Sailing and diving the Similan Islands

The Similan islands and Richelieu Rock in neighbouring Surin islands are the top dive spots in Thailand and I have been wanting to dive at these spots for awhile now. It is close enough to home but throwing in the no dive time, it is too near to sacrifice more than a long weekend but yet taking a day or two off work did not seem to work logistically! Finally, a desire to keep my diving intervals short plus the lack of time to plan a longer trip meant I finally got around to booking this trip!

Based on a friend's recommendation, I had booked the 3 days liveaboard trip with Wicked Diving which covered both Richelieu Rock and parts of Similan Islands, just perfect for us! As with all liveaboard trips in this area, the dive shops are based in Khao Lak, an hour drive north of Phuket airport. We then drove another hour and half to the jetty where we sailed off close to Richelieu Rock. The 3 days route covers Richelieu Rock (in the Surin islands), before sailing south to Koh Bon and Koh Tachai in the Similans. I will not go into details of what each dive sites are like, but this website certainly gives a good write up on them!

I was a tad disappointed as February to April are meant to be the season to see manta rays and whale sharks, but unfortunately, it seemed that they have not made an appearance for awhile now! I did love the landscape of these dive sites, and the visibility in Similan islands were just amazing! One particular memorable site was at Koh Bon, where the cliff just extend from shore to seabed and one could see the waves crashing against the island right above us. Huge schools of glass fishes covered the dive sites and it was amazing to glide through them in crystal clear waters.

We also had an afternoon where we got to visit an island in the Surin islands. White sandy beach and turquoise waters - ah, heaven indeed!

 

I was initially worried about getting seasick on the boat, but I must say the sea was mostly very calm, and often, we are in sheltered bays. We also did a night dive right at this cove after a gorgeous sunset!

The best part of the trip was of course a group of fun dive mates on the boat, most of which were on extended trips around the region, or around the world! Ah, those were the days!

A great trip, and I suspect I will be back - hopefully to catch some manta rays and whale sharks action the next time!