Similan Liveaboard - Jaya on the Similan Islands
Another 5 days and 5 nights on a pirate ship?! Ok, if we have to! With 11 divers; Sonia, Scott andAmanda in charge; Captains Ahmad and P’Daeng at the wheel; Hari pumping tanks and P’Nok cooking chocolate doughnuts (and all of the more nutritious food too of course!) Jaya trip number 2 of the season headed out to the Similan National Park.
We started the trip with 3 dives around islands 4,5,6 and 7 – plenty of different marine life to get the 5 Day Similan liveaboard started, and an interesting variety of reef, boulder and pinnacle dive sites.
Island 9 was our location for the second morning, we started at Christmas point, stunning topography, huge boulders covered in schools of glass fish, and all the bigger pelagics coming in for breakfast.
Off to the beach at island 8, up to the viewpoint for gorgeous views all the way to Koh Bon and Koh Tachai, nice clear day! Frisbee was declined, so time for a bit of sunbathing and relaxing for everyone before the hoardes hit the beach, and we popped to North Point for a diver-free divesite! Seasnakes and turtles there, then next dive at Koh Bon was also very fishy, lots of octopus along the reef.
Koh Tachai the next day, more octopus, lots of trumpetfish over the divesite, and a school of curious batfish swimming around the buoyline to keep us company on our safety stop. More beach time, more food, then another dive! Eat, sleep, dive – a good pattern for the liveaboard trip adventure! Night dive at Koh Tachai North reef, turned out to be a very popular dive, we found a turtle, lots of hinge-beak shrimps and crustaceans galore, plus some little flounders hanging out in the sand. This trip had a few divers new to night diving, and now they’re hooked!
Up before the sun the next morning to get to Richelieu nice and early, plan was for 2 dives here. The first 2 dives were awesome, massive school of barracuda, funky dermatobranchus nudis and juvenile boxfish, pufferfish and bannerfish everywhere! We’ve had some crazy cephalopod action this trip, already had so many octopus, and then at Richelieu we saw another octopus, a school of squid and 5 cuttlefish – 2 of them putting on an impressive mating display, the sign language for which made the dive groups giggle!
Lots of relaxing, and plenty of fish identification after the dives – some people made the ID-ing a little harder than others (what was that silver fish?!)!
So good were the morning dives that there were clamours for more Richelieu, so we abandoned beach time at the Surins and stayed for one more dive at the famous rock! Sunset dive, all of the fish were going hectic and it was like being in a whirlpool of fish. Lots of different kinds of pipefish, peacock mantis shrimps, and a couple of zebra morays – all in all a very productive diving day!
Time for games this evening, everyone was a bit more awake, so Scott showed us all how to play our as-yet-unnamed game! Good fun, a mixture of charades and guess-who, but watching Bob do the moonwalk to describe Michael Jackson, narrowly beaten by Vero’s impression of Tony Hawkes. had us falling off the beanbags with laughter.
A rocky night, but another spectacular dive at Koh Tachai made up for the early morning, more batfish and a big school of jacks circling the pinnacle, then off to the Boonsung to finish the trip with some crazy pufferfish getting hassled by remoras, crocodile flatfish, and so many fish it was hard to find your buddy!
Back to solid land for group dinner and drinks – thanks everyone for an awesome trip, and thanks to Max, Vero & Kent for the beautiful photos!
If you like how this trip sounds - why not consider joining our Komodo Liveaboard trips?
1 comment:
Thank you for one of the most amazing trips ever! It was absolutely Wicked and really hope to join you for the Komodo trip! Cheers, Vero
Post a Comment