Diving anyone ?? :-) Thailand - Similan Islands

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Friends keep asking about diving in Thailand…and I have one advice, pack your stuff and embark on a liveaboard for the Similan Islands!
Although this trip took place a year ago, none of us can forget our four days cruising on the Similan Islands up to Richelieu Rock which is for most divers one of the best diving spot in the world …

We embarked on the Queen Scuba where as quite usual on diving boats the team was great, friendly, helpful…welcome to the diver world…

Early wake up, coffee, 6.30 first dive (yep…), breakfast, 2nd dive, lunch, 3rd dive, coffee break and fourth (and last) dive of the day…We both end up completely exhausted but kept talking with the other divers about the amazing coral gardens we had seen during those dives, the prolific fish life and the sensational underwater rock formations.

Some of the top spots, we fall in love with….


Eel Garden : absolutely stunning eel garden, lots of lion fish and scorpion fish too

East of Eden: well known for its coral reef (mentioned many times in the National Geographic). The crowning moment of this dive being the yellow corals garden that cover a huge area…(see pic)

Christmas Point: beautiful soft corals and large fans…but most of all, unforgettable swim through at the end of the dive.

Elephant Head: not much fish but the smooth, rounded boulders make dramatic formations, holes, and overhangs ("swim-through") underwater where we enjoyed swimming with the current through the openings.

Richelieu rock: THE dive in term of diversity of marine life…Durban shrimps, tiger nail seahorse, lots of puffer fish (remember Nemo..), trumpet fish, cornet fish, octopus, scorpion fish, white eyes moray eel, crocodile fish, barracudas, lion fish, emperor angel fish…and the list goes on and on…We even had the chance (I insist on the world chance as this is a tricky one to spot…), to see a frog fish (pic)

Koh Bon (kan Par Kai): lots of leopard sharks and kuhl’s ray, this dive spot slop dramatically from the surface down to approximately 30-40 meters, where sand takes over as the water depth increases. As far as corals are concerned…well, the dynamite illegally used by the local fishermen has damaged most of it 

Pictures speak best…Enjoy !

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Photos

Beautiful hard corals garden
Similan Islands - Thailand

THE Frog Fish !!!
Finally...we got the chance to see one...really hard to spot...This one was on Richelieu Rock

Smile ! (trying my best..)
Got really lucky on this trip...first liveaboard, second diving trip in Thailand and for once...brough some pictures back thanks to our dive budy who was taking pictures!

Comments

[Lisa George]

Butterfly picture
That picture is great and i would love to have a copy of my own to frame. Is that possible? The coral with the 2 fish behind, beautiful! Let me know , thanks Lisa

[Adisorn]

thats great detail of the diving Similan
thats awesome experience, do you think possible to do just like snorkeling there, I am not able to dive

[laetitiaaroundtheworld]

Hi Adisorn, Not sure whether you could go there just for snorkeling but imagine there are no reasons it would not be possible, the only thing is that you would most likely have to go through a dive liveaboard operator and see whether they can take you on board. Cheers

[anonymous]

I did post here before but somehow did not appeared on the blog. Yes there is a possibility to snorkel there. You just have to go to Koh Chang and ask any of the dive shop and they would take you for a one day snorkeling trip. I did it and it was amazing!

[Anjarina]

Great!
I found this Similan Islands in Thailand similar to Coron Island in Palawan. Have you tried diving there? it was such a great experience, wasn't it?

[laetitiaaroundtheworld]

Hello anjarina, Haven't dived in palawan yet but on the list whenever I will be back in Asia :-) thanks for your comment.