Diving with Big Bubble

Welcome to Big Bubble Dive Resort! On your endless quest to find the perfect destination for your next diving vacation, you have found one of the longest established dive centers on Koh Tao, in Thailand. Even though we have modernized our facilities and streamlined our services over the many years, we do our best to keep the spirit of the “good old days” of Turtle Island up and running. This is only a part of what makes us different to the other dive centers on Koh Tao.
We still offer our guests a relaxed and laid back atmosphere and super chilled out diving for both, scuba diving lessons and fun dives. You can, for example, start your diving adventures by simply discovering scuba diving on a sunny afternoon. This is really cool and anybody can do it! A PADI professional will be at your side during the whole scuba diving introduction. Once you found out how great it feels, to breathe under water, to behave like a fish and to float weightless like an astronaut in space, you can easily go on to the next step and get a real PADI scuba diving certification in only a few days. The PADI Open Water Diving Course is worldwide recognized, so that once you have been certified, you can go diving with a dive buddy, anywhere in the world!

Why learn to dive with Big Bubble?

• Our highly trained staff sets great value upon safety for all divers and snorkelers.
• We teach and set standards on marine biology and environmental awareness.
• We offer all PADI Scuba Diving Courses in many languages.
• We guarantee that you will dive in a small group and enjoy a great service!
• Our dive schedule allows smaller groups and longer dive times for our fun divers.
• We ride on a big dive boat with lots of space to gear up. We call it “Big Boat”
• We offer all our students the best individual dive education possible.
• We provide high class dive equipment and comfortable air cooled classrooms.
• We start later in the morning to avoid crowded dive sites and give you some rest.
• Big Bubble is an international PADI 5 Star Dive Resort with a spotless reputation.
• We have successfully conducted scuba diving courses for more than 15 years.
• Big Bubbles’ scuba diving packages are amongst the best on Koh Tao.
• We additionally offer all services like – accommodation and tickets for bus, train or plane!
• But most of all; diving with Big Bubble is relaxed, free of worries and a lot more FUN than anywhere else!

As a comfortable swimmer you might have thought already about taking your first breath under water. But maybe you are still not sure how it will be for you to be fully submerged and to breathe under water. So you would like to try and take a glimpse at the amazing underwater world before you make a final decision to start a real Open Water Course or maybe, if your time is limited, at least the Scuba Diver Certification.

Scuba Diving and Health

The only thing you really need to get started with a scuba diving course is a good health and the right spirit. Thus, before we can start any diving activities, we have to make sure that you’re fit for scuba diving. Therefore you have to be able to answer a short questionnaire with 34 questions about your health and your medical history*.  You can Download the Medical Questionnaire here.  Once you have accomplished the Medic-Form you just need your swimming gear, some sunscreen and you are on the way to discover a new exciting hobby and the beautiful underwater world of Koh Tao.

How does Discover Scuba Diving work?

After you have checked in at Big Bubble Dive Resort, one of our scuba diving instructors will give you a briefing about some essential diving skills and some do’s and don’ts underwater. After this theoretical introduction to scuba diving it’s time to get hands on! Your instructor will show you how to set up your diving equipment, explain to you what each part is used for, and how to use your diving gear under water.

Once you are geared up and ready to go, your diving instructor will show you how to enter the water with all the scuba gear.
In a nice and shallow confined water area you will be asked to slowly get down on your knees until your head is submerged and take your first breath underwater. This will probably be your first of many unforgettable underwater experiences.

In the next step of your scuba diving introduction, you will learn to practice the skills that you where briefed and shown by your diving instructor on the surface before. You will for example, learn how to clear your mask in case some water runs in, you will, learn how to recover your regulator if it falls out your mouth because of all the ahh’s and ohh’s of excitement you will feel, and you will also learn how to use the alternate air source, that is always attached to your dive gear. After you feel ready and confident, you can start to explore the beautiful coral reefs and tropical fish of Koh Tao and get used to being weightless.

Wouhh – What’s next?

