirmed.
- The giant grouper is found commonly in shallow waters and feeds on a range of other marine life including small sharks, crustaceans and young sea turtles. Its favorite sea food is the spiny lobsters. Like other grouper species, it changes color as it ages.
- It has an extremely large mouth and a round tail. The young have uneven yellow and black markings whereas the adults are green, brown or gray with only a faint mottling. They also have a scattering of black spots on their fins.
- These giants can live up to fifty years in the wild. They are fully protected as their numbers are dwindling. They breed between May and August and like many other fish they are hermaphrodites.
- They are a specific type of hermaphrodite known as the protogynous hermaphrodite meaning the young are predominantly female but turn into males as they develop. When young they’re believed to grow over 1 kg a year. When they reach around 10 kg they turn male and the male grouper has a harem of up to fifteen females. If there is no male in the group, the largest female will turn male to satisfy their reproductive needs.
- The giant grouper preys upon other sea life but rather than chasing after its prey, it prefers to lie in wait and catch any prey unaware. But this slow-swimming, sluggish behavior isn't good for them if there are spear fishermen around. - Another threat is that their habitat is being destroyed by excessive fishing and its prey being wiped out. Similarly, the explosive devices used in reef areas have led to a decline in their population.

Latest news- March 2014

Drifting along nicely

The Big Blue retail shop has been open a good few months now, and it's doing really well. This isn't because we have really pushy sales people harassing you into buying stuff, far from it. The manager Robin is about as honest, genuine and friendly as it's possible to be. It's been successful because we really offer something different to anywhere else on Koh Tao. We have a fantastic display of all kinds of diving masks, snorkels, fins and wetsuit boots that you can try on to your heart's content. There's an area dedicated to all the little functional diving gadgets such as alternate air source holders, bottle openers, slates, DSMBs, reels, clips and god knows what else. We have a wide range of rash vests, with sharkskins proving to be a very wise purchase if you want thermal protection to last a long time. We sell compasses, dive computers, knifes, torches, dry bags and isaw underwater video cameras. 

But the thing that really sets us apart is that we have our own clothing range; drift, by Big Blue. This includes board shorts, bikinis, t-shirts, singlets, polo shirts, and even dresses. Very stylish they are too. I know a few instructors and divemasters (myself included) that went in the shop when it first opened to have a nosy, and ended up walking out with 3 pairs of shorts and 5 t-shirts!

If you are doing a course with us, you will receive a 10% discount on most items. But even if you're passing by, you'll still be getting a bargain no matter what you walk out with. Plus, watch this space as we are finishing off the final touches of putting the shop on-line so you can buy what you want without even coming here. In the meantime, have a look at the drift facebook page. We update it regularly. 

The way it's going at the moment, it won't be long before we become for diving what North Face is for outdoor gear. So if you're coming to Big Blue, pop in and have a browse, but be prepared to have a complete new summer wardrobe that you know no-one else back home will have, so leave plenty of room in your suitcase!

Marine litter facts

Given that we had a really successful beach and underwater clean up yesterday on Sairee beach, here's a few facts about where marine litter comes from, and where it goes in the oceans. If you're coming on holiday to Koh Tao, Koh Samui or anywhere else in Thailand, please be responsible and dispose of your rubbish responsibly.

- Marine litter (debris) includes all objects that do not naturally occur in the marine and coastal environment but are nevertheless found there.

- Marine litter is the collective term for any man-made object present in the marine and coastal environment.

- It consists of articles that have been made or used by people and, subsequently, deliberately discarded or accidentally lost. In most cases, it is the result of careless handling or disposal of items of solid waste, including containers of liquid waste. However, it can also be material lost at sea in hard weather (fishing gear, cargo).

- Marine litter consists of mostly very slowly degradable waste items — items made of persistent materials such as plastic, polystyrene, metals and glass — from a large number of different sources.

- Marine litter can blow around, remain floating on the water surface; drift in the water column; get entangled on shallow, tidal bottoms; or sink to the deeper seabed.

- Marine litter are items and material that are either discarded directly (thrown or lost directly into the sea); brought indirectly to the sea with rivers, sewage, storm water or winds; or left by people on beaches and shores.

- Marine litter is found everywhere, around the world, in the marine and coastal environment.

- Marine litter is found floating on the water surface. Almost 90 per cent of floating marine debris is plastic.

- Marine litter is found on the seabed. It could be that as much as 70 per cent of the entire input of marine litter sinks to the bottom and is found on the seabed, both in shallow coastal areas and in much deeper parts of seas and oceans.

- The main sea-/ocean-based sources of marine litter are from merchant shipping, ferries and cruise liners, fishing vessels, military fleets and research vessels, pleasure craft, offshore oil and gas platforms, fish farming installations.

- The main land-based sources of marine litter are from municipal landfills (waste dumps) located on the coast, riverine transport of waste from landfills or other sources along rivers and other inland waterways (canals), discharge of untreated municipal sewage, including storm water (including occasional overflows), industrial facilities: Solid waste from landfills, and untreated waste water, and tourism (recreational visitors to the coast; beach-goers).

