Talk of the town part 06.

Right now you can read all sorts of news about various dive site closures on Thailand's West coast.

We would like to clarify the situation and let you know the truce to the best of our knowledge and experience.

There was coral bleaching that hit Malaysia and Thailand in May/June 2010. Shallow water hard corals down to about 15 meters on fringing reefs have been affected (fringing reefs are reefs around islands) but the bleaching has not much affected Soft Corals and has not significantly affected  the granite boulder sites we dive at so often.

The Thai Government has decided to close some reefs and we agree with their efforts to help protecting the reefs.

They have closed 17 dive sites all along Thailand's west coast but only 2 sites in the Similans have been closed, East of Eden and Beacon Reef.

For more details visit the special TAT - Tourism Authority of Thailand - Website.

"Green" diving practices as well as information on how to protect the fragile coral reefs provided by our experienced Dive Guides and Instructors are naturally part of any of our dive briefings. Divers coming back from our day trips are coming back with big smiles and great reviews, having had an excellent trip and of course, great diving.

To ensure the future of one of the most wonderful diving areas in the world we support the closure of this sites. The closures are at dive sites we would not visit for this very reason and this is not affecting the conduct of our Day Trips or Liveaboard cruises.

Please do not hesitate to contact Khao Lak Scuba Adventures if you have any further queries and we respectfully request you to not believe everything you read in the press. Some even announced wrongly that all of the Similan and Surin National Parks and in fact the whole Andaman sea area where closed.