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, mostly diving, and could easily have spent more time.
There is a walk street that runs through a side of the island. It’s full of quaint shops, restaurants, bars and dive shops.
The entrance to the dive shop on the beach where I did all my diving from.
Diving in Koh Lipe
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!
Some more very large batfish floating by us.
Three large barracudas escape the current between some rocks as a few trevallies swim around them.
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 not as dramatic as 8 Mile, the other dives sites I went to were also excellent. Here a juvenile nurse shark is hanging out under some rocks.
There were pockets of abundant sea life in these dive sites as well.
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.
I saw a number of moray eels on these dives, but this one was unique for its white spotted coloring.
It’s fascinating to how something so ugly as a scorpionfish can blend in so well with its surroundings. Although this first one didn’t do so well against the pink coral.
Ghost pipefish look like little tufts of floating coral. There are two of these fish in each of the videos below.
These big-eyed plankton feeding sweeperfish are cool to watch in their little group.
A crab playing peek-a-boo as a large clownfish guards the anenome.
A nice group of tiny shrimp jerking around in the coral.
A cool looking little shrimp peeking out from the coral.
A large nudibranch trying to decide whether to move forward.
There was a lot of very healthy coral in most of the sites we dove at.
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.
