Rescue Nick

PADI IDC Staff, Nick H, pushes his students to a new level and they learn to team build, problem solve and forward plan to solve and prevent Rescue Diver problems.

Illness and Injury assesment

The 3 day course pushes divers to the limit and gives individuals a chance to grow into a more confident and competent diver.

With the idea to keep an open mind and to learn to love thy buddy.

Pocket mask use provides a better seal & a perfect barrier

Each student completes a set of emergency and panicked diver scenarios, from missing divers, unconscious diver accidents, marine life injuries to Oxygen use and CPR.

Surfacing an Unconscious diver.

We extend a huge congratulations to the newest Crystal Rescue team!!

Video Night

Videography Certification night

Its been a busy month a DDP HQ on Koh Tao with more courses starting, our day to day filming for Crystal Dive Resort, documentary course preparation and a great certification night for two new underwater film makers.

New underwater videographers Gary & Bobbie have just finished there extensive 26 dive professional videography training programs, visiting Koh Tao's best dive sites throughout the course they filmed a variety of marine life and both videographers produced awesome showreels. Next step is the internship where they will get the experience of making movies on a daily basis and learning the ropes of a day to day videographer. Then the world is their oyster!!! well done guys

On another note..the whalesharks are here, the weather is fantastic and the visibility is superb so come on over to Asia's prime scuba diving location and get diving.

Wrecks N' Effect

Crystal Dive Resort took the the seas and headed out to where the M.V Trident was sank.

Very close to Shark Island at about 35m deep, the M.V Trident sits offering koh Tao a chance to study underwater wreck and of course teach the PADI Wreck Spec and Tec courses.

PADI Master Instructor Ivan heads sub sufrace to conduct PADI Deep & Wreck Spec

It also give those already certified as good change to fun dive some more of the challenging divesites Koh tao has to offer

Earth Day

Eco Koh Tao joined Project Aware in Diving for the Internationally acclaimed Earth Day. We kicked off proceedings by conducting a beach & shoreline clean up in Mae Haad just adjacent to the dive centre. We collected loads of netting and other debris washed in during recent storm action.

Some of the 75 plus people who joined in the underwater clean up on Earth Day

In the afternoon we banded together as a community for an underwater clean up and all up had 75 people Diving for Earth Day. The underwater team managed to collect over 335 kgs of debris which is a great achievement on such an important day. Most of that garbage was nets and ropes which make up some of the most damaging types of rubbish underwater.

Continuing the celebrations into the evening our attention turned to the Koh Tao Eco Film Festival for 2011. A marine ecology & reef restoration talk was help by Chad Scott, Jen Matthews and Eco Koh Tao’s Nathan Cook before the attention turned to some great locally made films raising awareness at this important time for our planet.

Kailash Cook, winner of the film festival with his donations from Project Aware for his involvement in the clean up activities

Local boy and Eco Koh Tao member Kailash Cook narrated a fantastic production highlighting sedimentation and runoff and the need to protect coastlines and habitat from construction and subsequent erosion. It was a clear winner and Kailash not only took home a regulator for his trouble, but choosing the regulator meant the entry fee was donated back to Save Koh Tao.

All in all it was a very successful and environmental Earth Day on Koh Tao. Thank you to Project Aware for their support and everyone else who participated.

Tec-Niq-All

Crystal Dive Resort and Crystal Tech congratulates Sean Parker And Angshuman on their completion of their Tech diver course's.

Both students did completed their PADI Divemaster Course's with us at Crystal Dive and Ang finished his PADI IDC with Matt Bolton in Feb.

Both Divers opted for the Tec route and completed the TDI extended range course's with Mike Clancey and PADI Master Instructor/ Tech Instructor Ivan.

Check out the Tec sites

http://tech.crystaldive.com/

http://www.crystaldive.com/

Rescue Me

Crystal Dive Resort welcomes the return of PADI Master Instructor Paul "Tosh" Tanner with a mighty PADI Rescue Course.

Elizabeth moves her victim into position

The course taking 3 full days gives the students a full insight into managing stressful and life saving situations giving the students the education into problems solving, team work and some hands on 1st aid.

With over 50% of the students all continuing their PADI experience by signing up for the PADI Divemaster Course.

Tosh clings to life while his students masterfully provides rescue breaths

Tosh uses the confines off our swimming pool to lay down some basic training and then moves to the ocean and some deep water to push the students to the Rescue limit!