Plimsoll
Occasionally, inspiration for a blog post is staring you in the face the whole time. Conversing with my colleagues over a beer last night, I mentioned that I needed to go home to write the blog. I was then bombarded with ideas of what to write about. SSI instructor Anthony Edgely, AKA mini Ant, AKA Plimsoll, AKA Ant 2, came up with an idea so completely forgettable, that I decided there and then that I would dedicate an entire post to him instead. There is reason behind the madness. Ant is the living embodiment of someone that decides that they are so sick of their drab and dreary life that they end up actually doing something about it. In his case, as the circus wasn't hiring tent-pole holders, he decided to become a dive instructor, and luckily for us he chose Big Blue to do all his dive professional training. As far as i'm aware, he never looked back. Not that that would have done much good, because, the Earth being an oblate spheroid, and Thailand being at a different longitude and lattitude to Aldershot in the UK, he wouldn't have been able to see whatever it is that that particular metaphor intimates. But I digress.
In spite of being one of our full-time instructors, he's proved to be quite useful, as, in his previous life he was some kind of architect... he knows a lot about potable water and good drainage.. a real lady killer. But as we are about to start sprucing Big Blue 2 up, Ant was able to draw up the plans. The fact that he did it in 12 minutes on the back of an open water manual fills us all with confidence that we will end up being the proud owners of the first windmill on Koh Tao. We also recently purchased a dive boat we had been renting long term- MV Waverunner. It's currently in dry dock in Chumphon undergoing a complete refurbishment. Ant saunted over there with his tape measure one day and has, we think, accidentally instructed the Thai naval engineers to build the world's first ever floating windmill. I see a pattern forming here.
When Ant's not designing buildings to turn flour into bread, he likes nothing better than to put on his best top shop frock and mime along to his favourite Dolly Parton album (the best of Dolly Parton), probably with clogs on.
Obviously, this is all ridiculous (apart from the Dolly Parton bit). Ant has proven to be a very patient, diligent instructor that really cares about his studentss' development. He's well liked by the rest of the team and it's been great for his SSI instructor trainer mentors Simo and Guy to see him go from open water diver to a highly professional SSI dive instructor. Just think, that could be you, leaving your job, getting the hell out of wherever you live to come and live and work on a tropical Island doing something you love. If you're interested in becoming a dive professional, have a look on our bigbluepro website and contact Simmo, Iain, and Guy for more information. The email address is at the top of their webpage.
Hopefully now Ant has finally got the message not to beg me to stop taking the mickey out of him on the blog!

Rainbow runners
Diving along the top of Chumphon pinnacle this morning, I saw a rainbow runner hunting and eating some little fishies. It was pretty amazing to watch as it herded the shoal and finally went in for the kill. So what are rainbow runners? Some facts for your brain:

- Elagatis bipinnulata, also known as the rainbow yellowtail, Spanish jack and Hawaiian salmon, is a common species of pelagic marine fish of the jack family, Carangidae.
- The species is widespread throughout the tropical and subtropical waters of the world, inhabiting both coastal as well as far offshore areas.
- It is a fast swimming predator, taking small fish, cephalopods and a wide variety of planktonic crustaceans.
- The species reaches sexual maturity at around 60 cm (24 in), and spawning takes place at different times, with some populations spawning year round, while others only spawn at certain times of the year.
- Rainbow runner are also one of a number of pelagic fishes that prey on open-ocean species of sea-skaters- a type of insect which rest on the surface of the ocean.
- Rainbow runner themselves are important prey items for a number of larger species, with positively identified predators being Fraser's Dolphin, and a number of seabirds of the family Laridae.
- The fish is oviparous, producing pelagic eggs and larvae.
- Rainbow runner are not a major commercial species like tuna or herring, but are taken in large quantities as bycatch. Their flesh is said to be of fair to excellent standard, depending on personal preferences, but generally fetch a low price at markets because they are relatively unknown.
- There is a minor recreational fishery for rainbow runner in parts of the world. Often they are taken while trolling for other species such as tuna and mackerel, but are often targeted inshore by anglers on the west coast of the Americas using surface 'popper' style lures.

Rave reviews
Anyone planning a holiday has it relatively easy compared with the olden days. Before the 90s it was a case of going to a travel agent to book your holiday and then hoping for the best when you arrived at your destination. There were plenty of TV travel shows that highlighted the plight of many a holiday maker, who was enticed into booking a holiday to Mallorca by the glossy brochure, only to discover a building site next to their "sea-view villa" when they arrived. Nowadays, it's a little different. The internet has made planning a holiday much easier, and people can be way more picky and thorough when deciding where to go and what to do during their trip. 

