Congratulations and welcome to our 4 newest SSI Instructors! Mark Brooker, Kevin McLoughlin, Marty Pinkstone and Tangui Le Clech. All 4 have upgraded to SSI from PADI and we look forward to working with them!

On the 12th of Aug,

Big Blue team are getting together to help save our sharks and support a anti shark finning campaign.

This will take place at Big Blue Diving in a couple of weeks time. The goal is to get sponsored for a 3.4km swim around Koh Nang Yuan. What actually happens is our Divemasters in training, DM team, Instructors, Instructors in training, BB Tech and the Big Blue beach bums (which there are many this time of year) talk themselves up for weeks then try their best not to be last or need rescuing. As normal instructor certifier SSimo and Divemaster mentor Nick will be putting pride on the line as they go head-to-head. Who will win? They were both shown up last year by a girl..... To be fair she did swim for Canada in the world championships and is this year's favourite. SSimo swam for his life once when he fell in between shopping trolleys in the River Mersey and Nick must have come first at least once to be with us today.

Once all have been rescued and pats on the backs are complete we all had down to the Big Blue bar to have a sponsored shave. The team shave funny shapes into their hair to raise their profile on the island and to get a new facebook pic. Oh, and as it's sponsored, they have to keep the crazy cut for a month. So if you are coming next month to take one of our scuba diving courses please dont be shocked.

Last year, Koh Tao's dive community raise over 17,000 baht and over 400 signatures for anti-shark finning campaign support - lets see if we can beat that this year!!

Come join us on August 12th for the big swim!

10 - 11 Meet at Big Blue Dive Resort for registration and welcome drinks

11 - 12 Shark conservation talk and petition signing

1 - 4 Swim time!! Swim 3.4 km around Koh Nang Yuan

7 - late Evening festivities including sponsored Shave for Sharks, live music, and drink deals (Big Blue 2 - Pranee resort)

Save our sharks, save our seas!

Jara Corbi and Manuel Pelaez from Spain came into Big Blue Diving and handed in their CVs in the hope of finding work.

After a chat about the best way to find scuba diving jobs on Koh Tao, Jara and Manuel came back the next day to double there chances of finding instructor work, and both enrolled in a Scuba Schools International cross-over to the dark side.

Big Blue Instructor Training is the only SSI professional training center in South East Asia to have two Instructor Trainers on staff.  Come to think of it, it’s also the only one to have an Instructor Certifier and Instructor Trainer, and the only one to have a Platinum Pro 5000 Instructor Trainer and Instructor Certifier.

Because we have these two IT’s on full time staff, we can start crossovers, divemaster upgrades and instructor upgrades everyday.

This really helped out Jara and Manual as they were in a rush to get their SSI instructor rating so they could start work during high season on Koh Tao.

Ricky and Anke, who did their crossovers at the beginning of the month, have now finished their internships and work at Big Blue, the world’s largest SSI dealer.  Anke just finished a Stress and Rescue Course and started an open water course today.  Rick, who finished his internship with a massive 24 specialty certifications, started his first solo course today with three Advanced Adventure divers.

Well done guys, you are all becoming great instructors.

To change your life and become the best instructor you can, e-mail us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Big Blue Instructor Training has the best reputation on Koh Tao for producing the best Dive Masters. We give them the choice of both SSI and PADI. To help them make the most of their course, we have SIX full time mentors (from all over the world), with over 50 years experience in the diving industry. Being the "Goldilocks of dive schools" (thanks Lonely Planet), and having four dive boats (that aren't stuck to the same two dive sites everyday), our internship Dive Masters get to dive every site Koh Tao has to offer, time and time again. If you want to know more about doing your Dive Master, email us at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Book in the next two months and get a free upgrade to assistant instructor! 

More and more people are choosing to have the best of both worlds.

We will cross over a total of 8 amazing dive instructors by the end of the month.

If you want to join in email us.

As the weekend comes to an end and you are  thinking of work tomorrow, spare a thought for our new Instructor Training candidate Jo Prickett,

She had to give up her weekends in the UK for a few months to save up the money to start her new life as a dive instructor. Jo will be starting her ITC tomorrow which will take 9 days to complete plus two days Respond Right First Aid and O2 instructor training. The she will have to pass a Instructor Exam which is a two day evaluation bt an SSI Instructor Certifier on her teaching skills and diving knowledge. We boast a 100% pass rate and Jo has done all her training with us so this should be a swim in the sea for her.

If this sounds better than your Monday morning email us This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

We can help you whatever your level. We start courses from Open Water to Dive Master everyday, with instructor courses starting once a month.

“If you’re a man and ate this fish, you would have a busy night with your woman. Guaranteed!” said a fish seller at Paotere fish market in Makassar during a recent visit. He was in the middle of cutting open a female black tip reef shark pregnant with three pups.

I was so tempted to reply, “Whatever happened to STMJ ("susu-telur-madu-jahe," a traditional concoction of milk, egg yolk, honey and ginger for stamina)? Do people still drink it for aphrodisiac?”

“Especially the young, their meat tastes very tender! They’re best for grilling!” he continued, holding an unborn pup in his hands. He smiled with pride. The blood of the poor female predator puddled around his feet.

As he continued mutilating the female shark, he kept on coaxing me to either buy the baby sharks or their mother’s meat. He said I should make a quick decision because shark meat was very popular and could be sold out within minutes.

He wasn’t talking nonsense, of course. When I looked around, a crowd had already gathered, waiting for their shark meat. Some even pre-ordered their share.

I asked the seller if he was aware that shark meat is poisonous. “Poisonous? Really? No way! Where did you hear that? All I know is, it tastes great and makes me a lot of money!”

China Says No More Shark Fin Soup at State Banquets China will prohibit official banquets from serving shark fin soup, an expensive and popular delicacy blamed for a sharp decline in global shark populations. The ban, reported by Xinhua, the state-run news agency, could take as many as three years to take effect, and it remains unclear how widely it will be adhered to across a sprawling nation where orders issued by Beijing are often shrugged off by officials in faraway regions and provinces.