Once again, Tosh struggles to stay a float, his student readies for the exit skill

With full success, Koh Tao's newest PADI Rescue Divers are ready for anything and looking forward to completing the PADI Divemaster Course and Crystal Dive Internships.

Ready for action!!... (Sort of)

Well Done Team Tosh

IDC 2011

What a great start to 2011 for Crystal IDC..!!


The first PADI IDC of the new year is over, and there are 5 newly qualified, super enthusiastic PADI Instructors at Crystal Dive Resort.
Following on from a superb 2010, Matt Bolton’s Crystal candidates once again demonstrated how thorough their training has been, posting the best scores of any of the dive centre’s overall on the IE! In fact, both Jack Brodie & Brittainy Slade scored 5.0’s throughout the IE. Jack also scored 100% in 5 of the 6 written exams on Day 1, dropping only one point, on the Physics exam…this was the only ‘point’ he dropped throughout the entire IE..!!

The other candidates, Timo Sarin, Jasmin Lee & Alex Stavros all scored very highly as well, with the lowest score awarded to any Crystal candidate a 4.6….and all of this from PADI Examiner Yung He Hanis who is regarded as one of the toughest PADI examiners around!
Tomorrow is the start of the MSDT Prep & internship program. Over the nest 4-5 days the candidates will complete a variety of PADI Instructor Specialty training courses. After that they will start their ‘Instructor Internship’ , team teaching, alongside some of Thailand’s most experienced PADI Master Instructors!!
Its busy, busy here at Crystal at the moment and Matt will be starting the next IDC on the 4th February.

All Clammed Up

The initial batch of clams were placed in cages in Aow Leuk Bay on Koh Tao’s south-east coast. Mortality rates where high during the first few months but two years on approximately 50% survived to maturity. 12 months ago the majority of these were transferred to the surrounding reefs in Aow Leuk with the remaining clams staying in their caged home.

 Unfortunately the cages suffered some damage during the recent monsoon so we figured rather than fix the cages it best we simply transfer them out onto the natural reef. So as part of the ‘Adopt-a-Reef’ program a number of dive schools received some of the remaining clams for their adopted reef.

Laura Bailey and Tina Major with Bob the Diver help with the Eco expedition!

Today Crystal Dive & Eco Koh Tao made their way to Aow Leuk and collected 22 giant clams from the collapsed cage on the bottom. Many of them have grown up nicely and were more than ready to be moved. For our second dive the boat made its way to Mae Haad and the much used Junkyard reef.

IDCS Nathan Cook with the help of several volunteers currently diving, or training with Crystal Dive who took this opportunity to get involved in some marine conservation and helped us distribute the clams into the surrounding reef.

Show Your Support: Scuba Certification Cards

Select the Project AWARE version of your PADI certification or replacement card.
Project AWARE receives 100 percent of your donation to conserve aquatic environments on a global scale.

http://www.projectaware.org/content/index.php?pid=56

Team Suki!!

PADI Master Instructor Suki Hung certifies yet another group of PADI Open Water Divers who spent the extra time to progress onto a PADI Advanced open Water.

"Taking Students from the classroom to the pool, then to and through Open Water Dive 1,2,3 and 4 is always guaranteed job satisfaction"

The team spent the 2 extra days with Suki to complete their 30m deep dive at Chumphon Pinnacle, a Navigation dive a Mango bay, PPB at Buoyancy World and a Nat and Night Dive at White Rock.

Well Done guys...

See you on the EFR and PADI Rescue Diver!!

Say No To Plastic Bags

After the successful first batch of calico/cloth bags was introduced more than 2 years ago Crystal Dive Resort & Eco Koh Tao have just received a shipment of new bags for 2011.

Our cloth bags are designed to promote the use of reusable bags over the destructive non-recyclable plastic bags that pollute the world in their millions and millions.

At Crystal Dive Resort, which has over 60 rooms, we are introducing them into all of the guest rooms as part of their stay to encourage them to use more non-polluting methods of travel. This comes on the back of recent initiatives tin introduce water refill stations to promote the reuse of water bottles rather than constantly buying new ones, some of which get recycled and many of them don’t. 

