Koh Lipe is a small, tranquil island in the very south of Thailand. It is the picture postcard representation of Thai paradise. It has multiple pristine white sand beaches, only a few streets, outstanding scuba diving, and enough restaurants and bars to take the edge off without feeling engulfed in any type of party hell.
I spent a week there in April 2024 and then came back in February 2026. Most of the pictures are from my first trip and most of the dive videos are from my second trip.
There is a walk street that runs through a side of the island. It’s full of quaint shops, restaurants, bars and dive shops.
Diving in Koh Lipe
The casual entrance to the dive shop where I did all my diving from.
The dive shop I used was right on the beach and it was an easy walk to the small speeboat we used to get to the dive sites.
One of the most popular dive sites here is called Stonehedge because it has large rectangular shaped stones pushed together that somewhat resembles the famous site in the UK it is named after. Its popularity is due to all the colorful, lush soft coral that is draped all over this site.
One of the best dive sites in Koh Lipe is called 8 Mile because it’s about 8 miles from the island. It’s based around two underwater pinnacles. It’s in the open ocean so there is a ton of large marine life there, as well as strong currents. Every once in a while whale sharks can be spotted there.
As you can see below, it presented a rich tapestry of sea life.
Trevallies seem to be the mid-sized apex predators of the areas of Thailand I dove in. They are very aggressive, move in packs, and when they hunt smaller fish scatter rapidly away.
Near the end of the video you can see some batfish devouring a jellyfish. Good riddance!
As with most everything at 8 Mile, the moray eels are larger than you’d see nearer the shore. Here two hang out together.
I really haven’t seen many filefish while I’ve been diving, so I was happy to capture these three. They’re really cool looking fish.
While the other dive sites aren’t as dramatic as Stonehenge or 8 Mile, they offer a rich variety of diverse small and mid sized sealife.
Cuttlefish are one of my favorite animals to see underwater. They are relatives of octupus and it’s fascinating to watch them change colors as they move through different underwater landscapes.
Here’s another cuttlefish with a crab leg hanging out of the left of it’s face.
The star of small sealife are nudibranches. They are a type of sea slug that have over 1,000 species with diverse colors and shapes. Here’s a small sample of their diversity.
Ghost pipefish are the much more ornate cousins of seahorses. They have incredible complex and unique designs.
We also saw a number of seahorses in our dives. Here are two examples.
It’s fascinating to how something so ugly as a scorpionfish can blend in so well with its surroundings.
More impressive at camoflage and even more ugly are the highly venomous stonefishes. Here are two cuddled together. You can just see the outline of their frowning jaws.
Another highly venomous creature is a sea snake.
Pufferfish, boxfish and cowfish all have a similar shapes and swimming styles.
A white eyed moray eel figuring out its next move.
Believe it or not this “leaf” floating by is actually a leaffish.
A jellyfish floated by us and almost drifted into our dive guide.
A small lionfish relaxes in a sponge surrounded by dozens of unappealing looking sponge worms.
You can’t have any sets of dive videos without including the hectic antics of clownfish.
This one wasn’t sure what to do about my GoPro.
A small lobster hiding in the rocks.
Here’s a hermit crab with a huge shell that looks like an algae infested rock.
There are a ton of diverse types of tiny shrimp and crabs all over these sites.
There was a lot of very healthy coral patches in most of the sites we dove at.
Here’s a small field of sea anemones waving in the current.
The Songkran Festival
Songkran is the Thai New Year holiday where the idea is to use water to wash away your sins. It’s evolved into a crazy four day holiday every April where essentially the entire country loses its collective minds and completely drenches each other in water. It’s a fun, light hearted experience, but I imagine by day four most people are ready for it to end.
Here’s what the chaos looks like in Bangkok.
Koh Lipe is a very small island. So its Songkran celebration is also very small. It only lasts one day and there are just a few islands of liquid chaos on the main walking street. Which was fine by me…I didn’t want to spend a full four days dodging water.
I stayed in a nice hotel near the walking street and my dive shop that had an outstanding free breakfast each morning.
