Dive! Dive! Dive! We boarded the Dolphin Queen out of Khao Lak for our 5day/4night liveaboard to the Similan and Surin National Parks off the west coast of Thailand. Our routine for the next 4 days was dive, eat, sleep, and repeat as we made 14 dives in total. We started off diving the Similan Islands which were filled with schools of marine life and plentiful soft corals. Our first dive to the last was amazing, despite some current. We found everything from ghost pipe fish to funky crustaceans.
After a few dives we were in the routine and headed north to the outer islands of the Similan, Koh Bon and Koh Tachai. Koh Bon was our first encounter with a Manta Ray and one that we are not likely to forget. It’s majestic watching such a beautiful creature with a 5m wing span cruise effortlessly past us. We saw them on all three day dives in Koh Bon and on our last dive they came within several feet. Our trip was extremely lucky as previous trips dove the site 4 times without any sightings.
The furthest north was to the current mixing pinnacle of Richelieu Rock in the Surin National Park. The nutrient rich site was covered in purple soft corals and lavender sea anemones leading Jacques Cousteau to name the site after Pope Richelieu who wore the purple robe. There was a pair of Harlequin Shrimp, a yellow seahorse, several mantis shrimp, large schools of yellow-tail, and many more. A resident barracuda about the length of Jenny was hanging around a cleaning station watching as divers swam past. We named him Cudda-saurus.
As our trip came to a close we were sad to leave our friends. We enjoyed spending our surface intervals playing cards and telling stories and hope to see our fellow divers on a future trip, but until then, we’re off to Ko Phi Phi to do nothing but lying on the beach.
After a few dives we were in the routine and headed north to the outer islands of the Similan, Koh Bon and Koh Tachai. Koh Bon was our first encounter with a Manta Ray and one that we are not likely to forget. It’s majestic watching such a beautiful creature with a 5m wing span cruise effortlessly past us. We saw them on all three day dives in Koh Bon and on our last dive they came within several feet. Our trip was extremely lucky as previous trips dove the site 4 times without any sightings.
The furthest north was to the current mixing pinnacle of Richelieu Rock in the Surin National Park. The nutrient rich site was covered in purple soft corals and lavender sea anemones leading Jacques Cousteau to name the site after Pope Richelieu who wore the purple robe. There was a pair of Harlequin Shrimp, a yellow seahorse, several mantis shrimp, large schools of yellow-tail, and many more. A resident barracuda about the length of Jenny was hanging around a cleaning station watching as divers swam past. We named him Cudda-saurus.
As our trip came to a close we were sad to leave our friends. We enjoyed spending our surface intervals playing cards and telling stories and hope to see our fellow divers on a future trip, but until then, we’re off to Ko Phi Phi to do nothing but lying on the beach.
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3 comments:
Wow, what an adventure. Those fish and corals are beautiful. Did they give you any ideas on what you want in your aquarium when you get back?
What happens if you get seasick on the first day? cuz that would have been me
We want a manta in our fish tank!
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