Trip advisor has, and continues to be by far the most popular planning tool used by travellers to decide where to go and what to do on their travels. It has also benefited resorts that strive to provide a great experience for their guests, and also highlights and shames the ones that are obviously and consistently lacking. Big Blue has benefited no end from trip advisor. We have over 1,100 reviews to date, and the vast vast majority are excellent. Now, we are not perfect and don't always get it right, but we do listen to valid criticism and strive to give our customers the best experience possible. However, it's also fairly evident when reading negative reviews that some people are never happy unless they are moaning. We've actually had people come to Big Blue because they said they read the small number of negative reviews, and couldn't believe how ridiculous they were! Thank heavens for intelligent people.
Most of the people that come to dive with us say that they did so because of our trip advisor reviews, and we continue to get excellent reviews from people who either learned to dive with us, or came to fun dive.
But as with any business, trip advisor has competition. There are other ways to scope out a dive resort, or give your thoughts on your experience of having dived with them. You will get more information from many of them than with trip advisor, especially if you are already a qualified diver. If you're an experienced diver you can also gain an understanding of the diving conditions in Koh Tao and read about the type of marine life you might see at the dive sites. The most popular ones include world diving review, tangareef, scubadviser, and divezone. You can also leave a review on our facebook and G+ pages.
If you're thinking of coming to Big Blue, have a look at them. If you've already been to Big Blue, we would be really grateful if you could spend the time to write a review of your experience with us. If you had a great time, brilliant! Thanks for telling the world. If there was something that we didn't quite get, your feedback is important, we will listen, and we will work to improve.

Whaleshark drawingNo story this time, no factoids about Thailand, Koh Tao, Koh Samui or anywhere else in the Gulf of Thailand. I just saw a photo that I thought was utterly amazing, and I'd love to see this type of art permanently drawn onto pavements all over the world. If you know who it was that did this, please let us know. He's amazing and he needs to be told! Pretty accurate in dimensions of the whalesharks we get here, but our boats are a little bit bigger!

Dive professional training with Big Blue
If you're utterly fed up with your job at the moment, this is the article for you. I've been there before, the long commute surrounded by what feels like millions of other people, no-one smiling, getting to work with the knowledge that you have to sit in front of a computer screen or sit on a production line for the next 8 hours. But the worst of it is knowing that you have to do the same thing tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.
If you're getting itchy feet and want a bit of adventure, but don't quite know how to get it or what to do, we have the answer. If you do it, you won't regret it, once you're doing it, you will look back and wonder why you tolerated your previous life for so long. Come to Big Blue and learn to become a dive professional! We can take you from zero to a fully qualified divemaster or dive instructor. All you need to do is have a great time in the process! We'll teach you how to dive from scratch, take your diving further by becoming an advanced and then a rescue diver, then you can enrol on our divemaster training program. You will dive in tropical waters every day, getting to know the dive sites, assisting instructors on courses, learning about the marine life in the ocean and building up to taking people on tours of the dive sites. This of course is in between enjoying living on a tropical Island, eating great food, having all your laundry done for you, and getting to know lots of different people in the bar.
When you're ready, we can teach you to become a SSI dive instructor. Your office will be the warm waters of the Gulf of Thailand, your commute will be sitting in the sunshine on a dive boat, your shift will include teaching people how to scuba dive safely, which can be very rewarding. Once you're up and running as a qualified dive professional, you can start earning money doing something we guarantee you will love, and you will have the choice of working in a thousand idyllic locations around the world.
Sounds almost too good to be true doesn't it.. it's not. All you have to do is make the decision to go for it and get that flight booked! For more information have a look on our website, go to bigbluepro, and contact the team. The email is at the top of the bigbluepro website.

Sea cucumbers under threat
Sea cucumbers are the less glamorous cousins of starfish and sea urchins, occurring in all of the major oceans and seas. They are aten in China and other southeast Asian countries, and have been for centuries. They are appreciated for their soft texture, and dietary and so-called medicinal properties. But as China is becoming more affluent, they have become a sought after delicacy for festive dinners, and can sell from anywhere between US$10 and US$600 per kilo in Hong Kong and mainland China. One cold-water species farmed in China and Japan sells for up to US$3,000 per kg dried.
But as with anything that is over-fished, the rest of the ecosystem suffers. Cucumbers play a significant role in their local marine environment. They help turn over sand in reef lagoons and seagrass beds. By feeding on dead organic matter mixed with sand and mud, the nutrients they excrete can be again taken up by algae and corals – a pathway of nutrient recycling on reefs. So, they may not incite as much emotion in people as shark finning, but their reduction in numbers will have as significant effect on the oceans. No doubt we will be hearing more about their loss over the next few years. So far on Koh Tao, they are being left alone, and Big Blue conservation will work hard to keep it that way.

