Koh Bidas

Bida Nok

This large pinnacle dive site would take at least three separate dives to cover the main parts of it. If you head south-west over Finger Reef, you are most likely to find the leopard sharks, which Koh Phi Phi is so famous for. Starting from the shallow bay area, you can swim over beautiful soft and hard corals, past avenues of red gorgonian sea fans, towards the wall on the back side of Finger Reef. Here the bottom drops away to a depth of 20 meters.

Remember to look down as you pass the sand patches, you might see a leopard shark or Khul’s ray. One of our Padi dive instructors saw seven leopard sharks and two black-tip reef sharks during just one dive here! In the corals you can find many small juvenile fish, shrimps and crabs and if you look out into the blue, look out for tuna, travellie and other sharks. At the end of this dive there is a cavern at 5 meters, where the light falling inside is gorgeous.

Starting on the Deep Side of Bida Nok, you can dive along the beautiful wall, where you can find small box fish, nudibranches and watch the fantastic hunting displays that the travellie and fusiliers put on in the blue. As you follow the reef into the shallower bay area, you can find many lion fish and sometimes octopus hiding amongst the rocks and corals. There’s a good chance of seeing some giant barracuda’s and some black-tip reef sharks.

Heading east out of the bay, you can see some of Koh Phi Phi’s finest corals. Many rare types of moray eel can be found hunting for crabs in the shallower sections of the reef. In the sand patches between the coral you can find stingrays and often leopard sharks. For the diver with a keen eye, there are scorpion fish and some stone fish hidden amongst the rocks on the sandy bottom.

An excellent site to do your Padi Deep Specialty Diver Course (see video below) or Padi Advanced Open Water Diver Course on !

Video about the Padi Deep Diver Specialty Course

Bida Nai

Bida Nai, the smaller of the two Bida Islands, can be comfortably explored in one or two dives. Basically a pinnacle dive site, you can find many rocky outcroppings that provide some fascinating underwater topography. There are some very nice swim troughs where there’s an excellent chance to show off your buoyancy skills. In can be quite an experience to swim through what looks like a wall, but is actually a dense school of glass fish.
In a small crack between the rocks you might find a tiger-tail seahorse, that never strays far away from it’s home. On the north side of the island, there is a huge wall that plunges down to 30 meters where there is a good chance to see black-tip reef sharks and leopard sharks. Lion fish and scorpion fish can often be found swimming around the bottom or lying on the corals, waiting for their prey. Inside the huge schools of glass fish you will be able to find nice shrimps and other smaller creatures.

Video about the Padi Peak Performance Buoyancy (PPB) Diver Course

Fantasy Reef

Hidden away between Bida Nok and Bida Nai is our favorite dive site on Koh Phi Phi: Fantasy Reef. This is one of the deepest places to dive around here – you can reach a maximum depth of around 35 meters, and because of its greater depths, it remains a very pristine reef. There is a particularly good chance to find some of the larger creatures, like big schools of giant barracuda, tuna, different kinds of sharks and sometimes the whale shark.

Bida Nok Maps:

Bida Nai Maps:

The Bida Islands pictures: