Divemaster Training - New Artificial reef!

Wicked Diving now has the best waste disposal system of any of Khao Lak's dive shops - we have an underwater toilet at Boonsung Wreck :)
But that’s not the whole story...

As a capstone of the first Divemaster course of the year, the four of us were responsible for designing, creating, and installing a piece of artificial reef near one of the wrecks in Khao Lak. We had the help of two intrepid instructors, Jade and Ash, and our DMT leader Diego. In 2010, a DMT group dropped a giant concrete pyramid that could act as a fish nursery.  This year, they're trying to have each DMT class install their own piece to create an artificial reef habitat, since most of the area around Khao Lak is sandy and inhospitable for fish aggregations.



We spent several hours researching the different materials used in reef construction. Porcelain, untreated wood, untreated metal, and some concretes are very good for artificial reefs since they don't leach many chemicals and can last a long time. Painted and treated materials are often toxic, and shouldn't be used.



We found an abandoned toilet bowl near the storeroom and some old concrete blocks, so we created our own version of the Wicked Throne (to the porcelain gods).



While we were trying to tie the toilet bowl to cement blocks, two Thai men stopped landscaping and came over to help us. They basically took the rope out of our hands and showed us how competent people tie down toilets... it was hilarious because they didn't ask why we were trying to tie down a toilet bowl, they just helped us do it better. Amazing. This country is full of the most remarkable, friendly, and helpful people!


Once installed, the site is about 20 meters away from the wreck. One the first dive of the day, we placed the toilet next to the installation from divemasters two years ago. We managed to get the toilet on the van, on and off the boat, and down to the sand without too much trouble. It was pretty funny though!

On the second dive, we tried to install the backboard and create a throne. We managed to bring it down to the toilet by weighing it down with ~3 kilos and some muscle, but it wasn't stable enough to withstand the currents and storms that hit Khao Lak in the summer. Actually, we underestimated George's muscles when he was tightening the backboard to the toilet, and the bamboo snapped! We decided to leave the toilet as a central feature and forget about its accessories. It'll be very interesting to see what grows over the rest of the season. All in all, a great day.

Thanks guys for all the hard work and the innovative new reef :)


-Similan Diving

The mining of tin in Thailand dates back to the reign of King Narai during the Ayutthaya period. Tin was used for making spear tips, swords and body armour and so was considered a valuable commodity not only by the Thai Kingdom, but by all Oriental and European powers. During the mid 1800's the demand for tin and related alloys surged. It was used in Bangkok for coins and roof tiles and was sought by industrializing Europe for anti-rust coatings, tin cans, foils and electronics. Thousands of Chinese migrated to Phuket to work in the tin mines where conditions were adverse and labour intensive. History was made at Wat Chalong in 1876, when a riot involving 25 000 migrant workers was quelled by two temple abbots who rallied with the local people.

Over the years the excavation process has evolved and now uses a sophisticated method to mine and extract tin ore. The seabed is scooped up by a bucket ladder, a system of large bucket shaped cups that revolve around a pulley stretching from the top of the dredge down to some 117 meters below sea. The pay-dirt is sent through a large revolving screen, where the oversized particles are discarded and the more precious mixture of sand, gravel and tin is collected. Next it is sieved by one of seven primary jigs before being pumped back up into a hydro-cyclone. Here the heavy, metallic particles are retained and sent through a secondary jig. This gravity theory is also applied to the next two refining stages, the Willoughby jig and the land-chute. Finally the precious remains are dried, bagged and shipped to the Sino-Thai refinery in Phuket. At this stage, the tin material is approximately 30% pure. It is then thoroughly cleaned using plain water to become about 74% pure tin.

Sino-Thai sell all of their tin to the Thailand Smelting Co. Ltd., where it's once again processed and smelted into tin blocks. Tin is used to make common alloys such as bronze, as we see in many Buddha images, solder, used widely in industry, and pewter which is readily available in almost any souvenir shop. Even the aerospace industry depends on an alloy made from titanium and tin for space exploration.

No one could deny the usefulness of tin products in our society, yet the relative value of tin has decreased by about 50% since the hey-days of the industry back in the 1900's. The tin mining business has repeatedly come under fire throughout its long history in Thailand. The environmental impact of early mining was considerable. Open cut tin mines devastated the pristine landscape of Phuket and eventually angered residents. In 1985 construction began of a tantalum refinery, a valuable metal by-product of tin processing. The procedure would have significantly damaged air and water quality, but a citizen protest, 50,000 people strong, broke into chaos resulting in the destruction of the plant.

Nowadays excavation of tin ore is "conducted to reduce the environmental impact as much as possible". The discharge chute is now aimed straight down to the ocean floor which lessens the deluge by up to 90%.

Editor's note: This ONLY affects the aquatic life and chokes out all the coral reefs with sedimentation. This sedimentation occurs in a huge area as the the effluent drifts dozens of kilometers with each tidal shift.

Happily we offer visits to a pair of sunken tin dredgers. Ask us about these great local dives

Khao Lak Diving - Local Dive Sites...