Help prevent the annual slaughter of dolphins
Anyone that likes to scuba dive will have their own reasons for doing so. Some like the feeling of weightlessness. Some like to challenge themselves by exploring wrecks or by going cave diving. But it's pretty unanimous that anyone that sets foot in the ocean is awed by the marine life that they encounter. The thought of swimming with a dolphin has to be on the bucket list of any diver, bar none. As divers, its important that we do everything we can to preserve the life in the oceans so that we, and anyone in the future can enjoy seeing the incredible variety of life. Sadly not everyone seems to think like this and the slaughter of marine animals is occuring every day at a truly frightening rate. For example, in Taiji, Japan, 20,000 dolphins, porpoises, and small whales are killed each year. The killing begins on September 1st and usually continues until the following March, fishermen herd entire families of small cetaceans into a shallow bays and mercilessly stab and drown them to death.
This annual slaughter would have continued unabated without anyone even knowing about it if it weren't for the organisation Sea Shepherd. They took covert footage of this horrific event, which culminated in the release of the documentary, "The cove". This film highlighted to the world the events that take place in Taiji, and since 2010 Sea Shepherd has an ongoing presence of volunteers standing watch on site at the Cove. They are The Cove Guardians. The worldwide attention that their work receives is helping to put pressure on the Japanese Government, so that they will put a stop to the killing. But their work costs money and they need your help.
Big Blue Diving is committed to marine conservation, and through Big Blue Conservation, we run numerous programs to encourage coral growth around Koh Tao, increase the numbers of marine creatures such as turtles around the Island, and to educate the local Thai residents on how they can minimise their impact on the local marine environment. We also run marine conservation programs and internships, and educate all of our customers on the importance of looking after the oceans.
So we want to do our bit to help Sea Shepherd. So, for the rest of March, if you like Big Blue Conservation, we will donate 10 baht to Sea Shepherd so they can continue their important work. Please take 5 seconds out of your day to do it, and pass the message on to as many people as possible.

Dolphin facts
Dolphins are such incredible animals, most of us would agree. But, apart from the fact that they look like they're smiling all the time, why are they so amazing? Here's why:

1. There are almost 40 distinct species of dolphins. Most live in shallow areas of tropical and temperate oceans, and five species live in rivers.
2. Dolphins are carnivores. Eating fish, squid and crustaceans. A 260-pound dolphin eats about 33 pounds of fish a day.
3. Known for their playful behavior, they are highly intelligent. They are as smart as apes, and the evolution of their larger brains is surprisingly similar to humans.
4. They form part of the family of whales that includes orcas and pilot whales. Killer whales are actually dolphins.
5. Dolphins are very social, living in groups that hunt and even play together. Large pods of dolphins can have 1,000 members or more.
6. Depending on the species, gestation takes nine to 17 months. After birth, dolphins are surprisingly maternal. They have been observed nestling and cuddling their young.
7. A dolphin calf nurses for up to two years. Calves stay with the mothers anywhere from three to eight years.
8. Dolphins have acute eyesight both in and out of the water. They hear frequencies 10 times the upper limit of adult humans. Their sense of touch is well-developed, but they have no sense of smell.
9. Dolphins have few natural enemies. Humans are their main threat. Pollution, fishing and hunting mean some dolphin species have an uncertain future. In 2006, the Yangtze River dolphin was named functionally extinct.
10. Because dolphins are mammals, they need to come to the surface of the water to breathe. Unlike land mammals that breathe and eat through their mouths, dolphins have separate holes for each task. Dolphins eat through their mouths and breathe through their blowholes. This prevents the dolphin from sucking up water into the lungs when hunting, reducing the risk of drowning.

The human teapot

Bad news for all you ladies out there that just can't get enough of men from Grimsby. Big Blue PADI and SSI instructor and Platinum Grimsby bruiser Luke White has had a little accident that has put him out of action for a while. This means that he's out of the water and unable to woo you with his Northern charm whilst teaching you how to dive on your SSI open water course- when you haven't passed out from swooning that is.
If you're around Big Blue at the moment, you can't miss him. He's the one walking around like a teapot with his fishing arm in a sling. For those that know him he's a little bit more grumpy than usual, which, on the scale of Luke grumpiness is not actually that different from normal. But don't worry, we will be having a benefit night for him sometime in the next week, just so we can all have an excuse to get drunk and make him that little bit grumpier, but also to help the sweaty idiot get back on his feet.
On the bright side at least he'll get to spend a lot more time in the shop checking customers in and chatting to any prospective divers as they walk by our retail shop. On the down side you'll have to meet Luke when you check in to come diving with us.. sorry about that. Anyway, we all wish him well and hope he has a speedy recovery. God help his fiance.

Thai factoids
Time for the last 15 dazzling facts about Thailand. That's 35 in the last few days you greedy sods. Enjoy:

21. A century ago, more than 100,000 elephants lived in Thailand, with about 20,000 of them untamed. Now, there are about 5,000, with less than half of them wild.
22. Both the Hollywood movie and Broadway play of The King and I are banned in Thailand. Based on the Siamese ruler King Mongkut and a teacher named Anna Leonowens, the movie is seen as insulting to the king. While the movie depicts him as uncultured, he is believed to be the first Asian ruler to speak, read, and write English fluently. He also is considered highly intelligent, cultured, and well read. Further, he is known as the father of Thai scientists
23. Thailand’s and the world’s longest reigning monarch is Bhumibol Adulyadej, who became King Rama IX in June 1946. He was born in the U.S. in 1927 when his father was studying medicine at Harvard. He owns a patent on a form of cloud seeding and holds a degree in engineering from Switzerland. He also plays the sax and composed Thailand’s national anthem.
24. Tiger Woods is the son of an American father and a Thai mother.
25. Thailand is the world’s largest producer of tin.
26. Each year, around six million foreign tourists visit Thailand. Thailand has also attracted many expatriates from developed countries.
27. The population of Thailand is 67,091,089, which is ranked 20th in the world.
28. Sometimes the SkyTrain will stop for no apparent reason. When any member of the Royal family travels downtown, the trains will stop in a postion so that it is not above the Royal. Essentially your head can not be directly above theirs.That goes for walking on the overhead passes too.
29. At 15 a youth can enter but not drink in a club if accompanied by BOTH parents.
30. In 2008 Bangkok was ranked the best city in the world according to Travel and Leisure magazine
31. Khao San Road is the liveliest and busiest tourist area in Bangkok.
32. Don Mueang International Airport sports the tallest control tower in the world, measuring 132.2m (434ft)
33. Leaving the house without any underwear on is illegal, you can be arrested for it.
34. Bangkok is also called the ‘Venice of the East’ due to its large number on canals.
35. Thailand is the world’s 51st largest country. Russia is the largest. The United States is third largest.

