Loh Samah Bay

Loh Samah Bay is built around a single small cliff islet inside a sheltered bay on the south side of Ko Phi Phi Leh, and the plan for the dive is simply to go around it. Drop onto the outer, south-facing wall and it slopes to about 20 metres, the deep half of the circuit; swing round the point and the inner, north-facing side comes up to around 8 metres, an easy shallow leg for the second half of the tank. The highlight sits on the islet's east face: a channel roughly 15 metres deep, narrow enough to pass single file, its walls dense with soft coral, sea whips and gorgonian fans. Turtles are reported working the bubble coral inside it. One relaxed lap covers the whole site on a single tank of air, which is part of why day boats treat it as an easy add-on to Maya Bay next door.

Loh Samah Bay runs two different dives on the same stretch of reef. By day it is an unhurried wall-and-canyon circuit that both operators covering the site recommend for beginners and for photographers working the coral face. After dark it becomes one of Phi Phi's stronger night dives, and the reason Thai liveaboards moor here specifically once the sun goes down: shrimp, painted lobster and decorated crabs move out into torchlight, and the wall's moray eels turn noticeably more active. It shares its stretch of limestone coast with Maya Bay next door, so divers get the same karst scenery and, by day, the same snorkel-tour traffic, but the dive walls here never carried the beach's 2018-2022 closure. The combination of a full circuit and a signature night dive on one small islet is what keeps it on repeat itineraries alongside Maya Bay.

No certification beyond Open Water is required. Guides typically keep newer divers and Discover Scuba students on the shallow inner side and the channel, and save the deeper 20-metre outer wall, 2 metres past Open Water's 18-metre training limit, and the night dive for divers with more logged dives; Thailand's national rule already puts every diver under a licensed guide or instructor regardless of level. A national park entrance fee also applies to the Ko Phi Phi Leh zone: a foreign diver's first day totals around 600 baht, a 400 baht entrance fee plus a 200 baht diving supplement, and most centres fold it into the day's boat trip and do not collect it separately. The bay doubles as a day-boat snorkel stop, so surface traffic around entries and exits is normal. The east-side channel is open at both ends but narrow enough that single-file passage and steady buoyancy matter, to stay clear of the soft coral and fans lining it. Lionfish and scorpionfish sit on the wall face where they are easy to miss; keep hands off the rock and stay hovering, not settled, close to it.