The weather today was incredible! The diving was almost as good. We could see dozens of huge jellyfish (50-70 cm/2 feet or more across!!!) in the water, but they are completely harmless and so made for beautiful background. This was one of the first visits of the year, so everything was in great shape.

















Nudibranchs were out in huge numbers and having quite a day - plenty of eggs around. I guess they get bored when the divers are gone...





























The wreck is slowly decaying, and several pieces have fallen down or been knocked over by fishing nets.

On one part there was a very long net that was ensnaring shellfish. We decided to do a second dive and clean up the wreck a bit. Lots of net and fishing line.















It's the last day of the vegetarian festival - so this was our little part - we freed all the Conch, Cowries, and Crabs.


But Captain Jack was tired.
















These wreck trips are part of our daily Khao Lak Dive trips

Our Similan Liveaboard

Bon soong april 15

We visited Bon Soong today and I must say these were the best conditions of the year! I could see all the details of the wreck right from the surface! No current, perfect viz and so many fish that we could not see a thing! We had to move the fish out of the way to see the wreck!

The weather today is perfect! 20 meters viz

Another successful Day of Khao Lak Diving!

noon time on pakarang

During our wreck trip to Bon Soong we had great conditions and a beautiful day.

Of course the underwater camera didn't work! But We saw some sweet nudibranch's, stonefish and cuttlefish.

Khao Lak Diving

Similan Information

Safe Diving

Liveaboard Guide

Diving today - bon soong

Here we are on the beach getting ready for the wreck trip. Pretty funny as I used the Salaang to get us there (the three wheeled scooter)

It was a great day out and sure brought us a lot of joy. With our schedule we arrive before other boats, and those that do arrive - dive during surface interval!

Our normal save-a-dive kit includes a GPS, and today the captain missed the site and couldn't find the buoys, so we saved the day! Hurrah for preparation!

Wicked Diving

Liveaboard Guide

Dive Safety

Similan Information

Bon soong Nudies

Here's some nudibranchs I caught fooling around on top of the Bon soong wreck!
I'm a nerd for small creatures but unlike Paul, Klaus and Marcel I couldn't tell you this ones name...


-ED. Note - Chromodoris geminus (?)

Khao Lak Diving

Similan Islands

Bon Soong Wreck - November, 2007

Oops!

Actually I left it there for the picture, but you can see that the seas were calm and the water warm for the dive on Bon Soong.

This weeks little family:
Mark, Turid, Stine and Sabrina all went out for a great afternoon's diving.










Lunch on the boat.

Stress? Not here...

They saw no less than 7 Leopard Sharks (though it may have been the same 7 different times). But Bon Soong never disappoints. It's a great site for the little stuff, nudibranchs, juvenile angel fish, puffers and very frequently sharks.













Captain Jack never fails either. He's both a positive influence and friendly guy. What more can we say? It is such a relief to have a great captain. It always makes me happy to get a hug from him - even if he is in his underpants!

Khao Lak Diving

Similan Diving

First dive of the season

It was funny and exciting. All our staff agree - our favorite site is Bon soong.

Yes, it has poor visibility, there is very little coral and it's nothing like the Similans, but man this site packs a wallop.

We, of course, went with our man Cap'n Jack. He is one of the most amazing, positive people we know. He is hilarious and honest and a damn good human. He also avoids smiling on camera because he has no teeth. But believe me he is smiling and laughing 95% of the time.


This time, the site was hidden! Over the rainy season it has not been dived, and the local fisherman (boo) have either cut or broken the marker buoys.

So when we arrived, we wandered around for quite a while looking for some sign of the wreck. Eventually we asked another fishing boat, and the brought us to a piece of water. Said it was here! It looked like a likely piece of ocean for a shipwreck to be in (?)

We jumped in, searched for for 30 minutes, found some tires and shells.

We talked to a different fishing boat. They had no clue where we were. Didn't care.

Finally we did some guesswork, dead reckoning, and decided to do a massive line sweep - almost 70 meters long. By sheer chance we happened to find it! We marked the site, put up a small buoy and got ready for our dive.

Some of us look very good in our diving gear and aren't afraid to show off a bit.



On the other hand some people look like total dick-heads.



you decide



But the site is a year older, rusted through in a few places, bits and pieces fallen off. Still very much the incredible site that we love.



We were a bit depressed by one of our favorite corners. Famous for the stone fish and ghost pipefish - it was hit hard by fishing nets. We pulled off a big one, but there is a lot more to go.

Oddly enough, we had Bruno, representative from Greenfins on the boat. Even with fishing nets, we still blew Koh Tao out of the Water.


Anyhow - the site is marked, we had a great day. Perfect way to begin the season.

Tomorrow - Marcel's report from the Similans...

Wicked Diving

Khao Lak Diving - Bon soong

Just saw this one in our library and thought I'd put it out here for all to see.

This is a lovely example of chromodoris annulata or for the more nerdy - Chromi's.

These are really beautiful, and often quite easy to see. Due to their bright colors.

This is most frequently seen on Nudi Wall on Bon Soong wreck and can often be seen from several meters away.