Eat Dive relax dive eat dive relax cake!

The full day trip two days ago was another resounding success, with some big smiles on our fun diver's faces as they stepped back on land. This time around the full day trip went to Chumphon Marine Park, which is NOT VISITED BY ANY OTHER DIVE RESORT ON KOH TAO. So that means pristine dive sites that will only be as busy as the number of people on board our boat. A rare treat for any fun diver. The marine life is incredibly abundant, so there is lots to see on every dive, and there is a wreck very similar to the HTMS Sattakut, called the HTMS Prab, with the only difference being that it lies in shallower water, so you get longer to see it. This trip is so amazing that our staff try and book days off to see if they can get on the trip if there are some left over places! But how come no other dive resorts visit there? It's because it's just too far away for them to be able to fit in three dives. But out fun diver only boat Porponawa is ridiculously fast, so we can provide you with three dives. Not only that, we feed you- breakfast, lunch and chocolate cake, plus as many soft drinks as you can manage.

We run full day trips every 3 days, alternating between sail rock, Chumphon Marine Park, and Ang Thong Marine Park (another rarely visited area for diving). So if you want to experience the best diving that the Gulf of Thailand has to offer, get yourself on the next full day trip. Pop into the office on Sairee beach and have a chat with one of our divemasters to find out when the next one will be, and where we will be going.

More facts about Thailand
Following on from a few days ago, here's 10 more interesting and occassionallly downright weird facts about the land of smiles:

11. Thailand is home to the world’s hairiest child, Supatra “Nat” Sasuphan.
12. The full name of Bangkok is- Krungthepmahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphimanawatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit. It means “City of Angels, Great City of Immortals, Magnificent City of the Nine Gems, Seat of the King, City of Royal Palaces, Home of Gods Incarnate, Erected by Visvakarman at Indra’s Behest. Bangkok is a great city to visit because of its rich culture and diverse history. Tourists wishing to explore a city that is well known and highly recommended should check out Bangkok. The vivacious street life and interesting architecture makes this city a “must see”. Be sure to book your Bangkok hotel in the heart of the city. By centrally booking your hotel allows you to have convenient access to multiple restaurants and entertainment. There is a good reason that Bangkok was recently named, “World’s Best City”. If you are looking to discover a vibrant city in Asia, this is the place to see.
13 The Thai alphabet has 32 vowels and 44 consonants.
14. One-tenth of all animal species on Earth live in Thailand. More than 1,500 species of orchids grow wild in Thai forests. Thailand is the world’s number one orchid exporter.
15. Siamese cats are native to Thailand. In Thai they are called wichen-maat, meaning “moon diamond.” A 14th-century book of Thai poems describes 23 types of Siamese cats; today only six breeds are left. Giving a pair of Si Sawat cats (a type of Siamese cats) to a bride is supposed to bring good luck to the marriage.
16. Thailand is home to what may be the world’s longest snake, the reticulated python. The largest one ever found stretched over 33 feet (10 m) from end to end.
17. Thailand is home to the world’s longest poisonous snake, the king cobra. The cobra can reach more than 18 feet long, and one bite from it can kill an elephant.
18. Swiftlet nests are made from strands of saliva from the male swiftlet bird. Swiftlet nests collected from Thai caves can fetch more than $900 per pound. It is one of the world’s most coveted and expensive food items.
19. The Mekong River, which forms part of Thailand’s eastern border, supports more than 1,300 species of fish. It holds some of the world’s largest freshwater fish, including a giant catfish which can reach nearly 10 feet long and weigh as much as 660 lbs.
20. One of Thailand’s most curious creatures is the mudskipper, which is a fish that is capable of walking on land and climbing trees. It uses its fins to “walk” and can absorb oxygen through its skin and lining in its mouth. It spends most of its time out of the water, eating the algae in tidal pools.

New SSI instructor trainers

Sometime last year, SSI Instructor Trainer (IT) Paul "Tosh" Tanner decided to leave us completely in the lurch and move to Bali to become a monk. It was a pretty groundbreaking event. So groundbreaking in fact, that every member of staff remembers what they were doing at the moment he left, er, sometime last year... it was probably a friday. Our longstanding SSI IT, Simmo, has probably cried every day since Tosh left, but did a good job of convincing everyone that he's just sick of all the wars in the world. However, as more and more people want to be trained up to become SSI dive instructors, it was concluded that there just aren't enough Simmo's in the day to manage it all. So the post was advertised in all the corner shops and classified ads. Everyone at Big Blue was fully expecting one candidate to be chosen to work with Simmo, but no, we ended up getting two! It turns out that the applications from Big Blue divemaster trainee mentors Iain and Guy impressed the boss so much that he decided to hire them both!

