Racha Islands Scuba Diving
In the Andaman Sea south of Phuket are two islands, Koh Racha Noi and Koh Racha Yai. Its shallow bays and reefs are good for beginner and experienced divers.
Both islands are year round dive sites with good visibility. The sites on the east coast are best during the summer months from May until November when the wind blows from the west.
Koh Racha Yai
About 1½ hours by boat from Phuket is Koh Racha Yai, a beautiful island with white sandy beaches and clear waters. It hosts many dive sites with a great variety of marine life including lionfish, scorpionfish, barracuda, bannerfish, blue spotted stingray, butterflyfish, pufferfish and morays. Depths are between 2 and 25 meters.
A few of the sites around Koh Racha Yai are:
Bay 1 and Bay 2
Located near the northeast tip of Koh Racha Yai are Bay 1 and Bay 2.
Bay 1 that has a small beach is protected from wind and waves and can be dived all year round. The reef with pore corals is at depths of 5 to 25 meters. Some of the sights include moray eels, blue spotted rays, barracuda, turtles, cuttlefish, manta rays, batfish and crabs.
Bay 2 has a larger beach. The reef at depths of 12 to 30 meters has staghorn corals where divers can see parrotfish, snapper, grouper, angelfish, butterflyfish and basslets.
Five shipwrecks in Bay 1 and Bay 2 make for a fun dive.
Bay 3 (Lucy’s Reef)
At Bay 3 is a reef known as Lucy’s reef. Concrete cubes have been dumped into the sea on which hard corals like pore coral grows. The site has batfish, moray eels, lionfish, eagle rays, manta rays, cornetfish, boxfish as well as reef fish like parrotfish, grouper, snapper, angelfish, butterflyfish and basslets.
Lucy’s Reef is a good monsoon season dive site (April through November), since it is sheltered from the western winds.
Homerun Reef
On the north end of the east coast of Koh Racha Yai island is a hard coral reef named Homerun Reef at depths of 5 to 20 meters. Divers can see among others several species of snappers, goatfish, trumpetfish, cornetfish, rays, leopard sharks, parrotfish, butterflyfish, basslets and great barracuda.
Shipwrecks
Around Bay 1 and Bay 2 are five shipwrecks that make for a good dive.
An old sailing boat in Bay 1 provides a home for marine life as snappers, glass fish, giant moray eels and barracudas. Between Bay 1 and Bay 2 at 20 meters deep is the wreck of the Harruby Liveaboard that harbors schools of batfish, barracuda, bannerfish, scorpionfish and groupers. The wreck of a wooden Thai fishing boat attracts common reef fish. At a depth of 24 meters lies the wreck of a container ship that sank in 2015.
Koh Racha Noi
A little over two hours by boat from Phuket is the smaller of the two Racha Islands. Its best-known dive sites are Banana Bay and Racha Noi Bay. The deeper waters around Koh Racha Noi attract larger fish such as Manta Rays, spotted eagle rays and barracudas.
Banana Bay
On Koh Racha Noi’s east shore is Banana Bay. The shallow bay makes for a good monsoon season dive site since it is sheltered from the western winds. Dive sites are at depths between 3 and 40 meters, visibility is mostly good.
Among the marine life are hard corals like staghorn corals and fish as snappers, butterflyfish, bannerfish, eagle rays, scorpionfish, pufferfish, porcupinefish, fusiliers, lizardfish, triggerfish, basslets, reef octopus, giant morays and sea snakes as well as schools of barracudas.
Racha Noi Bay
The underwater landscape of Racha Noi Bay near the southeast tip of the island consists of boulders, sand and coral reef. The site at depths of up to 35 meters has hard and soft corals, butterfly fish, fairy basslets, lionfish, scorpionfish, eels, pipefish, cuttlefish, eagle rays and milkfish.
There is a very small island in the bay that is connected to Koh Racha Noi by a strip of sand during low tide.