The Mv Trident will be conducting a Liveaboard to the HTMS Pangan for a 3 day 3 night liveaboard.
The Mv Trident will depart of February 1st (weather permited) and steam overnight to the wreck site. The schedule allows for 2 dives a day completing on the 4th returning to Koh Tao in the evening of the 4th.
Not Included:
Personal Dive Gear (available for rent)
Helium (available at 4baht/ liter)
Drinks (soda, beer)
CCR? The Mv Trident is equipped to accommodate CCR divers on this trip.
Pre-Requisites: Must be a certified technical diver able to conduct decompression with oxygen for acceleration. If you’re not, contact us to get trained up before the trip!
If booking through Big Blue Tech you must:
Hold valid diving insurance covering you to 60m
Have a completed a RSTC Diving medical in the past 6 months signed by a doctor.
Price: 35,000 Baht, you can book online with your credit card, contact us for more info.
As we have completed the final local training dives on the Mv Trident with Hannah we’re now ready to head out to the Htms Pangan and a Very Very Very Old Pottery Wreck
Todays 2 dives were met with waves, rain and dark diving. The black clouds turned the water very dark. However and unfortunately on the bow was the best visability we have seen this season, albeit very very dark. The rest of the wreck was a dark limited visibility of about 1 meter. It makes for great training but not the nicest diving as the recreational customers didn’t appreciate it that much.
However we did see a very large Marble Ray lying in the sand next to the engine room which we’ve never seen in koh tao. Actually we almost swam into it because the “vizz” was so low in that area.
Tomorrow at 4pm we’ll be off for 3 days. During that time there’ll be no news or updates. A full Trip Report to follow soon after along with pictures.
In the meantime have a look at our PADI Tec Basics Specialty for those looking to get a nice easy step in technical diving.
Thank you to everyone who responded to the Barack Obama post about his involvement in the USS Lagarto wreck topic. If anyone else has a source of information we would love to see it. We emailed his campaign people, i’m sure they have nothing better to do, so we’re not holding our breathes on that one, This wreck wasn’t found by us and it’s very rarely dived but it’s nice to have a permanent online record since it looks like he’ll be the most powerful man in the world in a few weeks.
However, tomorrow we’re off on a Wreck Wednesday trip and more technical training for Hannah. We’re climbing aboard the Mv Trident Technical Liveaboard Vessel for her last local training dives on the Unicorn Wreck. After that we’re off for 3 days and 3 nights of deep ocean technical wreck diving on the HTMS Pangan. Let’s hope the weather holds out which has been spotty with rain and clouds, but who cares when you have a full service vessel, you just watch a dvd or have a nap if the deck is wet (after all, we’re there to get wet)
Unfortunately this will be the last trip on the Trident for the season (awwwwww) an excerpt from their website reads:
“The season is nearly finished for any long range trips on this side of Thailand.
In a few days we have our last trip, to the Pangan and to a Chinese pottery wreck hundreds of years old.
2008 has been a good year, a few big new steel wrecks and the Chinese ones for a change.
Fuel prices hit us hard for a while so we encouraged divers to dive an extra day on trips to cover the increase, it worked well.
The boat is off to the yard very soon, some paint and new seals only if all goes to plan.
Hope to see you aboard next year”
But have no fear, similans technical is here. During the departure of the MV Trident we’ll be doing deep ocean technical diving in the Similans Islands on one of the many liveaboards, a few of them fitting for technical diving as we speak.
As you may of noticed there’s mention of a new promo video for Trident. This video was created by Ace Marine Images and showcases their new wrecks and a bit about what its like on board. I personally think it’s a a bit long for a promo at 16 minutes but if you love this sort of diving you’ll love the video.. here’s a link to it from YouTube
Tomorrow we’ll post some more information about technical diving in the Smilans, however we’ll be a bit quiet for a few days as we’re out into the blue on the trip. A full trip report and pictures to follow
Today the Mv Trident is heading out to sea for some sneaky beaky exploration with a manifest consisting of local professionals only. This is not a trip for customers or beginners, so you may wonder why mention it, well because the purpose is to go out and explore wrecks to take people in the future. The plan is a simple 3 days 3 night live-aboard taking many friends and colleagues from Koh Tao’s Technical Community.
Also today Hannah will be heading out to one of confined bays to complete her last shallow diving work before heading out into open water. There’s about 20 skills in this dive alone so we’ll be splitting it up over the afternoon so it’s not such a overload.
If you’ve been watching the news you might of noticed the events in Bangkok, be rest assured that the violence is in a small part of bangkok. Friends of ours were in bangkok when the riot happened and didn’t even notice. It’s business as usual in the tourist sections so come, drink snake blood, go diving, ride elephants and get out of your office!
The scheduled course trip of October 22nd has been moved to the 23rd. Unfortunately Niall (our other staff member) is still in Scotland and will miss it. This is the signature trip for technical diving students on the HTMS Pangan Wreck. It’s still not to late to book on to this trip as a student or as a certified diver.
In the coming events we’ll be moving on to the Similans because the waves get bigger and the big boat Mv Trident goes into dry dock for seasonal repairs. Time to fire up the “Deep Jeep” and hit the road with the gear and do some deep coral and manta ray diving!
And finally it’s with warm farewell that we say goodbye to many members of the Koh Tao diving community who have decided to move off and explore the rest of the world for a bit. So Brad, Laura, Jade, Craid, Learke, Sonia, Sanna, Roby and Church we hope to see you all again soon.
Today is the start of the Tec Deep course for Hannah Lusby.
Hannah has been a regular on Koh Tao and a close friend of all of us at Big Blue Tech. She’s an experienced instructor who has decided to take the next step in diving which is Technical Diving.
Today is the first step in her course where she’ll be covering the basics in technical diving, watching the DSAT provided DVD and packing her equipment for the confined sessions and later open water sessions to come. This course is designed to train her to a standard where she can complete her course on the Mv Trident on the 22nd of October where we’ll be visiting the HTMS Pangan Wreck and perhaps an optional day exploring pottery wrecks on the final day.
This course is being conducted as one on one, however if you would like to join we do have additional staff willing to take others. Follow our news daily to read more about how her course is progressing.
Today is the graduation for a newly certified technical extended range diver. Over the past few days we’ve been working together to create a technical diver. This is a long and difficult process but well worth the reward in the end. Ben had excelled in all the skills and learned the fine art of technical diving early on.
Ben loved the course so much he’s decided to continue his education and join us on the HTMS Pangan trip in august completing his Accelerated Decompression course the handling of pure oxygen. If you have been following our news, Ben was hooked on deeper longer diving after completing his Deep and Nitrox course.
Check out the gallery of images from his course below.