I've written quite a bit about both of them previously, but in case you've never heard of them, Iain is Scottish, loves falling asleep at the bar of an evening- literally, and is apparently pretty handy at poker when he can stay awake. Guy is from Yorkshire, has a lovely mane of hair that he'll show to anyone (in old photos), and is addicted to Mills & Boon romance novels. They're both very experienced instructors and have spent the last few years moulding the next generation of professional SSI divemasters. Now they're going to get the chance to mould the next generation of SSI dive instructors.

They are both popular members of staff at Big Blue, and we'd like to wish them the best in their new roles.

If you'd like to live on a tropical Island and have the ocean as your new office, and are keen to find out what you need to do to become a diving instructor, get in touch with Simmo, Iain and Guy at Big Blue Pro. The email address is at the top of their webpage.

Wildlife protection groups join forces
Good news for shark protection. Two leading organisations have recently merged, WildAid and Shark Savers. The work previously undertaken by Shark Savers will now be taken on by WildAid. So, in addition to running a number of programmes to protect endangered wildlife species including elephants, rhinos, and tigers, they will also be campaigning to reduce shark fin consumption and protect manta rays. Shark Savers' 'I'm FINished with Fins' campaign was launched in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan last year with WildAid, National Geographic, and World Wildlife Fund as partners. WildAid launched the 'I'm FINished with Fins' campaign in China in late 2013 building on its ongoing campaign to stem consumption of endangered wildlife. In addition to the 'I'm FINished with Fins' campaign, Shark Savers' SharksCount citizen science program and the overall Shark Savers grassroots campaign to protect sharks and rays will continue within the context of WildAid's Shark program. Shark Savers' Shark and Ray Sanctuaries program will combine with WildAid's Marine Protection Program.

Instructors on tour

Six of our full time-instructors, including myself, arrived back yesterday from a stag weekend/bucks/batchelor party in Phuket. We had a wonderful time, taking in the botanical gardens, going to the opera, spending a couple of days on a detox yoga mountain retreat, and volunteering at the local cat shelter. The journey there started with a fantastic disco on the deck of the car ferry, leaving us all really well rested for the bus journey from Suratthani to Phuket- at 5am. This journey only took 6 and a half hours, with the driver being helpful enough to stop every 2 minutes or so on random street corners to pick up more customers, probably to test the carrying capacity of the coach. When we arrived in Phuket, we thought we'd have a quiet night in the local pub, but we got confused and night actually meant noon. So the next day, fully armed with the visible appearance of having land-sickness, we boarded a boat which was to be our home for the next two days, feeling confident that no-one would get sea sick. Luckily only the stag, Luke White did. Everyone else just got sun burnt. I think we all agreed that Neil had a lovely singing voice, but that he'd also confused detox with tox.

The rest of the trip was a bit hazy after that, but I do remember that We made the very sensible decision to give the task of booking our return tickets to Rich. But there was a little confusion, and when he'd said it was "all sorted", he actually meant that "the night boat was full, but we could still get on as long as we could find somewhere to lie on top of all the cargo", but he decided not to tell us this until we tried to board the night boat. So Luke actually got a bit of action on the trip by being spooned by videographer James. Not sure he filmed that though.

Anyway, we all came back feeling great and ready to get back to teaching people how to dive. But we were a litte dissapointed that Big Blue hadn't fallen apart because we weren't there. Instead it seems as busy as ever, the weather is great and the Gulf of Thailand is nice and warm. Can't wait to work on my sun burn a little more.

If you're thinking of going to Phuket during your time in Thailand, reconsider immediately unless you like the idea of middle-aged Russians wearing speedos. Come to Koh Tao instead and dive with Big Blue, but please please book ahead for your travel, book ahead for your accommodation, and get someone other than Rich to help you!

10 interesting facts about Thailand

We live here, you're hopefully coming here, so here's some things you may not know about the land of smiles:

1. Thailand’s name in the Thai language is Prathet Thai, which means “Land of the Free.” It is the only country in Southeast Asia that was never colonized by a European nation.

2. Thailand is home to the world’s largest gold Buddha, the largest crocodile farm, the largest restaurant, the longest single-span suspension bridge, and the world’s tallest hotel

3. In the past, all Thai young men including the kings became Buddhist monks for at least a short period of time before their 20th birthday. Today, fewer young men observe the practice.

4. The world’s smallest mammal, the Craseonycteris thonglongyai (the bumble bat), is found in Thailand

5. Medicine man Hoo Sateow from Thailand has the world’s documented longest hair at 16 foot 11 inches long

6. In 1996, two rare “diamond-eyed cats,” Phet and Ploy, were married in a lavish $16,241 Thai wedding, the most expensive pet wedding in the world.

