Dive Review of
Sea Bees/Peach Hill Hotel and Resort in
Thailand/Phuket

 Fiji, La Paz Mexico, Belize, Grand and Little Cayman, Bahamas (Cay Sal
Bank), Great Barrier Reef, Hawaii (Big Island and Kauai) 

Dive Conditions

First drink last dive.  One hour dive.  

Boat had plenty of cubies and tables and one plug that I saw someone using
for recharging.  Rinse tanks were big and dive staff handed your camera in
carefully.  The viz wasn't that great and so backscatter (even with my
strobe) was significant at times.  Still I was kept snapping away on most
dives.  

Overall Rating

Peach Hill accomodations were very good but not lavish.  The AC worked VERY
well, comfortable beds, tv with a couple of english stations, Mini bar,
only one outlet for charging batteries was in the bathroom.  Could have
unplugged the tv but that would have been unpopular with my 17 year old
diver daughter.  Power in room shuts off when you remove the key from the
fixture by the door.  Thankfully, the AC did not as they were having a very
hot and humid month.  (Typical of April)  The Thai New Year 4/13 was fun. 
They throw water on everyone.  This meant that when being transported to
the dive shop, in seats in the back of a small pickup truck, people would
throw pans of water from the side of the street.  Saw a couple of teens
riding scooters drenched from head to foot grinning like mad.  Life is
good.  It is so hot that it is just refreshing and fun.  The Thai people
are very kind and friendly.  I felt sorry for the tailors who were
desperate to make you up some suits.  I guess business has not been too
good since the Tsunami.  

Sea Bees is run by Germans.  Everything runs like clockwork, from your
pickup at the hotel, to the appearance of your dive gear on the boat,
located near your buddies gear.  You do all your own setup and tank
switching but they take care of hauling the gear onto and off of the boat
in milk crates with your name on them.  One guide for at most 4 people.  We
were three and mostly had our own guide.  This allowed a nice slow pace for
taking pictures.  We could have asked for no guide but he helped us find
things, inflated the surface marker buoy and when my weight pouch ditched
itself loaned me a couple of pounds.  :)  Saw a couple of good size Zebra
Sharks (Leopard Sharks if you are from the southern hemisphere).  One blue
spotted ray, loads of cleaner shrimp, banded shrimp, moray eels, a couple
of sea snakes out doing their thing.  Giant clams, soft corals, beautiful
schools of fish so big you had no idea how far they went or how many there
were.  Many trigger fish mostly titan or red toothed.  One of them took
offense to our presence and bit my fin really hard and shook it.  I knew my
family and guide were just ahead of me so when I turned around I expected
to see a diver having an emergency.  I was so surprised when it was a fish.
 They had told us about them being aggressive at that site but I never saw
him coming.  I am so glad he picked something inedible.  I watched my back
at that sight after that and caught one stalking me.  He knew he was busted
and moved off.  Lots of anenomies with clown fish in them.  Stone fish,
garden eels etc.  

Food on the boat was mostly hot Thai dishes that were prepared fresh
during the morning dive.  GREAT food, (I mean that I would go to a
restaurant at home serving this).  If you hate spicy stuff I think they
would change things if you asked.  One day for reasons I didn't understand
the food was not spicy but still good.  Loads of foam mats covered places
on the boat both sunny and shady to lay down and rest during the sometimes
long commutes to the dive sites.  Large comfortable boats.  (a little less
so if completely full)  Our group varied from 13 to 32 divers on the same
boat during the week.  One day they were going to be full and split the
group into two on their 2 boats to give us more space.  I thought that was
nice.  Many dives done as drift dives.  They make it look easy to keep
track of all the small groups.  We never had long swims or upcurrent
battles to do.

Didn't see any Tsunami damage on land or at sea but we have never been
there before.  Peach Hill is up a hill so if you are nervous you would know
you were safe up there.  If you liked beaches you might have been
disappointed but hey we were on the dive boat all day so who cared.

Some mosquitos, no malaria the cdc said.  Most restaurants are open air
but there are a few shopping malls (try Central Festival) for Pizza Hut in
the cool for a change.  

Great prices.  The dive boat fed us breakfast and lunch each day.  For 3
people six dive days, air from LA, hotel, food, transfers, and trinkets
included, we spent less that $5000.  Dinner usually set the three of us
back $10.  Not per person, total.

The diving was great.  The only place we have been that was better diving
was Fiji last summer.  (see my 2 reports on that trip).  We heard the
Similans were even better but the livaboards didn't fit our tight school
schedule and Khao Lak, which has a Sea Bees that can reach them with long
day trips, was devistated by the Tsunami.  They hope to be up in Oct 2005. 
:)

If you have been diving the Carribean because it is cheaper than the
pacific do yourself a big favor and try this place.  It is not quick to get
to but well worth the trip. 

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