Khao Lak and Similan Islands

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Thailand has some amazing reefs, so we decided to make the effort and take a PADI Open Water diving course so that we could fully appreciate the underwater sights. We chose to stay in a small town called Khao Lak, north of Phuket. It’s a fairly quiet place (certainly when compared to Phuket and other major resorts!), but it thrives on dive tourism - Khao Lak is the gateway to the Similan Islands, one of the worlds premier dive sites.

Khao Lak was one of the many areas devastated by the Tsunami on Boxing Day 2004. The town has since bounced back - the beautiful new condition of the buildings and the Tsunami warning stations and signs posted near the beach giving the only clue to the tragedy.

We had a recommendation for the Seadragon dive centre while in Cambodia, the centre is also recommended in the Lonely Planet guide - so on the back of these we decided to sign up for the PADI Open Water course with them. We took the option of having two days at the centre, then three days and three nights on a liveaboard boat at the Similan Islands.

The boat takes up to 20 people, but we were totally spoiled as we shared the boat with just two other divers - we have to say a big thanks to Joseph and Ursula (a lovely couple from Switzerland) for the underwater photos posted here!

As we headed out of port to begin the trip to the islands, Lucy was caught with her guard down, having taken the sea sickness pills just a bit too late. Thus began 36 difficult hours, until an extended afternoon on one of the beautiful beaches gave enough time to take the pills and keep them down!

Nui, our instructor is one the most qualified Thai instructors in the region. Besides having an incredible talent for spotting sea creatures, she also teaches other Thai women as part of a charitable effort (funded by the Tsunami relief fund) to give them a sustainable career as dive instructors. We even had someone filming us in our initial pool sessions as they were making a documentary about her.

The dives were truly amazing - we saw many turtles, octopuses, sea snakes, moray eels and gazillions of other colourful fish (Si also saw a White-tipped reef shark, sadly Lucy didn’t make this dive as she was still wrestling with the waves). The coral gardens and huge undersea boulders alone made every dive spectacular.

We moored for breakfast in a bay on Similan Island #8 on our second day along with several other liveaboards. One boat seemed rather out of place though, and it transpired that its passengers were asylum seekers from Bangladesh. They had been at sea for many days and were heading for Malaysia when their boat began to take on water, forcing them to stop off as they passed Thailand. While the crew of our boat were quick to offer water and food to the 96 men on board, the National Park Rangers and Thai Navy decided firing a machine gun into the air would be more appropriate. It seems that with the problems in southern Thailand, any boat containing such a large number of men is understandably treated with caution.

Back to our PADIs, and with a final swim from the boat and 10 minutes treading water, we became certified divers (yey!)

Merry Christmas to family and friends, as well as any other readers!

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Photos

...From Si and Lucy
The quest for a decent Guinness continues - close but no cigar!

Comments

[Sarah]

Happy New Year!
Happy New Year Si and Lucy, looks like you're having a fantastic time. Just spending some of my last few hours before heading back to work tomorrow (boo) catching up on your blog. Love the photos, glad to see you've both been cultivating your tans ;-)Looking forward to seeing more blogs - where did you spend New Year? Sarah xx

[Gavin]

Good picture of a turtles head!!