7. In 1999, 30 vets worked to heal a 38-year-old cow elephants’ foot, which had been destroyed when she stepped on a landmine in Thailand. It set the record for the largest number of vets in one procedure.

8. In 1999, a group of 282 skydivers set the record for the largest number of skydivers in a free-fall formation above Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand. They held the link for 7.11 seconds.

9. The world’s largest Christmas log cake was made in Bangkok, Thailand, on December 25, 1997. The cake weighed 5,071 lbs. and reached 27 feet 6 inches. It was later cut into 19,212 portions

10.Thailand set the record for the longest catwalk on April 9, 2010. The catwalk was 1,584 meters long and was part of the Pattaya International Fashion Week

Blog ideas

Anyone who's done any kind of writing whatsoever, be it a blog, novel, University thesis, or just writing up your notes from your days' stalking, will be able to tell you all about writers block. It's a pretty debilitating illness, especially when you work full-time in between and have a deadline to keep. Guess what, it's happening right now.

So, seeing as we're a little bit quieter at the moment in preparation for the oncoming hoards of travellers that will inevitably find their way to Koh Tao after the insanity that is the half and full moon parties, why not write a blog asking you what kind of blogs you'd like to see? There have been articles written about various aspects of scuba diving; buoyancy, diving cylinders and equipment. I've written about what's been happening at Big Blue, from the photo competition to the shenanigans of the Big Blue football team, and also about some of the dive sites we have and the full day trips that we organise. The articles that seem to get the best response always seem to be the ones having a light-hearted poke at our staff- boat captains, the divemaster team, the divemaster trainee mentor instructors, and the shop staff. Given that I can't write about these people every other day without repeating myself a lot, it would be good to know what type of people read the blog the most (ex-visitors, people who are planning on coming to Big Blue etc), and what they are more likely to read, so that I know whether to write articles aimed at people with none, some, or a good knowledge of scuba diving. I suspect that it's a mix of all of those, so i'm screwed either way!

To use a bit of management-speak, it's market research without sending out questionaires. So, going forward, help us to get behind the eight-ball so we can do some blue-sky thinking to enable us to reach all the low-hanging fruit- we don't want the grass to get too long on this one. By end of play we need to action those deliverables that will give us best leverage with our stakeholders and touch base 110%..... damn it, why didn't I just write a blog about management-speak?

Anyway, please tell us what you'd like to see in the blog and write a comment under the article on our facebook page. It'll get completely ignored and i'll continue to publish articles in as random a manner as possible, but at least we'll give the impression that we've listened!

This is the life

Living on Koh Tao is such a chore. I'm sick to death of walking up the beach and taking a dip in the warm clear ocean to cool off, taking in the Sun, and eating good, cheap Thai food whilst watching the world go by, and on my days off enjoying a cocktail or two and resting my bones in 30 degree temperatures.. horrible. Koh Tao is a diving Island, that's what most people come here for, and when you ask our customers what they are going to do when they've finished a diving course, they usually say relax, have a few beers, and maybe see some of the Island. There are quite a few other actvities that you can do here but that seems to sum up pretty well what the vast majority of people end up doing. And there are lots of places you can do that. Sairee beach has loads of bars and restaurants where you can have a drink and some food, take in the view and get that vitamin D from the Sun. Sairee village has endless Thai and Western food restaurants and cafes no matter what you fancy. Plus, you can easily get around the Island by land taxi or taxi boat to see that people are doing exactly the same thing at Shark bay on the South or Tanote bay on the South East.

So don't get any ideas about jungle trekking or crazy golf, just get yourself a nice spot to perch and take it all in.

Photo competition still open

Just a quick post to remind any budding photographers out there that it's not too late to enter the Big Blue photography competition. You have until the 31st of March to get your entry or entries in, which will be judged on the 4th of April. It's open to anyone, whether you're a divemaster, instructor, fun diver, tech diver, freediver, or have never ever set foot in the ocean. You can take your image on land or underwater. The theme is Koh Tao and the photo must have a conservation message or caption. To enter one photo will cost 200 baht, but you can enter three photos for 500 baht. All proceeds will go to this years Swim for Sharks charity event.

There will be three amazing prizes on offer: 1st prize is a free place on a full day trip to Chumphon Marine Park, 2nd prize is a half-day coral workshop with Big Blue Conservation, and 3rd prize is a very stylish eco t-shirt and cotton bag.

Email your photos (the address is at the top of our homepage) or drop them off at the Big Blue shop (Sairee Beach) on a USB stick, CD or DVD with your entry fee. Sadly we cannot accept entries on VHS or Betamax. Please include your name in the file name.