1. Plastic bags are made of polyethylene
2. Polyethylene is a petroleum product
3. Production contributes to air pollution and energy consumption
4. Four to five trillion plastic bags are manufactured each year
5. Americans use over 380 billion polyethylene bags per year
6. Americans throw away approximately 100 billion polyethylene bags per year
7. Of those 100 trillion plastic bags, 1% are recycled
8. It takes 1000 years for polyethylene bags to break down
9. As polyethylene breaks down, toxic substances leach into the soil and enter the food chain
10. Approximately 1 billion seabirds and mammals die per year by ingesting plastic bags
11. Plastic bags are often mistaken as food by marine mammals. 100,000 marine mammals die yearly by eating plastic bags.
12. These animals suffer a painful death, the plastic wraps around their intestines or they choke to death
13. Plastic bag choke landfills
14. Plastic bags are carried by the wind into forests, ponds, rivers, and lakes

Change Your Lifestyle??

Make a new start for 2011, 

Full "Diving Lifestyle" Instructor Internship Program

•	PADI Open Water Course
•	PADI Advanced Open Water course
•	Emergency First Response (EFR) First Aid/CPR Course
•	PADI Rescue Diver Course
•	PADI Divemaster Course
•	PADI O2 Provider
•	PADI Enriched Air Nitrox Diver
•	DM Crew Pack >>>
•	All PADI Educational Materials & Certification Costs
•	First Year PADI Membership
•	Optional ‘Working Internship"
•	1 year "In Depths" Gold Plus Personal Pro Level Diving Insurance >>>
•	Full "Coral Reef/Environmental Awareness & Action" seminar and "Discover Reef Check" workshop conducted by Nathan Cook at Eco Koh Tao
•	DSAT Discover Tech Intro
•	Intro to "Pro Underwater Video" conducted by Deep Down Productions
•	FREE Diving For Life!
•	IDC Prep
•	PADI IDC Course
•	EFR Primary & Secondary care Instructor course
•	EFR Care for Children Instructor course
•	PADI EANX Instructor course
•	PADI O2 Instructor course
•	IDC Crew Pack >>>
•	IDC/IE fees (includes EFRI, O2 & EANX)
•	IE Pass Guarantee
•	1 Free "Team Teach" after receiving teaching status, alongside an experienced Koh Tao Instructor.
•	Visa Assistance
•	Diving Medical
•	Buffet lunches throughout IDC, EFRI, O2 & EANX Instructor Courses For more "lifestyle" information, click the link or email For a full 2011 IDC Schedule, click http://www.idckohtao.com/schedule.htm PADI Course Director Matthew Bolton Matt@crystaldive.com

Happy New Year!!

We would like to thank and congratulate all of our customers and students that continue to support us.

It's been an amazing 2010 for us, Please keep diving and come back and visit soon.

Stay in touch with facebook and the Crystal Dive Resort website.

Happy New Year Everyone.

Team Crystal Dive does it again!

Crystal Dive proudly congratulates another group of successful OWSIs, after a flawless performance on yesterday's IE. This month, 'Team Crystal Dive' truly excelled throughout the IDC, and loved every minute of it. Once again, headed by Course Directors Justin Mayers and Matt Bolton, the IDC thoroughly prepared the candidates to sail through their final exam, and become highly competent Open Water Scuba Instructors.

Today, the candidates enjoyed a well earned day off, after some serious celebrations yesterday. Many will continue their training at Crystal with the MSDT programme, which begins tomorrow. This introduces PADI's Speciality courses to the new instructors, and allows them to work alongside Crystal's finest and most experienced instructors to develope their skills further.

A very big congratulations to Pete, Chloe, Justine, Breffni, Ville, Ian, Susan, Adam, Jonas and Dan, and enjoy the MSDT!

Un Témoignage du Programme Go Pro' chez Crystal

Je suis arrivée à Koh-Tao dans l’optique de faire de ma passion un métier, on m’a tout de suite parlé de Crystal Dive Resort, et de Matt Bolton son propriétaire, un pionier de l’éducation en plongée sur cette île. 

J’ai donc décidé de faire mon IDC dans cette école, très bien située, et dont la reputation n’est plus à faire. 

Mes deux semaines d’IDC, je ne les oublierais jamais, malgré la barrière de la langue, l’équipe qui nous entourait, mes 6 coéquipiers et moi même a été tout simplement géniale, toujours disponible pour nous aider dans notre cheminement, d’un professionalisme et d’une gentillesse exemplaire. 

De la théorie à la pratique en passant par les presentations orales en classe, rien n’a été omis, nous avons été preparés à la perfection, et le jour J, nous avons tous, sans exception, accompli avec succès les épreuves qui nous ont été imposées.

