Trip 023 Similan Islands

Trip 23 has returned to land and what an epic adventure it was. With Team “Rest of the World” being only 4 customers and 2 staff for this trip I for one was super grateful that everyone clicked and we had such a nice time both above and below the water.

After an unusually smooth arrival and a timely departure we got the sea breeze on our backs and headed out to the Similan Islands.

Day One of the trip gave us some epic dives with a lovely check dive on West of Eden kicking things off, featuring a visit from our favourite Gracie the turtle and a sleepy octopus. Hideaway Bay was its usual lovely dive before Three Trees pulled out all the stops and delivered what I can honestly say was one of my most memorable dives there, with 3 sightings of Napoleon wrasse, and absolute monster of a sea snake and the schooling barracuda at the end, this really was a “wow” moment even for me having dived out here for several years. We rounded off day one with a tricky dive at Three Rocks, trying our best to avoid the currents, we got a little visit from some snub-nosed pompano, quite a rare sighting in these parts.

Having set the bar high day two delivered the goods. Dive one and guitar shark, Napoleon wrasse, and sea snakes were sighted at North Point, followed by a white tip shark riding in a green monster over Koh Bon Ridge. The first dive at Tachai was very eventful with some very strong currents limiting the possibilities, but lots of hunting action to watch from the few places of solace we could find. Second dive was like a completely different place, super calm conditions and an epic dive to round off day two. After a feed of ribs and a lovely sunset we headed off to Surin.

Turtle Ledge featured a turtle and another Napoleon wrasse (I saw more on this trip than the whole rest of the season so far). We headed out to Richelieu for three epic dives on one of Thailand’s best dive sites and it really showed us why. Besides the special finds of seahorse, ornate ghost pipefish there were the epic school of emperor fish, many kinds of eel (much to Gabby’s delight) and shrimps, boxfish and anemone fish contributing to a very wholesome Richelieu experience. After we demolished the Khao Soy and Lucy tried (and failed) to demolish the quad cabin with her forehead 😛 we were on our way back to Bon with another stunning sunset to see.

Two final dives at Koh Bon wrapped up a wonderful trip with lots of laughs, some fantastic diving and a really enjoyable time all round.

Congratulations to the new Nitrox divers 🙂

Thanks to our wonderful crew for making it all happen. And finally thanks to you guys for being so awesome, lovely customers make trips like this a real joy to lead, and you are all welcome back any time.