Note: Prizes are awarded as a voucher, valid for 6 months from the 4th April. Full day trip to Chunphon Marine Park is availabe on scheduled dates, subject to weather conditions. the coral workshop must be scheduled in advance. the eco t-shirt & bag can be redeemed at Big Blue's Drift retail shop. For more information on any of the above, contact lizzie@bigblueconservation.com

Sea Cucumbers
Like giant underwater caterpillars, sea cucumbers can be found all over every single dive site in Koh Tao. So given that you're definitely going to see one if you come diving here, how about I tell you some lovely facts about them:

- Sea cucumbers are echinoderms, like starfish and sea urchins. There are some 1,250 known species, and many of these animals are indeed shaped like soft-bodied cucumbers.
- All sea cucumbers are ocean dwellers, though some inhabit the shallows and others live in the deep ocean. They live on or near the ocean floor—sometimes partially buried beneath it.
- They feed on tiny particles like algae, minute aquatic animals, or waste materials, which they gather in with 8 to 30 tube feet that look like tentacles surrounding their mouths. The animals break down these particles into even smaller pieces, which become fodder for bacteria, and thus recycle them back into the ocean ecosystem. Earthworms perform a similar function in terrestrial ecosystems.
- Sea cucumbers, particularly eggs and young larvae, are prey for fish and other marine animals. They are also enjoyed by humans, especially in Asia, and some species are farmed as delicacies.
- When threatened, some sea cucumbers discharge sticky threads to ensnare their enemies. Others can mutilate their own bodies as a defense mechanism. They violently contract their muscles and jettison some of their internal organs out of their anus. The missing body parts are quickly regenerated.
- Sea cucumbers can breed sexually or asexually. Sexual reproduction is more typical, but the process is not very intimate. The animals release both eggs and sperm into the water and fertilization occurs when they meet. There must be many individuals in a sea cucumber population for this reproductive method to be successful. Indeed, many parts of the deep ocean host large herds of these ancient animals, grazing on the microscopic bounty of marine waters.

Sub-aquatic film school

If you go onto the Big Blue facebook page, Big Blue movies has posted a quick clip of Barry- one of our videographers, filming a triggerfish. It initially seems to be completely disinterested in him or his camera, but then suddenly decides to make it known that its personal space has been violated by quickly charging the camera for a warning headbutt. Triggerfish one, Barry nil.

Making friends with triggerfish is optional, but that clip is just one of many amazing interactions that our videographers capture every single day. The Big Blue Movies team spend their mornings diving in tropical waters, filming the local marine life and flexing their creativity muscles (the videographers, not the marine life). In the afternoons they work hard to edit their footage and produce a short film. But their day is not over yet, they then go to the bar and play the video to the delight of our customers and staff.

On your open water course we film you on your final two dives. Watching the video in the bar is a great way to celebrate passing your open water course, and you have the option to buy it so you can show your friends and family what you've been up to on your travels. But videographers like Barry don't just decide to take a camera on a dive with them one day. They are highly trained in what they do, having undertaken a SSI videography internship with one of our experienced videography instructors. This involves learning how to use a camera properly underwater- not as easy as you'd think. Give any diver a camera and suddenly their buoyancy control becomes a distant memory, because they concentrate so much on getting a shot they forget about the diving bit! During the internship you'll go out with your instructor to learn how to properly handle a camera underwater (all equipment provided during the course). Then, once you've got the hang of that you'll learn how to get good footage; no shakey camera movement, no fingers on lenses, making good use of focus in different diving conditions, making the most of the foreground and background, the rule of thirds, and effective use of lighting.

On top of that you'll learn how to use professional software to edit your footage, so you can make a film yourself. Your internship ends with you filming our customers, editing your videos and showing them, so that you'll have actual work experience as a videographer. It can be hard work; long days with square eyes, but it can also be very satisfying, and you get to film the biggest fish in the sea, the whaleshark! Perhaps the best bit is when you get to see all the open water students watching your video with open jaws in amazement at what you captured.

If you'd like your new office to be the warm waters of the Gulf of Thailand, or even if you'd like to become better at taking pictures and video underwater, get in touch with Wayne at Big Blue Movies. He'll give you all the information you need, and it won't be long before you're booking that flight to Bangkok. The email address is at the top of our homepage.

Triggerfish facts
Seeing as I mentioned triggerfish earlier, here's some more facts about the grumpiest fish in the ocean. Wouldn't you be if you were that ugly?

- There are 40 species of triggerfish, scattered throughout the world’s seas.
- The largest is the stone triggerfish, which reaches up to 1 metre in length.
- They live on the bottom of the ocean and dig out prey such as crabs and worms, by flapping away debris with their fins and sandblasting with water squirted from their mouths. They also use very tough teeth and jaws to take on sea urchins, flipping them over to get at their bellies, which are armed with fewer spines.
- The trigger on their back is used to deter predators or to “lock” themselves into holes, crevices, and other hiding spots.
- They tend to be solitary, but meet at traditional mating grounds according to timetables governed by moons and tides. The males of many species appear to establish territories on these spawning grounds and prepare seafloor nests that will house tens of thousands of eggs. Females share caring for the eggs until they hatch, blowing water on them to keep them well supplied with oxygen. In some species males are known to maintain a harem of female mates.
- Triggerfish are infamous for their nasty attitude, and this behavior is especially evident around nests, where intruders, from other fish to divers, are likely to be charged.
- Triggerfish are often brightly coloured. Some species have become too popular for their own good. They are sought for the aquarium trade, which has prompted fishermen to gather even threatened species from the wild. Researchers are working to raise triggerfish in captivity so that wild populations might more likely be left alone.