Phi Phi Dives: Koh Bida Nai

Koh Bida Nai (or Inner Father Island) is the smaller sister island of Koh Bida Nok, and probably my favourite dive site in the area. It is of very similar topography to Bida Nok, with a sheer wall on the west side and a sloping sandy bottom on the east.

The corals along the wall are beautiful - lots of soft corals and big bush corals where it is often possible to find the smaller critters like tiger-tail seahorses, ornate ghost pipefish and frogfish. Also look for numerous types of nudibranc's, shrimps and moray eels on the wall itself.

On the eastern side, there is a huge field of staghorn coral - have a look in there for giant moray eels, peacock mantis shrimp, and there are lots of anemone's so plenty of opportunity to find Nemo. A little deeper is a rocky outcrop which we call 'Fantasy Reef', and it lives up to its name! You can often see big schools of barracuda circling overhead, banded sea kraits, big schools of common lionfish, trevally coming in to hunt, and hawksbill turtles. You may also encounter leopard sharks resting in the sandy areas.

There are a couple of beautiful swim-thru's which lead to a shallow coral garden where we normally start or finish the dive depending on the direction of the current. There is an abundance of reef fish here, but also look out for some special things like ribbon eels, cuttlefish and octopus. What we also spend time looking for are black tip reef sharks. Although it is possible to see them all around the site, they like to hang out in the shallow areas, we can often see many of them swimming around here - a perfect way to finish your dive :)

Again, this site is accessible year round and is suitable for all levels of divers, often with visibility of 15-25m. Normally we do this as the first dive on the second day of our overnight trip, but the site is so good that we sometimes do it as the third dive on the first day too. Contact us to book your space for the Overnight special: info@calypsophuket.com