Diving Phuket With Vin?
My love for scuba diving means that I'll go that extra step, whether it's to help new divers overcome problems during their first PADI courses or to make sure that experienced divers get the best out of diving Phuket.
Obviously, it's always safety first, completing all requirements for any courses second, and then making sure that you are more than satisfied with your diving. Within that, diving Phuket should be fun and exciting, and I like to be adventurous as possible within the scope of your certifications and comfort level.
I'm particularly passionate about teaching specialized courses that enable divers to experience new environments and activities, and to maximize diving enjoyment through improving their abilities and the 'art of diving'.
I have the knowledge and experience to get you the best diving on the day and / or to help you to become a better diver. And when it comes to seeing special marine life, although there's always some luck involved, through good communication and organization, I'll help you get the most out of diving Phuket.
Dive Phuket better with Vin...
PADI Courses That I Teach
You'll likely have found my website when looking for
Tec Diving Phuket or more
specialized PADI Specilties such as Sidemount Diving and Cavern
Diving. So I've started off the list with the more 'interesting'
PADI courses for experienced certified divers.
The 'Special PADI Courses' tend to have more prerequisites, use specialized dive gear or require more time & dedication to complete - but all well worth it!
Or perhaps you are new to diving and have found my website
because you'd prefer to
learn from a PADI instructor with
many years of experience and multiple diving skill sets to draw
upon. So next I've listed the
PADI courses I recommend for new divers.
Lastly, I've grouped together PADI courses for advancing your diver skills / techniques, and then a bunch of 'fun' courses that allow for seeing lots of marine life.
Special PADI Courses
I thoroughly recommend these PADI courses for certified divers who want to extend their diving range and capabilities, and allow for diving in more specialized environments:
Self-Reliant Diver • Sidemount • Tec Sidemount • Cavern • Tec 40 • Tec 45 • Tec 50 • Full Facemask Diver • PADI Divemaster
New Diver Courses
PADI courses I that recommend for new divers. This suggested progression of courses will enable you to get the best out of most of the dives that you'll likely ever want to do:
Discover Scuba Diving • Open Water • Advanced Open Water • Enriched Air Nitrox • Deep Diver Specialty • Emergency First Response (EFR) • Rescue Diver
Advancing Diver Skills
Although some skills and techniques from these courses can be self-taught, with the right instructor you'll get a lot more from these PADI courses than just the basics:
Drift • Multilevel • Night • Peak Performance Buoyancy • Search & Recovery • Underwater Navigator • Wreck • Equipment Specialist (classroom only)
Fun PADI Courses
These PADI courses allow you to focus more on marine life - quite literally with the photography and videographer specialties! Lots of fun seeing cool critters while learning:
Digital Underwater Photography • Seahorse Distinctive Specialty • Underwater Videographer • AWARE Coral Reef Conservaion • AWARE Shark Conservation
My PADI Awards
20 Years as a PADI Pro. A broad
knowledge base, exemplary dive skills, good communication, a
head for logistics, confident diver management, and patience are
all required for being a great scuba instructor. Trust me,
experience really counts!
Numerous Elite Instructor awards.
Awarded based on diver certifications acheived during each year.
Since it's start in 2013, I have received many awards, and have
far in excess of 1000 diver certifications, from beginner to tec
certifications.
My Diving Experience
Diving Phuket & Similans etc.
From 2007 to 2024, I've logged around 10,000 dives at Phuket's local diving destinations including Racha Yai, Racha Noi, King Cruiser Wreck, Shark Point, Anemone Reef, Koh Doc Mai, Koh Keaow, Koh Maithon, Koh Bida Nok and Nai, Phi Phi Ley, Phi Phi Don, Mosquito Island, Bamboo Island and Kata Beach. And currently I'm logging around 500 dives a year...
I've also around 2,000 dives at liveaboard destinations including the Similan Isles, Koh Bon, Koh Tachai, Richelieu Rock, the Surin Islands, Koh Haa, Hin Deang, Hin Mueang and Koh Rok.
Additional diving experience includes more than 1,000 dives around Koh Tao and the Angthong marine park, plus dives at various sites around Koh Lipe and the Tarutao marine park.
I'm also a rebreather instructor and therefore have many dives using both closed-circuit and semi-closed rebreathers. Sure, I've had some great dives on rebreather! However, my preference is open-circuit diving - nothing like a cool breath of fresh gas from a scuba tank in Phuket's warm waters!
Add to all of that, my technical, sidemount and cave diving skills, plus years of experience as a tour leader on both day-trip and live-aboard boats and you can see that divers would well looked after and in experienced hands.
My Diving History
I first learned to dive when I was 15 years old. Back then, I learned through an older system with a different organization, not quite as easy and progressive as PADI have made it since.
Learning to dive, one evening a week after school, was a lot of fun! But my first open water dive was in an estuary in the UK during October. We had no wetsuits, just cut-down jeans and t-shirts, and it was freezing, pitch black and I didn't find it fun at all!
Some years later, I dove a few times in a large fresh water lake that had a dive club next to it. It was ok, though I'd appreciate it a lot more now, after having a bunch more dives in freshwater environments as part of my cave diving experiences.
Then many years later, I went freediving on holiday in Thailand and realized just how good the underwater world could be - just like in all those Jacques Cousteau documentaries I'd watched as a kid.
As luck would have it, during an overnight bus journey from Bangkok, I chatted with an Assistant Instructor who was living and working in Thailand. As I knew I could dive already, that conversation sparked the idea to change my life and become a full time PADI professional!
Scuba diving is absolutely one of the best things I've done in life! So I find teaching diving and sharing the underwater world with others comes very naturally, and I try to make it exciting and adventurous, just as it still is for me.
My student divers have often said that they love the way I integrate seeing marine life into divng courses. Apparently I'm also noted for my patience - though I often refer to myself as being 'pushy'. Another way of putting it would be 'very organised and efficient' - to help divers get the best out of their Phuket diving experience.
So if you are coming to dive Phuket, whether it's to take a scuba course or just for some fun dives, please get in touch and let me know how I can help you with you diving.