The sites off Samae San offer some of the best diving in the area.
Most people that go to dive at Samae San go to dive on the Hardeep shipwreck but both Koh Chan and Koh Chuang are very good coral dives in themselves.
Koh Chuang is a large island to the south of the ship wreck and we dive on the southern most point of this island, the hard coral life is very good with abundant small fish as well as the occasional turtle and cuttlefish.
The maximum depth of this dive site is 12 meters and although the dive site is quite small it has some very interesting invertebrate life.
Koh Chan is south east of the wreck and as with Koh Chuang we dive on its southernmost point, here there are lots of large boulder bommies and as you descend further down the ridge into the soft coral you will find literally hundreds of yellowtail jacks that will circle around you.
At this depth also you will find sleeping tawny nurse sharks under the rocks as well as a large variety of different eels.
Hardeep Wreck
The Hardeep was an Indonesian-registered freighter that sank in 1943 and therefore has had plenty of time to turn into the soft coral and tube sponge garden that it is today.
As fishing across the wreck is virtually impossible the fish on the wreck live to be older and larger than do their cousins in the coral reefs.
The fish life on the Hardeep includes Jacks, Trevellys, Butterflyfish, many varieties of Angelfish, Queenfish, large Wrasse and many juvenile Barracuda.
The wreck itself is vary diver friendly and at only 42 meters in length can easily be thoroughly explored in one dive day.
There are some very large open cargo holds that allow in a lot of light as well as the engine room that still has the crankshaft intact.
The wreck sits on its starboard side so the deck is in front of you giving the dive an interesting angle.
As the wreck sits in 27 meters of water it can only be dived by those over entry level or of course those taking either the Adventure Diver or Advanced Open Water course.