Yak Yai is the bigger brother of the nearby Koh Yak Lek. This stunning reef has so much variation from the sloping hard corals on the south, the coral whip garden on the east, anemones to the north and blue staghorn plantation to the west. This site is beginner friendly but still offers great views for the more experienced diver.
Expect to see blue spot grouper, bannerfish, butterflyfish, many colourful wrasse and blue-spotted stingrays. Remember to ask your instructor to take you to ‘puffer-rock’ to look for cobia and huge jenkins whiprays!
Koh Yak Lek is the smaller of the two Koh Yaks when you look from the surface but once underwater you will see how vast it really is with a curious outcropping for the north where you can find whiptail stingrays hiding in the sand and beautiful flatworms. You will find a beautiful terrace of hard corals including large tabletop corals that meet vibrant purple whip corals. This site is known for its massive school of yellow fusiliers that you can spend up to 10 minutes swimming through. Home to many nudibranchs, lionfish, pink skunk clownfish, goatfish, batfish and even a turtle.
Koh Mapring is one of the smaller islands in the marine park. It is a great site to begin your ‘Try Dive’ experience. Here you can start at the beach and slowly work your way to the main reef. The life is quite astounding for such a small island, you can find schools of small yellowtail barracuda, blue spotted stingrays, fusiliers, flatworms, tusk fish and if you spend some time over the sand in a special area you’ll see jenkins whip rays and even the chance of a seahorse!
It’s best not go all the way around the island as one part is very shallow and rocky.
We consider this the best reef in the Marine Park. 3 Finger Reef is a large rock formation with 3 large bays on the east, a stunning 10m deep wall on the south and stunning coral fields everywhere in between!
It is the largest reef in the area and certainly not one to miss out on. This reef bring in all sorts of marine life but our highlight is the wall on the south. It is covered in stunning hard and soft corals. The local Nudis love this wall as does a resident yellow box fish.
Because of its location on the west side of the marine park facing open ocean Koh Tien is a vastly different reef to all others at the marine park. It has a shallow side which is wonderful for snorkels with a huge array of corals and fish. The other side has many large rocky formations that rays and larger fish like to hide in and around.
This site will bring out the Indiana Jones in you, exploring this large rock formation with huge canyons will make you feel like you are in a different world. Because this site is located on the outside of the marine park it draws in much larger fish and larger schools of fish. It’s common to find yourself surrounded by thousands of trevally at a time here!
If you head east over a beautiful outcropping you will find some amazing individual pinnaces and a small cave that can be entered if you wish.
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