About the dive center
Here at PKPD on the beautiful island of Koh Phangan, we’ve built a dive center with something for everyone. If you’ve never tried diving before, we’ll get you started with a PADI Discover Scuba Diving experience. Ready to become a certified diver? The PADI Open Water course is your first step. Already have your card? Awesome, come join our daily fun dives. And if you’ve truly caught the bug and want to go pro, we can guide you all the way to the PADI Divemaster level.
What really makes PKPD special is the people. We’re a team of passionate divers who live and breathe this stuff. As the newest center on the island, we’re fired up to do things right and share our love for the ocean. For us, a great dive trip is about more than just the time you spend underwater—it’s about the laughs on the boat, the post-dive chats, and making great memories with good people.
We’re also serious about our gear because your safety is everything. We use top-notch equipment from the best brands, and our service schedule is even stricter than the official recommendations. Here’s something you won’t find just anywhere: our standard rental fleet includes premium backplate and wing systems and XDeep sidemount rigs. It’s not an upgrade here; we just believe better equipment makes for a better, more comfortable dive for everyone.
Our equipment room
Our equipment room is built to optimize and speed up the drying of scuba gear. In a humid and tropical climate like the one we have in Koh Phangan, it is important to accelerate the drying process. This is truer in the rainy season when everything is not set to dry properly and takes ages.
Even if scuba gear is rugged and resistant, it can get mold or fungi if it stays wet for too long. This will degenerate material at a faster rate. This is seen on some clear masks, snorkels, and mouthpieces as the black stains that won’t go away.
We also know that no one likes to put on a still-wet wetsuit or get a mask or mouthpiece full of mold. Professionals, we are the first to not want these unpleasant things. We also want to avoid the same on all equipment, including the rental sets of our customers.
The room is well secured, but aeration is provided by two fans and big openings on both sides of the room. This creates convection, moving the very humid air outside.
There are also rinsing pools with clean water constantly cleaned and treated to prevent the growth and spreading of unwanted organisms.
Our filling station and our tanks
Our filling station has a dedicated room. Isolated and with air conditioning, the room is meant to optimize the compressor’s cooling. Isolation is not only thermal, but it is also for soundproofing.
The compressor of our filling station
Our compressor, a Nardi model Pacific 30 is built entirely in Italy with high standards. Their long history in other fields, such as medical supply, along with their good service, gave us many reasons to deal with this supplier.
The Pacific 30 compressor, with its 300 liters per minute, gives our filling station a fast output, meaning there will be less noise at the center.
With this compressor, we can also fill Nitrox tanks up to 40%.
Our cylinders and tanks
The cylinders that we use are made of aluminum; this might be an important detail if you are used to diving with steel tanks. You might find that these have a way different buoyancy characteristic. These tanks are better suited for use in tropical areas as they are less prone to corrosion.
Even if the other operators of the region are using the A-Clamp or Yoke system, we have opted for DIN-compatible tank valves. Streamlining and reliability are something we looked into when choosing the valves.
We are also proud to say that we are one of the few around to fully support sidemount divers as a Sidemount-Able Dive Center with proper tank valves. We are sidemount divers as well…
Our special deep pool
The pool at the heart of the center is unique to Koh Phangan. With its 5 meters / 18 feet deep section, it is the deepest on the island. It was conceived to allow participants in diving activities to practice in and experience what is much closer to a real natural environment.
To better serve teaching purposes, but also for swimmers, we have built in the pool three levels at different depths. The first two allow people to practice their first skills in a safe environment and know they can just stand in case of little problems or feeling uncomfortable. The deeper level is better suited than most pools to practice simulated ascent, as it is much more realistic. The effect of pressure can also be felt in this part of the pool.
Another thing that was very dear to us was that the pool had to be working with a saltwater system. And have many reasons to believe this is a much better choice.
Saltwater helps prevent the growth of most algae, which keeps the water much cleaner and clearer. It also avoids the accelerated deterioration of the equipment by the corrosive agents, such as chlorine, used in the water treatment.
Some skills, like purging a mask, will be done with more comfort as the burning feeling is less than that of chlorinated water.
At last, saltwater pools are much more eco-friendly as they use much less corrosive agents to treat the water. We do take pride in trying to make our center as ecologically responsible as possible.