Khao Lak Dive Sites -Bon Soong Wreck (aka Bang Sak Wreck)

Bon Soong Wreck
We visit this local dive site two or three times a week. We only need two people and we are ready to go! All our staff are always eager to do this dive. Not only is it convenient - just a few kilometers offshore, but the diving is incredible. I've personally dived it close to 150 times and still love it.

We go by longtail, using our local captain. We will have lunch on the longtail itself, and we spend a good long surface interval so that we can have lengthy dives. This isn't fancy diving - backrolls over the side and just us on the boat. And if you think your surface interval is too long - you'll see that we just talk away about all the different kinds of marine life.

Bon Soong (The original name - it means heavy spray, like from an elephant trunk) is a tin dredger that sank around 20 years ago. This particular dredger was built in Australia in the 1920'2 or 30's, eventually making its way here. This region was famous for it's tin long before it was famous for its beaches.

Bon Soong is scooping dredger, meaning it had a long arm with a series of buckets that it would lower into the shallows to dig up the bottom. Kind of like an elephant trunk (thus the name of the boat!)

The boat went down during a sudden Thunderstorm in the early 80's. One person died. It wasn't the sturdiest boat (see construction date) to begin with. The tin was starting to give out and the government was starting to limit the tin mining concessions. So it was fortuitous timing.

It is located a few kilometers off Cape Pakarang or about 13 nautical miles away from Tap-Lamu pier. It is also off of Bang Sak beach, which explains it's other name.

At first, due to it's large size, the wreck lay close to the surface making it a safety hazard to local fishing vessels. So the Thai Navy were called in to bomb the boat, reducing its height by collapsing the decks, and creating the wreck that we dive on today.

The Wreck used to be in two pieces, or so we thought! The tsunami of 2004 lifted a huge section of the superstructure off and spread it out. Now the site is even better! More spread out, more nooks and crannies and more for us to poke our heads into!

The wreck lies on serene flat sandy region at 18 to 20 metres. As there is nothing else of note within several kilometers of the site, all the small fish and their predators come to this one locale. The concentration of fishlife here is extraordinary. At times visibility drops to 3 meters - but due to fish, not plankton!!!

We expect to see schools of bigeye trevally, snappers, batfish, porcupinefish and squids on every dive. On the sand floor, we often see leopard sharks, several varieties of gobies, tiny flounders and flatheads wedged in the sand.

Hiding beneath the wreck in the dark, we have often seen a huge marble stingray.

On the wreck itself, you can find a great selection of nudibranchs, white-eyed morays and honeycomb morays with spectacular patterns. Cuttlefish, octopus and pipefish are also very common. If you are fortunate enough, you may encounter a whale shark.


This is a shallow site and easy to navigate, but that doesn't mean it is safe! The wreck is completely encrusted in corals, mollusks and rust. It also pokes out in some unexpected ways. Even more intimidating are the sheer numbers of Scorpionfish and Lionfish. Hundreds of both just saturate this site with their dangerous spines. This is one of the few sites that actually has Stonefish. Scorpionfish are often identified as Stonefish by the less experienced divemasters. The Stonefish venom is quite painful.

This site is usually THE favorite or one of the favorites of all local Instructors. The amount of life here is incredible, but also the diversity. While we at Wicked are firm believers that the smaller the better - you can still find Sharks, Rays and Barracudas.

This site is home to Hypseledoris Zebrina, Hypseledoris and several other very rare species of Nudibranchs and Flabellinas. Tucked in hidden corners of the wreck are also Frogfish and even seashorses. This is the place to take your time and really like for the little stuff.

Also watch you deco limits

Khao Lak Diving and Weather April 9th...

Ouch...it's hot, and sunny and the diving is perfect. What more can you say? It's only about 33 (91) outside, but with some pretty heavy humidity, it's feeling like 39 (100), so we head to the beach, jump in for a swim, lay around napping during the day and just relax. Tough life eh? We had a brief thunderstorm roll through, but it was over and gone before I even noticed.

The diving is just about perfect. We were able to see the entire Bon Soong Wreck from the surface, which is a once or twice a year kind of thing! and the life there is out of control right now. We will, if possible be doing some fun diving there, just to savor this opportunity.

Seriously, this is perfect buildup for Songkran, which is sort of our New Years party. Kind of. But it's a celebration of the end of dry season, and the coming rains, so with all that "extra" water, you pour it on one another. which is great! unless you want to stay dry, or go somewhere, or do something. Or drive a scooter (there were ONLY 650 deaths last year on this same weekend). Some clever bastard decided, sometime long ago, to also throw talcum powder onto each Other. Hahaha..ha....umm....kind of sucks actually. It's funny to do it, but not funny to have it happen. Especially in your face, especially while driving a scooter, especially since most powders also have menthol for that lovely cooling effect...

Anyhow. This year I'll be reporting on Khao Lak's water party, as this will actually be the first time I spent it here! I've been hiding for the last few years.

And since you read this far...here's a wee something that I spent my safety stop with...

It was a REALLY good dive yesterday at Koh Bon...

Wicked Diving