If the excitement wasn’t enough and you’ve gone all whacko for scuba diving by now, it might be time to get more serious about the sport and start your Open Water Course. A PADI Open Water Certification will allow you to dive independently – with a dive buddy – to a maximum depth of 18m. In case you are a bit short on time, you also have the possibility to settle for a Scuba Diver License now.

Once you have decided to visit Koh Tao, or you are already on the island and you are by now familiar with the sound of dangling scuba tanks early in the morning, you might get the itch to try scuba diving yourself. If you are short on time, you can safely enjoy scuba diving in Koh Tao even without a proper diving certification! For more information about Discovering Scuba Diving follow this link.
If you have three to four days time though, we strongly recommend to obtain your scuba diving certification while you are on Koh Tao. Not only is Koh Tao still one of the cheapest diving destinations in the world, but we also offer a great service for scuba divers and many years of experience in professional and recreational scuba diving on Koh Tao.

About the PADI Open Water Diving Course

First to say; it won’t take you a full four days out of your holiday plans if you decide to follow an Open Water Diving Course on Koh Tao! You will still have plenty of time to enjoy the beaches and go snorkeling or do all kinds of things on the island during the time.

– Day one: The first day is for many guests also the day of arrival, or the second day on Koh Tao, so we will make it short. After an introduction from your personal scuba diving instructor and some necessary paperwork you get to enjoy a 90 minute video about the PADI Open Water Diving Course. This instructive and entertaining picture will show you in detail how your diving course is built and how easy you will learn to dive with the PADI System. Our classrooms are air conditioned and very comfortable.

– Day Two: In the morning, after you had a relaxed breakfast, you will learn about scuba diving in theory first. Your diving instructor will teach you everything there is to know about your new hobby in one of our comfortable classrooms! The PADI diving System is built upon repetition and you will recognize many of the subjects from the video you have already watched the day before. After the lunch break, you will learn how to handle your scuba diving equipment, how to put it on and what all the hoses are for. Then you will get wet! First in shallow water, where you still be able to poke your head out of the water at any time while standing on the ground, you will learn to breathe under water by simply sticking your face in the water and breathing through your regulator. After you mastered your first skill, you will submerge by getting on your knees and your diving instructor will exercise several more skills with you under water. Your first underwater impressions will be in the sea and not in a swimming pool and we promise, that is a lot more exciting than blue walls!

– Day Three: The morning will be filled with some more scuba diving theory to make sure you know all you need to know scuba diving before you get certified. To make sure that this is the case you will have to take a test with 50 questions at the end of your diving lessons. In the afternoon Open Water Diving is on the program! Together with your scuba diving instructor you will make your first Open Water Dives. On your first two dives you will repeat some of the skills you learned on the previous day and also learn some new things. PADI Open Water Dives 1 and 2 are conducted on a maximal depth of 12 meters so you are already scuba diving an we are sure, that by now, you are already having the time of your life!

– Day Four: Is almost pure fun! This time you go out in the morning, together with the already certified scuba divers, to a slightly deeper dive site. Dive 3 and 4 will bring you down to a maximum depth of 18 meters. While most of these two dives are already so-called “fun dives”, there are still some important exercises in between and even some new skills to be learned. At the end of dive four you will be congratulated and warmly welcomed into the ever growing scuba diver community. From now on your whole life has changed, your world has grown by 70 percent and we can almost guarantee that your next holiday destination will be near by the sea!

Book your PADI Open Water Course right here.

Underwater-Wedding on Koh Tao Thailand – The Ride

Lots of people chose, expensive cars like Rolls Royce or Bentleys to go to their wedding, others even get nostalgic and ride on horse and wagon to church; not so Nadine and Nico, they choose to marry underwater and that their ride should be the dive boat of Big Bubble! Enjoy some funny pictures of the ride to the first ever underwater wedding of Big Bubble Dive Resort. We all enjoyed this underwater wedding so much that we decided to make it part of our program. So, if YOU would like to get married under water, contact Big Bubble and we will arrange what ever is required for you!