Aujourd’hui je continue mon éducation avec Crystal, en effectuant un stage afin de devenir MSDT, assistant différents instructeurs, ayant chacun leur propre méthode de travail mais une caractéristique commune: l’envie de partager leur métier et leur passion.


Alexandra Harati
Koh Tao - 2010




Alex vient de terminé son Instructor Development Course (formations des moniteurs) avec Crystal Dive Resort et Matt Bolton. Elle est en train de terminer le Master Scuba Diver Trainer (Instructeur de plongée de spécialité) avec Crystal Dive et d'acquérir une précieuse expérience d'enseignement avec des moniteurs de plongée expérimenté - un précieux atout pour les perspectives d'emploi.


Nous lui souhaitons tout le meilleur pour son avenir dans la plongée.

Pour plus d'info sur nos cours et formations en Français visite www.crystaldive.fr

The inter-web

Check this out,

Our Crystal Dive Resort Facebook page

The idea is to keep our students up to date with the goings on and latest news via Facebook,

we have Crystal Dive, Koh Tao aa a group page and Crystal Dive Resort as a fan page.

http://www.facebook.com/crystaldiveresort

Copy and follow the link... enjoy!!!

The Suunto Zoop

As Crystal Dive Resort becomes more and more successful, we thought it was time to upgrade to a new model.

Moshi planning and comparing his Eanx 32% dive at Chumphon Pinnacle.

The Suunto "Zoop", which is short for "Zooplankton" (the most abundant thing in the Ocean) is the Finnish companies latest addition to the dive computer family.

The 3 buttons makes it super easy to use.

For those diving for more than 5months, you would be familiar with the Suunto Gekko, this very similar but yellow computer is it's replacement.

By adding 10 new Zoops, Crystal Dive Resort can offer even more of our PADI Advanced Open Waters, Deep, Multi-level, Eanx, Night Specs and even "Fun Divers" the chance to borrow and look after their own dive times,  depths and Safety Stops.

The Zoop automatically allows for a Safety Stop and starts to count down above 6m - 3mins at 5m

The new dive computer can be used with both air and nitrox and is designed to give the specifics of any diving situation, including decompression, at a glance.

Everyone O.K?.... 

Both ascent rate and available no-decompression time are displayed graphically with clear color coded indicators. Visual and audible alarms are given when necessary. Maximum depth and dive time alarms can be enabled.

Easy-to-use push buttons, a straightforward menu structure and a super-bright phosphorescent LCD display make Suunto Zoop really simple to operate. The Suunto Zoop can be used as wrist unit, or mount it on one of Suunto’s Combo consoles.

MRM

It was a mixed bag of weather that greeted Koh Tao as the Thai Navy Join Eco Koh Tao and Crystal Dive Resort whilst they made a pit stop en route through the Gulf of Thailand.


We took the opportunity to join them in a touch of community service helping the navy boys clean the road between Chalok Baan Khao in the south and Mae Haad in the centre of Koh Tao. 

It was a special day as local community members were offered complimentary medical & dental care. The navy donated their time and also some sporting supplies for use at the school. 

Kailash Cook supports the cause!!

Students of a current Marine Resource Management course with IDCS Nathan Cook took the day off to get involved in cleaning of our streets and our beaches.

 

In the afternoon our cleaning efforts took us to Mae Haad where we cleaned the beach and the waterways. Participants in the water scooped up dozens of plastic bags and glass bottles full of sand and silt that turned the water black. It wasn’t a pleasant job and after two solid hours underwater MRM students Stefanie Anderl and Sirasa ‘Pearl’ Kantaratanakul had done a power of work. There’s still more to do but we’ll have to save it for another day!  

Thank you to everyone who took part in a very successful day out.

An Underwater Engagement

Crystal Dive Resort is always full of surprises, this week was no exception.

PADI Master Instructor Suki Hung played witness to a very special underwater event this week when two of her Chinese PADI Open Water students got engaged.

After all the skills and before the final assent of the final open water dive, Jason pulled out a small box and lifted the lid.

On a white underwater writing slate had the words "Will you marry me" (in chinese and english) so his wife to be could read in amazement.

Charlotte gave the big o.k sign and even wrote YES, in big capital letters.

Deep Down Productions Videographer, Debbie caught the special moment on camera for the couple to savour their magic moment.

Congratulations Charlotte and Jason and good luck for the future.