Koh Bida Nai – Dive Site Info
Rating by MV Giamani: ★★★★★
Location: Phi Phi Islands
Type: sloping reef and wall
Depth: 5-30+ m
Visibility: 5-20+ m
Difficulty: beginner / intermediate
Current: mild / moderate
Cruise: 2D/2N & 2D/3N – summer schedule
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Koh Bida Nai – Description
Koh Bida Nai is a tiny limestone island situated right next to its “sister” Koh Bida Nok, at the southern end of the Phi Phi Archipelago. The spot is certainly one of the best Phi Phi Islands dive sites, as it offers very healthy reefs and a great diversity of marine life. Although it is possible to dive anywhere around the island, the most interesting part is the west side as that’s where the largest amount of marine life concentrates. When possible, depending on the current, we like to start our dive at the northern tip of the island and then drift south along the west coast throughout the dive. The first part of the dive is characterized by a sheer wall that goes over 20 meters of depth, then turns into a gently sloping sandy bottom. The wall is covered by hard and soft coral and hosts a large variety of reef fish. On the sandy bottom instead are some of the largest sea fans in the area, really impressive. At some point, further south along the west coast, the sheer wall slowly transforms into a beautiful sloping reef and at its shallower part is often possible to spot blacktip reef sharks cruising around. Apart from the “usual suspects” of the local reef life, several schools of barracudas can be found in Koh Bida Nai, from the smaller “big eye barracudas” to the much larger “pickhandle barracudas”. The dive site reef also hosts a nice school of Bat Fish (platax), very entertaining fish as they are always curious about the divers and come very close to check us out. Visibility and current conditions in Koh Bida Nai can be very variable, mostly infulenced by the tides.