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<< Underwater Wedding – Preparation
>> Underwater Wedding – The Wedding
>> Underwater Wedding – The Party

For those whom marriage alone isn’t exciting enough, there is always a way to top things up a bit. Nadine and Nico did just that when they decided to marry not only in Thailand, but also to get married under water! To get married by itself is something so special that it has to be shown to the world and that had to be done in a special way! Both being qualified PADI Scuba Divers, found the idea of getting an underwater wedding more appealing than another idea they had. On December 24th, because x-mas alone on one day, once again isn’t enough for Nadine and Nico, the two got married under water at Big Bubble Dive Resort in Koh Tao.

In the morning, eyes still small, realizing the importance of the day, everybody gathers at Big Bubble dive Resort in Chalok baan Kao. There’s a lot to be done and to be prepared for Nadine and Nico’s underwater wedding.

Underwater Wedding Pictures Part 1

Finally arriving on the dive boat, the photo and video shooting sessions go on. Our wedding couple have become TV stars. On the short ride to the dive site where the underwater wedding is about to take place, is chill-out time.

Underwater Wedding Pictures Part 2

Heads down under, the action may begin. Nadine and Nico are getting married and Big Bubble Dive Resort is having it’s first underwater wedding; everybody is excited, not only the couple that is about to get married.

Underwater Wedding Pictures Part 3

Like on every wedding, there has to be a big party, and this one was huge! At the Rasta Bar in Chalok baan Kao, just opposite of Big Bubble, the underwater wedding celebration went on until the early morning hours.

Underwater Wedding Pictures Part 4

And at the end we all thought that it was such a great and memorable day, that we just want to do it again! Not with Nadine and Nico though, we hope they stay happily together ever after, but if you want to get married once – and you want to do something really, really special, talk to us and let us arrange the most important day of your life for you.

Big Bubble can also arrange a photographer or even an underwater videographer to produce a really cool marriage video and some great shots for the family album. Have a look at the video short version of Nadine and Nicos underwater wedding.

The PADI Advanced Open Water Diving Course consists of five dives, each of them designed to either improve your scuba diving skills or to teach you more about one of the many facets of the fascinating underwater world. Two of these five dives are so called ‘core’ or ‘mandatory dives’. The two core dives are, Deep Diving and Navigation Diving and you will have to complete these dives, to obtain your Advanced Open Water Certification. The Deep Diving Lesson will extend your allowed diving depth to 30 meters! The navigation Lesson is very helpful in case you loose your way underwater. The remaining three dives, are your personal choice and you can pick them from a list of adventure dives. For these 3 dives you can choose subjects that actually interest you on a personal level, for instance, if you’re interested in photography in general, then maybe you would like to choose the Underwater Photography dive. PADI offers you quite a variety of dives to choose from.

Here are your options:

• Altitude Diving*
• PADI AWARE Fish Identification
• Boat Diving
• Diver Propulsion Vehicles (DPV)
• Drift Diving*
• Dry Suit Diving*
• Multilevel and Computer Diving
• Night Diving
• Peak Performance Buoyancy (PPB)
• Search and Recovery
• Under Water Naturalist
• Underwater Videography
• Wreck Diving.
• Underwater Photography and Digital Photography

*Obviously, some of the adventure dives listed above, are not possible to be completed on Koh Tao. Such as for instance altitude diving (we don’t have a lake on the island over 300 meters in elevation) so we will do our best to make you happy with one of the other dives.

The Advanced Open Water Course takes usually 2-3 days and the price includes the PADI AOWD Book and the use of all standard diving equipment. Our scuba diving equipment is regularly serviced and always in excellent condition!

Big Bubble Dive Resort offers a 10% discount on all continuing diving courses after the PADI Open Water Course!

Book Scuba Diving Courses and Fun Dive Packages here!
Book your PADI Advanced Open Water Course right here!

