Scuba diving is what draws many to Phuket and the nearby islands. A short list of the most popular nearby dive sites include:

Koh Racha Yai

A Nice place to start for beginners and easy diving. the visibility is normally around 20+ meters. There is lots of coral and plenty of small fish with minimal currents. boats go here every day. The maximum depth is only about 25 meters but I have dived over 30 meters here. It has All the usual reef fish, with regular octopus, cuttlefish, lionfish, scorpion fish, puffers, blue spotted stingrays and many more.

Shark Point

how this place got the name, i’m not sure because the area isw not loaded with sharks although leopard sharks are fairly common, especially in the off-season. This is a beautiful place to dive; and is definitely a “photo moment” as they say with colorful soft and fan corals and lots of marine life The dive site consists of several pinnacles. The largest breaking the surface, the second is at 5 meters, with the rest being smaller. some experience with the site would help to get between the pinnacles. Visibility varies from 8 – 25 meters.

Anemone Reef

fairly close to Shark Point is Anemone Reef, which was hit by the “King Cruiser” in 1997. one pinnacle, all under water, starting at about 5 meters. The top few meters are carpeted with anemones, and all over the site is soft coral.

King Cruiser Wreck

Sank in 1997, depth is from 15 to 32m, currents can be strong. Not a beginners dive, and conditions are highly variable. Visibility can be 5m, can be 20m. If you get a good day, its a great dive. Wreck is covered in marine life. Lots of lionfish and scorpionfish (don't put your hands down!), schools of snapper hanging around. The wreck has been slowly deteriorating since it sank. Now not possible to penetrate the car deck, but it's the only wreck nearby (unless you are Trimix trained), and there are boats here every day, doing trips combined with 1 or 2 of the other sites.

Koh Doc Mai

This is a real "love it or hate it" kind of site. You dive along a wall with depths down to 28m in places, and to get the most of the site, especially when vis is low, you need to keep your nose to the wall. All kinds of things to see from seahorses to little moray eels to cleaner shrimps and nudibranchs. When vis is good it IS truly spectacular. There are a couple of small caverns at the base of the wall too. I saw mating leopard sharks here one time, which was great. It's almost always the final dive of the day on the way back to Phuket from the wreck. You can see this island anytime you take a ferry from Phuket to Phi Phi - a small limestone island rising straight up from the sea.

Koh Racha Noi

South of Racha Yai and in deeper water, is Racha Noi. Every time I dive here I see something interesting. Maybe an eagle ray, maybe a manta, maybe turtle, maybe big barracudas. The deep water and currents attract bigger fish here and there's not much pretty reef. Currents can be odd - up, down, round and round. Again, like the wreck, not ideal for beginners especially at the South Point, where you try to decend to 30m on top of a deep pinnacle. There are easier sites, so some new divers go here on occasion. It's not the most popular site, probably because its not ideal for all divers, and its quite a long haul in the normal chugga slow day trip boats that are used for Phuket scuba diving, but certainly worth the effort.

That'll do for now. Phi Phi is also within reach of a day trip for diving, and with some new fast boats coming into the dive industry in the last few years, there are more day trips to Hin Daeng and Hin Muang too. In the high season there are daily trips to the Similan Islands - the boats depart from Khao Lak with early morning pick ups in Phuket.

There's a lot of scuba diving variety available from Phuket. You can easily do a weeks diving without repeating dive sites. It was good enough to keep me here for life.