Just another day at the office – except our office has white sandy beaches, turquoise waters, and funky fish to watch all day! Trip number 4 of the season made its way out to the Similan Islands for a 3 day and 2 night liveaboard filled with great food and even better diving!
On this trip we had a family from France join us, with dad Richard doing his Advanced Adventurer certification with Karin and Stuart, son Edouard completing his Open Water Diver course with resident French-Canadian JP, girlfriend Melodie fundiving alongside, whilst mum Brigitte snorkelled with Amanda – a fab trip for the snorkellers, whi
te tip reef shark, huge school of chevron barracuda, loads of big milkfish, turtles, giant moray eel – you don’t have to dive to join us on the liveaboards, there’s loads to see from above too!
Dive Control Specialist Trainees Maria & Mads came along for the ride and were spectacularly helpful, we treated them to the same tricks as the trip before last, again a stellar performance from both of them setting up equipment blindfolded, giving dive briefings to the group, and guiding divers – good job guys!
Tara, Chad and Camilla dived with Roland this trip, whilst Karin and Nina took care of John, Janneke and Nalle – we started off with a check dive at Honeymoon Bay, long with a little baby turtle – so cute! The rain started after that so we headed t the sheltered side of the islands and did our second dive at Anita’s Reef, plenty of Kuhl’s rays, a nice peaceful drift dive for the end of the day – and we were thankful for a nice cup of tea after the dive! A delicious feast for dinner,
including a carved birthday melon, and then Nalle treated us all to a special magic trick in honour of Roland’s birthday – you had to see it to believe it, very cool!
Day 2 took us up to the north of the Similans, to
Islands 7 and 8 – a good start to the day at East of Eden deep out to the bommies and sea fans, then West of Eden to see the ribbon eels, and a trip to Turtle Rock where we found some great barracuda. A lovely days diving and snorkelling finished up in Donald Duck Bay for frisbee on the beach, then a night dive, with painted spiny lobsters and moray eels galore!
We thought that last trip was quick, but Melodie turned out to be the quickest toothbrush assassin this season! The game was finished in record time, so we turned to debating serious issues such as whether or not it’s ok to pee in your wetsuit, and how much food is it possible to eat on one liveaboard!
Amanda and Roland’s sun dance on the top of the boat the day before paid off on the last day of the trip, and the sun came out early to greet us for the first dive at North Point - crystal clear visibility, and the biggest puffer fish ever to swim the seas!
Lots of turtles at Three Trees, plus a white tip reef shark, then since the seas were calm and the weather gorgeous, we made a lunchtime cruise up to Koh Bon. An island about an hour and a half north-east of the Similan Islands, but still in the Similan National Park, it’s a limestone island, and the topography is beautiful. It’ll be manta ray time soon – why not join us on one of our Special Education trips? There was hardly any current along the ridge, which made for a lovely calm dive with octopus, jacks and fusiliers aplenty, plus Karin made a concerted effort to find as many nudibranchs for her group as possible!
The gorgeous weather continued most of the way back to Tap Lamu, a few more snacks in the sun just in case anyone was still hungry, signing of logbooks, group photos of all of us impersonating our favourite fish, and final goodbyes before the pier – there’s a day off for the boat crew before we head out again on Tuesday, looking forward to some more Similan Diving in a couple of days!
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