Underwater Wedding on Koh Tao Thailand – The Marine Marriage

During the past decade scuba diving has worldwide become a most popular recreational sport with a steady growing rate. Now, while horse riders marry on horse backs and golfers marry in golf carts, why not marry under water if scuba diving is your both’ hobby? Nadine and Nico wanted to do just that and found with Big Bubble a Dive Resort who was willing to go for it. We have always been eager to try out new stuff and this sounded exciting; a Marine Marriage! Enjoy some underwater pictures made by Sandra Slade of Big Bubbles first Underwater Wedding

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<< Underwater Wedding – Preparation
<< Underwater Wedding – On the Boat
>> Underwater Wedding – The Party

The resort is set in and around a beautiful tranquil garden, you’re welcome to come and sit in our traditional style hammocks, as the sun filters through the coconut trees above. Or enjoy a traditional Thai massage in the garden. The open-plan restaurant, overlooking the beach, serves tasty Thai and Western food from morning to evening. It’s a perfect spot for getting away from it all, nicely cool in hot weather and cozy if it rains. Troicana is in walking distance to Big Bubble Dive Resort and several bars and restaurants along the beach.

Accommodation with air condition and hot water 1600,- Baht – w/o air con 800,- Baht

Accommodation with air condition and hot water 1200,- Baht

Room with Fan and cold water 550,-

Room with fan and cold water 400,- Baht

Please contact us for reservations at Tropicana Resort and/or for more information about scuba diving with Big Bubble.

Underwater Wedding on Koh Tao Thailand – The Wedding Party

While an underwater wedding is a lot more fun than any other wedding we’ve heard of, it also makes thirsty… very thirsty! And like any other wedding an underwater wedding also requires an appropriate party. Nadine and Nico’s party wasn’t held under water though; because of all the tank filling and Mio participating on the party, we’ve decided to move the party to the Rasta Bar.  Enjoy some party pictures at the Rasta Bar in Chalok baan Kao, opposite of Big Bubble Dive Resort.

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<< Underwater Wedding – Preparation
<< Underwater Wedding – On the Boat
<< Underwater Wedding – The Wedding

During the PADI Open Water Diving Course you have learned about the basics of scuba diving and you have mastered dive knowledge and dive skills. You have also learned how to take care of yourself underwater and on the surface. In the Advanced Open Water Course, your focus has broadened to include more of the underwater environment in a variety of situations.

In the PADI Rescue Diver Course, we will take you one step further. You will learn how to prevent problems, and how to manage dangerous situations. In the Rescue Diving Course your focus will be on helping others, either on the dive boat or underwater, without endangering yourself. Your knowledge will be built up on what you have already learned in your previous diving courses. The PADI Rescue Diver Course is both demanding and rewarding. After you have become a certified PADI Rescue Diver, you will dive with far more self-confidence.

To participate on the PADI Rescue Diver Course you need to be at least 15 years of age, you need to have at least 20 logged dives and to be certified as a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver or equivalent. It is also a prerequisite that you are in possession of a valid First Aid Certificate, not older than two years. If you don’t have any such certification, either from a school or fire department, you can easily obtain an Emergency First Response certificate, right here at Big Bubble Dive Resort. It will only take one day! The Emergency First Response (EFR) Course is far more scuba diving specific than any other first aid course could ever be. So you may even want to consider taking part on this course anyway. You will learn about the different types of diving injuries such as jellyfish stings, sea urchin wounds and other marine life injuries.

What will you learn in the PADI Rescue Diving Course?

• First of all… Self Rescue!
• Recognizing and managing stress on fellow divers
• Different forms of stress and their symptoms and “signals”
• Handling first-aid materials
• First-aid procedures
• Swimming and non-swimming assists
• Underwater problems
• Rescuing panicked divers
• Rescuing unresponsive divers
• Egress (different types of exits)

Big Bubble Dive Resort offers a 10% discount on all continuing diving courses after the PADI Open Water Course!

Book Scuba Diving Courses and Fun Dive Packages here!
Book your PADI Rescue Diver Course right here!