And Counting…
It’s been 19 days since we’ve had a new case of Covid 19 in Phuket – amazing news for this beautiful Thai Island.. 19 days which has triggered the next phase of the ‘new normal’ to be put in place from 15 June. The below infographic details phase 4 (courtesy of The Thai Public Relations Dept)
The Thai Public Relations department stated ‘ The establishments and services that were considered in risk groups will be allowed to resume their services. Alcohol beverages are allowed to be served in restaurants. But some high-risk establishments are still not allowed to reopen, for example, pubs, bars, karaoke bars, and massage parlors, including ball houses and bouncy castles. They will remain closed for now because they have a large amount of close spacing and touching, so there is a higher risk of spreading the virus’
Diving Operations could resume Business on 3 June, however many large boats are in dry dock or have decided not to resume diving day trips until maybe October time which is understandable given there are no International inbound flights. Phuket Airport opened today (13 June 2020) for Domestic flights and the Thai Government are looking at incentives to drive local tourism back to the land of smiles 🙂 which is welcoming news to all affected by the lockdown during the World pandemic.
We’ve been lucky in the sense that we are a well established Dive Operator in Phuket with many Expats and Foreign workers as regular returning guests so we’ve been able to charter private speedboats out to the local dive spots to get vitamin Sea 😉 We’ll continue to this as long as the weather and Sea conditions are safe to do so and we have the demand – the beauty about this kind of trip is that you’re usually back for lunch, you’ve missed the crowds and often have the dive site to yourselves at not much more cost than the shared large boat trips!
As far as the future for diving in Phuket, Covid 19 will have a major impact for many years to come as the boats’ capacities have been affected due to social distancing requirements. Some of the larger dive boats have been cut by half the number of divers they can take – ouch! We’re already seeing increase in prices for booking spots on these boats which in the current climate is a real challenge for everyone, a double edge sword 🙁 We’ll keep you updated on any changes there may be. On a positive note, less divers means less crowds at dive sites and on the large boats which we know divers LOVE! If the prices went up a little to support this, would divers really mind?
The National Parks remain closed until further notice so Phi Phi diving is not available right now – we’ll keep you posted when they open back up.
We hope you’re all safe and well and we absolutely know you’re dying to get back in the water as soon as you can!
We’ll be waiting for you 🙂
