Koh Tang

"You can opt for an overnight trip to Koh Tang which is 35 miles away and renowned for its fantastic visibility and majestic corals.
Koh Tang is an awesome place to travel to if you have passed your Open Water course and really want to experience some deep waters. The visibility is fantastic, with most divers reporting views of at least 20 metres every day. "

Koh Tang Island, is an island approximately 43 km (27 miles) southwest off the coast of Cambodia in the Gulf of Thailand. The only inhabitants on the island are Cambodian military personnel. The Khmer word "Koh", meaning island, is also commonly transliterated into English as "Kaoh". Koh Tang Island is 6.5Km long and between 1.7Km wide to 80 meters wide.
The island is rock fringed with its highest point at its northern extremity. Two shallow coves press into the eastern and western neck of its northern plateau. The eastern cove has a long shallow coral sand beach.
The small islet Koh Mul/Tuich lies about 1.3 km to the East and Koh Domloung (potato) island about 2,2 km to the South. The islets Koh Tee Mui (8.4 km off) and Koh Tee Bpi (9.6 km off) complete the Koh Tang archipelago.
 

Koh Tang Island was the site of the last combat action during the U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s. On 1975 U.S. Marines on board U.S. Air Force helicopters landed on the island in hopes of finding the crew of the SS Mayagüez, which had been captured by Khmer Rouge gunboats on May 12. The crew of the merchant vessel were not on the island as U.S. Intelligence had reported, but had been transferred from the ship to the nearby Cambodian port town of Sihanoukville. This city on the mainland is also known as Kampong Saom. The capture of the vessel SS Mayagüez by Khmer Rouge forces and subsequent assault on Koh Tang became known as the Mayagüez Incident.

Koh Tang today is mostly forgotten as the last battleground of the Vietnam War. Underwater there are no visible artifacts or evidence that the battle ground was here. The USA MIA teams are still looking for a helicopter lost and never recovered during the Mayaguez incident, but many here speculate that it was found a long time ago, and like the other submerged wrecks in this part of South East Asia was salvaged for the metals that they are composed of.

Koh Tang today is one of the best scuba diving areas in Cambodia with several Sihanoukville dive companies running overnight trips out to this large uninhabited island group. Large fish like cobias and sail fish as well as large schools of jacks, snappers and fusiliers swim over the reef in large numbers as damaged reef section are repaired by mother nature, with new coral colonies of “apcora” (a commonly known variety being stag horn coral) growing at a rapid pace, and the fish stocks displaced start to recover. The diving is good, no crowds and several large shallow sections, as well as the deep reefs escaped damage, so there is ample dive opportunities interspersed with the damaged coral beds. The most famous dive site in Cambodia would be Virgin Reef which has never been completely dived due to its large size, is blessed with healthy fish stocks and some amazing coral gardens stretching for hundreds of meters out from the island

 

Getting there: Several tour operators based in Sihanoukville offer overnight trips. Frogman Scuba diving has daily speedboats to the island, and Scuba Nation has occasional overnight trips to the island. Both are based in SihanoukVille.