Another trip out on the Parinee! Amanda, Tuk, Suzanne and Charlotte headed out to the Similan Islands with Captain Kaew at the helm, and a new group of fundivers to show the beautiful divesites to.
It was a bit choppy on the way out, but calmed down once we’d reached the islands, and we chose Hideaway Bay for our first dive of the trip, a nice little sheltered bay off islands 5 and 6. Turned out to be a fantastic dive, with mating octopus, massive scorpion fish and loads more – may as well start as we mean to go on with a good variety of different marine life to watch!
Ably assisted by P’Toon and P’Kaew we headed to West of Eden for a sunset dive, and as Tuk aptly put it ‘it’s like Bangkok traffic at the end of the day’! Fish everywhere, all in a rush to go somewhere else, made for a gorgeous dive, and a great opportunity for Kass & AJ to work on their camera skills with Charlotte, Sue and Antine for their Underwater Photography Speciality.
First evening games proved to be a big success, with everyone joining in for a rousing few games of werewolf, then a few calming games of Rummikub before off to bed! Tuk's decision to sleep upstairs under the stars was short-lived as it rained in the night sending him for shelter in a cabin :) The next day we dived around islands 6 and 7 of the Similan Islands, with a bit of a mixture of the sloping reef divesites of the East, and the boulders of the West.
A slap-up breakfast from P’Nui and P’Ooo kept us going for the morning, and the dives just kept on improving, with a bit of a swim with a turtle for Bas, Tim and Andriy at East of Eden in between the dives to keep us occupied!
Tuk led Tim, Sheenal & Andriy off to find more turtles and another octopus, whilst Meera and Ricky went down deep off Anita’s Reef with Amanda to complete Meera’s Adventure Deep dive, and then watch the Kuhl's stingrays play in the sand.
Since yesterday’s sunset dive had been so beautiful, we decided to dive there again for Amanda’s 1000th dive, and Renske gave everyone a better dive briefing than most of us staff could manage for West of Eden – the dive site came up trumps and there was plenty more to see, loads of sweetlips, huge unicorn fish, turtle, and big schools of fusiliers round the boulders. The night dive at Honeymoon Bay was a contender for the best dive of the trip, with hunting giant moray eels, spotfin lionfish, scorpion fish and more crabs and shrimp than you could possibly show to everyone!
A stellar assassin we had on this trip, with Tim winning the toothbrush game incredibly quickly, people being killed underwater and on the trip to the beach – you guy are getting too good at this game, it’s only the beginning of the season, are we ever safe from the toothbrushes on a Similan Liveaboard trip?!
We spent the third day of the trip up around island number 9 - Aj declared “the best way to wake up is jumping into water at 7am – yes maam!”, starting with one of our favourite sites - North Point on the last morning Suzanne disappeared off through the swim throughs with Francois, Bas & Renske; and we all finished off our safety stop with yet another turtle and a huge school of chevron barracuda.
Big Napoleon wrasse at Christmas Point and again at 3 Trees to finish off the trip, and the boat looked like a youth hostel dorm on the way back, everyone was so full from lunch they all slept most of the way back to Tap Lamu! Another fantastic trip, can’t wait for the next one!
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