Dive sites explained – King Cruiser

King Cruiser sank on the 4^th of May 1997 after a collision with Anemone Reef, a well chartered pinnacle. All passengers escaped on life rafts and picked up by nearby diving and fishing vessels.

The ship is a rebuilt, 85 meter long catamaran type, car ferry that was carrying passengers between Phuket and Phi Phi Islands and now stands completely upright at 32 meters of depth. During the years, she has rusted away and collapsed into a fantastic artificial reef, filled with gorgonians, soft coral and large schools of fish.

Access to the wreck is from a mooring line secured at the stern at around 18 meters. Due to the current, sometimes low visibility and the deep average depth, to really enjoy this dive you should be a comfortable advanced diver.

Highlights

• Right below the mooring at the stern you can find several toilets, still intact. This calls for some very interesting underwater photo shoots.
• Following the stern towards the starboards side you will find a huge propeller, half buried in the sand. This is also one entrance to swim the whole length of the ship under the hull.
• In the bow of the ship you can still find paint on the inside of one of the hulls.
• Due to the depth, Nitrox is a great way to extend the bottom times. For double cylinder tec40 or sidemount divers, there are great rewards for having a deeper profile as you can stay away from the crowd and have time investigating these parts.
• The wreck has such an abundance of schooling fish, which in turn are hunted by larger predators. Here you have a great chance spotting huge trevallies as well as leopard sharks on the bottom and other passing pelagics.

To think about

• Currents can be very strong so the mooring line should be used during both descents and ascents. As King Cruiser has many visitors, the line gets crowded at times so here we make sure to be considerate.
• There are still many swim troughs along the wreck that calls for some caution, as the rusty edges of the wreck are extremely sharp.
• Keep a close eye on the computer and gas supply as the average depth is usually deeper than 18 meters.

depth:               18 – 32 meters
current:             moderate – strong
visibility:            10 – 25 meters

You can dive King Cruiser from our dive centers in Phuket, Koh Lanta & Krabi

Kon-Tiki Krabi receives TecRec Centre Rating

We are proud to announce that our dive center in Krabi has received the prestigious PADI TecRec Centre authorization. This season the Ao Nang destination will add to our range of technical diving courses. If you are ready for a new challenge on your holiday and traveling to Koh Lanta or Krabi this season, tec diving might just be your new found activity.

Keep an eye out for our new Cavern, Sidemount, Self-Reliant and Tec courses that will be announced soon!

 

 

Book your technical diver training now…

It is time to sign up for this season technical diving courses.  Book your course before the end of August and we will give you last year’s prices.

PADI Tec 40             18,800 baht      (you save 2,200 baht)
PADI Tec 45             18,800 baht      (you save 2,200 baht)
PADI Tec 50             18,800 baht      (you save 4,200 baht)
PADI Sidemount          9,900 baht      (you save 1,000 baht)

Join us in October for our month dedicated for technical diving and receive an extra special price on this package.

Tec 40, 45 & 50        45,000 baht     (you save 7,000 baht)

Hin Muang at 50 meters – Quest for the purple fire goby

Kon-Tiki has finished “Tectober”, now November has come and with this a couple of new technical divers are certified. Besides Jonatan and Christoffer, Mikael Oddershede completed his PADI Tec40 and Tec45 course, where the qualifying dive was made in Song Hong. Apart from making the decompression dive according to plan, we have now managed to map up the various lines leading in to the darkness of the cave done by previous expeditions.

Kai was the last student in October where he over 15 dives qualified as a PADI Tec Deep diver taking the 40, 45 and 50 courses. For the final dives we had the chance to explore the deepest parts of two well-known dive sites.

Hin Daeng & Hin Muang is possibly the deepest reefs in Thailand where you still can find untouched coral down at 50 meters. These underwater mounds are way out from the coast and are usually prone to quite strong currents, this day was no exception. As we enter the water with full gear, we swiftly need to make it to the descent line and continue down. The top layer of plankton and algae is moving swiftly but past 30 meters the world becomes crystal clear and the current ceases.

Down here nitrogen narcosis is very noticeable and needs to be accounted for. Except for clear, warm conditions and “easy” diving like here, we rarely dive deeper than 45 meters on air due to this fact. But with proper training and experience we can let ourselves indulge this new world at the bottom of the sea.

The simple mission of this dive was to get another eye witness to the existence of the purple fire goby. This small but beautiful fish can be found in several places in the world. However here in Thai waters, we have only seen it here, at 50 meters on Hin Muang.

This is only one of the reasons why we go through the challenging courses of technical diving. Would you like to go places and discover parts of reefs few has ever been and seen?

Contact our local techie, Nick