Dave Summerfield
our new Technical Instructor

We are so proud to announce that Dave Summerfield is joining the Blue Planet Team for our next season. Dave is a well known and well respected Recreational and Technical Instructor on Koh Lanta and the one the island’s instructors turn to if they want to learn Technical or Cave Diving. Dave has been a Technical Trimix Instructor (DSAT, TDI and IANTD) for over 7 years and has participated and supported diving expeditions in Mexico and Egypt. He supported Leigh Cunningham and Mark Andrews in their successful attempt of the Deepest Wreck Dive (205m) and was a team member for the Jackfish Alley Project, Egypt (130m and 5hour dive time!). He has also supported World Famous Free Diver, Carlos Costa in 2 World Records in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt. Dave’s new passion now is cave diving, which he really fell in love with after some cave dive training in Yuckton, Mexico with the World Famous Cave Diver, Mathias Andreas, in preparation for being a Primary Explorer in the Woodhouse Cave penetration (80m deep, 200m penetration, two and a half hour dive time). It is this passion that keeps him in the Krabi region. Krabi has awesome caves both above and below the surface which are still being discovered. Dave has recently been exploring Song Hong Cave just outside Krabi and well he will not stop talking about it! He is so excited about the future of this sport in Thailand. Mellisa Bunyan (Blue Planet’s co-owner) said “We are all delighted that he is joining the team. I have known Dave for many years and he is hugely respected as an instructor in Mexico, Thailand and Egypt. He will be able to increase the services we offer our guests, enabling more people to try technical diving for the first time. Dave is planning to offer both “Cavern Diving” and “Introduction to Technical” courses to beginners as well as offering further experience and courses in Cavern, Cave and Technical Diving.

Our Youngest Team Member in Season 2007/2008

Did you notice last year that Laurent was looking a little bit more tired than normal? You did? Well that could have been because our newest team member at Blue Planet was keeping him up at night! Laura, Laurent’s lovely wife, gave birth, last year to a beautiful baby girl, Thale, and Laurent has been smiling ever since!

Fatherhood seems to definitely suit him! But Laurent ever faithful to Blue Planet did not waste any time shamelessly using his daughter to promote the company, by printing Blue Planet T-shirts in her size!

We would like to congratulate both mum and dad.

Blue Planet offers Cavern, Cave
and Technical Diving Courses

If you're interested in extending your limits, for the upcoming 2008/2009 season Dave Summerfield, our Tec instructor, will be offering a range of cavern, cave and technical diving courses.

Cavern Diving Course

Dave, our Cave and Technical Diving Instructor will be offering guests the opportunity next season to dive some of the amazing caverns that can be found on the paradise island of Phi Phi. Divers will only need to be trained to PADI Advanced Diver or equivalent to join this course.

Intro to Technical Diving

Ever wondered what it would be like diving with twin-tanks on? Well apart from being heavy! Dave can offer you the opportunity to try it for the first time here on Koh Lanta. Dave will provide you with a thorough briefing before the dive and you will get the chance to have a really long dive! If you are a PADI Advanced Diver or above, you can now try this sport at Blue Planet.

Technical Diving Courses

We can now offer the full range of Technical Diving Courses including “Advanced Nitrox”, “Deco Procedures” and “Extended Range” from DSAT, TDI and IANTD. On your own or in a group of 2, Dave will guide you through the new knowledge and skills you will need to learn to dive safely as a Technical Diver.

Trimix Courses & Cave Diving

Dave can offer teach both Trimix and Cave Diving but these courses need to be tailored to your specific needs and need plenty of preparation from us, we therefore recommend you contact us directly with your requirements.

Blue Planet Welcomes A New FreeDiving Instructor

Blue Planet would like to welcome Marc-Olivier Guerrin to our team. Marc will be joining us for the 2008/2009 season as our on-staff AIDA Freediving Instructor! Marc comes to us from France but can provide instruction in either French or English. In addition to an AIDA Instructor certification, Marc holds PADI Instructor certifications at the IDC Staff Instructor level as well as specialty ratings including Enriched Air (Nitrox), Wreck Diving, Deep Diving and more. Marc has logged more than 1,500 dives in his work around the world in a wide variety of countries including Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Mexico and Egypt. We all look forward very much to working with Marc and hope that you will join us also for some Free Diving in the coming season.

First Free Diving Competition a Huge Success

In February of 2008, Blue Planet Divers organised the Andaman Freediving Challenge, the first freediving competition to be held in Koh Lanta. The competition turned out to be a hugely enjoyable and rewarding event for all those involved. We had 19 competitors competing in 5 Free Diving events from Static Apnea (holding your breath while remaining stationery) to Constant Weight Apnea (swimming with fins). Some of the participants had been diving for a while, whilst others had literally just started!

Our instructors decided that we would use this first competition to enable participants to learn from each other as well as gaining some useful tips from our instructors, so the group of Free Divers were more a team than individual contestants.

This helped all of the competitors improve their performance, especially Christina Nicholas who only learnt to dive a few weeks before the competition and then gained the unofficial Female Australian Free Immersion Diving Record upon reaching 29metres! A truly amazing performance and one which demonstrates how quickly individuals can improve with the right instruction. Five of the other athletes qualified for official AIDA ranking which can be found on the AIDA website.

The overall winner was Tom Whittal who consistently performed well in all disciplines.

Laurent Pinci, Blue Planet’s co-owner, was really impressed “with the excitement the competition created around the island and would like to thank all the instructors, judges and competitors for making this such a fantastic event. Laurent has plans to run another at the beginning of 2009 and to enable this Laurent is lining up an excellent Free Diving instructor for next season.

Laurent commented “We want this to be a regular event in Koh Lanta to improve the awareness of this great sport and open the sport up to more people around the world.” Our philosophy is to ensure that contestants use this friendly competition to train and learn from others. This competition is open to all no matter how long they have been Free Diving.

If you are interested in learning to Free Dive, want to improve your skills or just want to have some fun, our Free Diving instructor will be joining us in November (see separate article) and we would love to see you here and maybe setting a few more records!