Why dive Phuket with Vin?
- Full-time PADI Pro since 2004.
- Diving Phuket since 2007.
- 11,000+ dives at 2020 and counting.
- 1,000+ student diver certifications.
- Languages: English, Thai, French.
I love my job! I hope that shows when and with whomever I dive.
I'm a thoroughly professional recreational and technical scuba instructor with an excellent safety record.
Even after many years in the diving business, I still have a strong passion for all aspects of diving, from helping beginners with their first dives, to teaching open-circuit technical diving.
I'm really happy to share all my experience and knowledge of diving Phuket to help divers get the most out of their time underwater.
“We dived with Vin!”
Testimonials from divers like you
Mia
Sidemount Diving
“With him you get to experience, learn, and enjoy the most!”
Ked
Deep & Rescue
“As always, it was AWESOME! Gained more than I expected.”
Wendy
Cavern Diving
“Can't wait to visit Phuket and dive with you again end of this year!”
Find many more on TripAdvisor and Google Reviews
How can I help you dive Phuket?
PADI courses & dive tours
New to diving / Not certified
Discover Scuba / Get Certified
Helping people through their first scuba dives is a wonderful experience, and the PADI Discover Scuba Diving course allows you to dive without the commitment of a full certification course.
Can't swim? Don't worry, it's not required for Discover Scuba Diving: I take many people, who can't swim, on their first dives.
Discover Scuba Diving is a great way to see if you like diving first, before deciding to take the PADI Open Water certification course; in fact, I recommend doing it that way!
Certified Divers
Next Level Diver Training
Taking the PADI Advanced Open Water course straight after your Open Water will increase your depth limit and diver skills. I'd also recommend doing your Nitrox course at the same time: A great combination to get the best out of most of the dives you'll ever do and also required for tech diving.
After Advanced Open Water, I'd suggest PADI Specialties to extend your abilities and get more experience. Specialty dives may also allow you to dive at sites not available to you before; I teach 20+ PADI Specialties!
Then you are set to do PADI Rescue Diver...
Phuket's Diving Tours
Phuket offers a huge variety of marine-life for all levels of divers, to whom I love to show as many cool critters as possible.
The daytrips from Phuket include 3 main diving destinations: The Racha Islands, Koh Phi Phi and a 3 dive combination of either The King Cruiser Wreck, Koh Doc Mai, Shark Point or Anemone Reef; although the King Cruiser trip is for experienced / advanced divers.
Beach diving, night diving and diving on a liveaboard tour are also avaliable, but these are mostly seasonal.
How to become a better diver?
Continue diver training
When divers ask, "What diving course to take next?", I ask this:
- What scuba activities interest you?
- What will help you be a better diver?
- What will get you to new dive sites?
- What dive skills do you want to learn?
- What are you happy doing within your time-frame and budget?
Depending on course requirements, they are then usually ready to choose the one that suits them best and get the most out of it.
Not dived in a while?
No worries... Either take a brief refresher during a dive tour
or take your next diving certification course and refresh skills
then.
Not PADI?
Not a problem... Cross over to PADI from another recognised
scuba certification, simply by taking your next course.
Be a PADI diver.
Be a BETTER diver.
Dive Phuket with
Vin.
Every person is different and I don't expect anyone to be perfect in the water.
Sure, with all diving courses there are performance requirements to be met. I help you reach your goals and then you can get better with practice.
Even for me, there is always something to be learned or improve apon!
Extend your diving limits
3 of my favourite scuba activities
Sidemount Diving
2 streamlined sidemounted tanks feels so good! More gas to dive with and allows for deco diving, caverns and caves.
Cavern & Cave Diving
The calm control necessary to dive beautiful caverns and caves is almost like meditation. It's an amazing experience!
Where's best to dive in Phuket?
Phuket's diving day trips
Racha Noi & Racha Yai
- Perfect for all levels of divers
- Great for almost all diver training
- Ideal for snorkeling buddies
Usually easy diving and good visibility on hard coral, boulder & artificial reefs. Though less abundant, there's different marine life that adds great variety to multiple days of diving.
Koh Phi Phi & Bida Islands
- More for semi-experienced divers
- Great for most diver training
- Good for confident snorkellers
A good mixture of hard & soft coral reefs, with fairly easy diving, though more varied visibility. Offers a lot of marine life; in particular big schools of fish and often sharks & turtles.
King Cruiser, Shark Point, Doc Mai
- For experienced/advanced divers
- For advanced courses/specialties
- Not for snorkeling
A wreck heaving with fish, a big soft-coral reef dive and a fab macro-life wall dive. The King Cruiser, Shark Point & Koh Doc Mai probably have the most variety of things to see.
Get the best Phuket diving
Dive with the benefit of experience
Getting the best out of diving Phuket takes knowledge, experience, good judgement & timely preparation.
Dive Phuket with experience!
I've been diving Phuket since 2007 and it continues to be an amazing place to dive. I still find new and rare critters from time to time and there is always something special to find and show other divers!
One benefit of having so many dives around Phuket is knowing where to look for the cool stuff. Another is knowing how to get the most of a dive site on a partiular day, with varied currents, conditions and also the differing abilities of my dive buddies / students.
Easy to book, well organised day-trips on big well-fitted boats to great dive spots, local to Phuket.
How Phuket's dive trips run?
Diving around Phuket is mostly done from large well-fitted boats, as it envolves full days-trips, with journeys to most dive sites being 90 minutes or more. Good facilities are therefore required, providing comfort and amenaties: breakfast, hot cooked lunches, snacks and beverages etc.
Space for your dive gear, a place to relax, and toilets go without saying of course! Air tanks and weights are provided but gear rental, Nitrox & other non-standard tanks usually extra.
Should you dive Phuket in high-season or low-season? What's the difference and does it matter?
When's best to dive Phuket?
Diving in Phuket is all year round. When's best, is more down to weather and currents than the time of year. In my experience, the low-season (May to October) simply has the least dependable weather: it can change swiftly from what's forecasted. Sure, it's likely to have a bit more wind and rain, but sometimes the low-season also has the best weather of the year!
Currents, due to tide changes, have a regular pattern and can also affect the conditions, depending on the dive site.
Adapt to conditions and you shouldn't have a 'bad' dive... but a little forethought is a good idea!
Where's best to dive in Phuket?
Where's best for you to dive mostly comes down to your skill level and the conditions at dive sites. Because conditions change, I refer to these 2 resources: Phuket's Weather Forecast and Phuket's Tides. Then I use my best judgement, based on many years of experience, to help you.
However, adapting to conditions are all part of being a better diver, so there's usually very little reason for having a ‘bad' dive. Besides, even if it's raining in Phuket, what else are you going to do? At least, when diving, you'll enjoy getting wet!