Diving Koh Rok

The two large, coral fringed tropical islands of Koh Rok Nok and Koh Kok Nai are some of the best known islands in the Mu Koh Lanta Marine Park. With white sandy beaches and extensive coral reefs, these beautiful islands are perfect for both divers and snorkelers.

Whenever possible, we like to stop for lunch between dives on a small, quiet beach on Koh Rok Nok, where you can still enjoy tranquility and peace along the sandy shores in the turquoise waters of the Andaman Sea.

Diving Koh Rok - Hin Ngam

Hin Ngam is located at the south west part of koh Rok Nok and is a rocky dive site with an abundance of hard and soft corals.

The dive starts at the south west following the reef on the left shoulder. The shallows begin with large boulders, becoming smaller with depth, eventually revealing a gently sloping reef from around 7 - 8m down to 18m +. This is a great area for marco life such as shrimp and nudibranchs, and for larger species of sea cucumber, angelfish, surgeonfish, moray eels and turtles.

You will find hard corals, including boulder corals and branching corals, soft corals, including sea whips, anemones, clownfish and many other species in this area. If you are very lucky, you may spot a marble ray, guitar sharks, eagle rays or possibly the occasional whale shark in this area.

As you continue eastward you find larger rocks, boulders and hard coral bommies, surrounded by bubble corals, gorgonian sea fans and whip corals, giant barrel sponges, glassfish, fusiliers, groupers, surgeonfish and moray eels.

The reef slope becomes more steep, strewn with bubble corals and barrel sponges, gradually becoming a steep wall in deeper areas.

A huge underwater rocky finger marks the end of the first bay, and the start of the second bay as we turn the corner to the right. The imposing rock face creates a dramatic natural geological barrier which marks the end of the first sloping reef, and the start of the second sloping reef as we enter the next bay. Around the finger and in deeper areas, we can see larger fish, including the giant potato grouper.

After the huge rocky finger, we again find ourselves on a broad sloping reef, more rocky in the shallows. Again, hard and soft corals are found at all depths and we enter the shallows where we end the dive.

There is a great abundance of sea whip corals in the shallower areas. Batfish, angelfish, wrasse, parrotfish, sweetlips, surgeonfish, snapper and turtles can all be found here. The shallow area here is also great for snorkeling.

Koh Rok: Hin Ngam Map

Check out our high season Koh Lanta diving trips and scuba courses on Koh Lanta.

Diving Koh Rok - Lak Siam

Lak Siam is a long and extensive reef area running almost the entire east coast of Koh Rok Nok.

The sandy beach is fringed with a huge area of corals which makes this a super snorkeling spot, and as we head a little deeper we encounter a sloping reef which runs to 15 - 20 m the entire length of the island. The snorkeling here is as good as Koh Haa Lagoon.

Dropping in the middle of Lak Siam, we can either dive with our right, or left shoulder to the reef.

The slope is covered extensively with a huge variety of hard and soft corals, creating a dense and rich coral reef including branching corals, bubble corals, mushroom corals, lettuce corals, anemones, brain corals, leather corals, soft corals and sea fans.

The dense corals are home to millions of reef fish, including moorish idols, snapper, fusiliers, grouper, wrasse, moray eels, angelfish and butterfly fish, clownfish, shrimp, sea cucumbers, snails, slugs, urchins, feather stars, surgeonfish, parrotfish and many, many other species.

We can also find several species not commonly seen around our other dive sites, such as the convict surgeonfish and more rare species of butterflyfish and angelfish.

Here you will definitely find nemo.

Along the deeper fringes of Lak Siam we find an almost continuous line of giant gorgonian sea fans, giant barrel sponges, and bubble corals, the favourite food of the many turtles which we often see along this reef.

Indeed, it is unusual not to see at least one or two turtles on this dive, sometimes many more.

The southerly part of Lak Siam becomes a more rocky slope and it approaches the shallower end point of the Hin Ngam dive and begins to take on similar features to the end of the Hin Ngam dive.

Koh Rok: Lak Siam Map

Check out our high season Koh Lanta dive trips, or scuba courses on Koh Lanta.

Diving Koh Rok - Pak Rong

Entry to this dive site is in a small bay to the far west of Koh Rok Nai at the entrance channel between the two islands (Pak Rong) where we drop down over rocks and hard corals to a maximum depth of 18 m and head north with the reef to our right shoulder.

A small wall develops on our right shoulder, and as we approach the north west corner over hard corals, we find a finger reef around 12 m with soft corals and a chance to spot stingrays around the reef.

We can expect to see pufferfish, octopus, clownfish, triggerfish, sea snakes, moray eels, shrimp and lobster during this dive.

A large bed of broken staghorn corals has collapsed to provide shelter for many large Brown marbled Groupers around 12 m.

There are many large rocks on the bottom and as we approach the end of the dive we find a lot of hard corals including lettuce corals in the shallows.

Large schools of yellow snapper, schools of moorish idols (unusual to see large formations around Koh Lanta) and white collar butterflyfish are often seen during this dive.

Snorkeling is on the opposite side of the channel at Pak Rong on the northeast tip of Koh Rok Nok.

Koh Rok: Pak Rong Map

Check out our high season Koh Lanta diving trips and scuba courses on Koh Lanta.