Koh Lipe & Tarutao

The dive centres are all on Ko Lipe itself, several of them on Pattaya Beach or the Walking Street behind it, and the day runs out from there on small fleets of day boats into the Butang archipelago. Distances are short in most directions, and operators sell one, two or three dives a day around Ko Adang, Ko Rawi and Ko Talang. The exception is 8 Mile Rock, a deep pinnacle about 75 minutes offshore that gets its own dedicated run. Currents are tidal, and the widest choice of sites opens twice a month around the half moon. The house reef off the beach is a shore entry to a maximum of 5 m, and it is where courses start.

The terrain is granite rather than fringing reef. Boulders pile down from the islands in steps and ridges, from about 5 m to 25 or 30 m, and the gaps between them hold hard coral in good condition; Tarutao is one of Asia's oldest marine parks and the 2004 tsunami did little damage here. Stonehenge is the set piece, a dome carpeted in soft coral from 6 m to a sandy base at 12-18 m. The corners at the northwest and southwest tips of Ko Lipe add short walls and coral gardens between 12 and 30 m, and the Yong Hua wreck sits apart from all of it in 30-40 m of water.

The name bundles two things: Ko Lipe, the settled island where the dive shops and beds are, sits on the border of Tarutao National Marine Park rather than inside it, while most of the named sites lie in park water around Ko Adang, Ko Rawi, Ko Talang and Ko Tarutao. In practice that means a park admission fee on arrival and a destination that suits divers who want a low-key island base covering everything from a first open-water course to a technical wreck. Divers set on deep offshore pinnacles and long liveaboard weeks are better served about 90 km north at Hin Daeng and Hin Muang or in the Similans.