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Published: January 18th 2006
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A beach at the Similan Islands
check out this place! Beautiful fine white sand, interesting rock formations, turquoise water, and deserted! It's Wednesday evening, January 18 and I'm back from my 3 day liveaboard at the Similan Islands.
As I mentioned in my last blog entry, the Similan Islands consist of 9 islands off the west coast of Thailand. It took us four hours to reach the islands from Khao Lak (the closest town on the mainland). The islands are part of a Marine National Park. They're all relatively small, and generally uninhabited (with the exception of park rangers and a few bungalows for tourists). They also happen to have some of the best dive sites in Thailand.
So what's this scuba thing like? If it's at the Similan Islands in the dry season (December - April), it's pretty cool. The visibility is amazing and the fish are colorful and plentiful. I went on 4 dives from the boat. My first couple of dives were at a depth of 12 meters, my last two at 18 meters (60 feet). Amazingly, I had my own dive instructor since the other 13 divers had already been certified. This made the instruction part of the dives go more quickly and gave me more time to explore underwater.
What did I see? Giant
My feet are happy
I'm relaxing on the beach looking out at the water and the boat (Mariner). moray eels (the first one I saw was only 15 feet from shore when I was snorkeling), a turtle, clown fish (the fish from "finding nemo" movie), black-spotted porcupine fish, crocodile needlefish, titan triggerfish, garden eels, and too many others to name (or would even be able to name). Unfortunately, I didn't see any really big fish like manta rays or whales, but the fish and plants we did see were really interesting.
The diving itself was great once I made my descent to my planned depth. Getting there though wasn't easy. I have bad allergies, and getting equilization under water was tough, especially for the first 5-10 meters. My ears felt like they would explode at times. They still hurt actually, especially my left ear. Ear infection??? Hopefully not. We'll see what happens over the next couple of days.
It is weird how much breathing impacts your depth. When you breathe in, you rise in the water; when you exhale, you sink. So if you panic, you're going to be rising from all the extra breathing. And you don't want to rise too fast - not enough room in the lungs to handle the extra air. For
Turquoise water
another picture of the water at the Similan Islands those that are prone to panic, scuba diving may not be for you.
Between the dives, we anchored in one of the many bays. Twice per day, we were able to take 1-2 hour excursions to the islands where we could explore, snorkel, or just relax on the beach. The beaches here were amazing: super fine white sand, beautiful turquoise water, and pretty deserted for the most part. Some of the beaches were empty except for those from our boat.
The food was great, and there was a lot of it. We ate 4 times a day (seriously) plus snacks and drinks were always available. The weather conditions were perfect, mostly sunny with calm seas.
SeaDragon really has a good operation. They've been around the longest of the dive shops in Khao Lak. They now have 3 liveaboard boats. I was on the Mariner which holds a full time crew of 6 (captain, engineer, chef, assistant chef, and two others refilling air and doing miscellaneous things), up to 16 customers, and divemasters for at least every 4 customers. We had a dive instructor, 4 divemasters, plus a videographer. The crew were all Thai, and the divemasters European.
Claire and I
Claire, my dive instructor, and I between dives How much do you think divemasters get paid in Thailand? Only about $800 per month. That's it, and they work 6 days per week for 6 months. Most do not have work during the rainy season when diving slows, or even stops, so they travel back to their homelands or have other business in Thailand.
As for the customers themselves, most were from Europe (Sweden, Norway, Germany, Holland, France, and Switzerland). There was also an American couple on board. Why so many Europeans in Thailand? For one, it's closer. Also, they get so much more vacation time than most Americans. In Sweden, they get at least 5 weeks of paid vacation on top of holidays, some as many as 8 weeks of paid vacation. Hmmm, no wonder why Europeans travel so much.
All in all, a very cool trip and I now have an open water certification with PADI.
So what now? I'm back in Khao Lak and staying at the bungalows offered by Khao Lak Seafood restaurant for 600 baht ($15). That brings me to another weird thing about Thailand. Many of the restaurants in town have rooms for rent. Actually, many have internet service, taxi
My eyes are almost open
Sitting on the deck with other divers. service, travel services, laundry, you name it. From the street, all you see is a restaurant. But there is almost always something else going on. So I could have stayed in bungalows at Khao Lak Seafood restaurant, Jai Restaurant, the mini-mart, or any number of other bars or restaurants in town. In Khao Lak, it appears that most of these businesses are family owned and operated. That's on top of the more upscale resorts and hotels in town.
Anyway, I've been on this computer far too long. It's time to go!
Look! There goes Dave!
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Shirley
non-member comment
how
how to get there form BKK??thanks