2 Day/1 Night or Day Trip to Richelieu Rock

[surinboy]

Thanks for that. I am glad to say (for your sake) that this is not my special operator.
I have seen South Siam Divers' boats out and about before but never looked them up.

The prices are actually a bit high. I would be very interested to know what their service is like. When are you going Iztok?

 

[iztok]

Thanks for that. I am glad to say (for your sake) that this is not my special operator.
I have seen South Siam Divers' boats out and about before but never looked them up.

The prices are actually a bit high. I would be very interested to know what their service is like. When are you going Iztok?

Good to know. I am going to be diving November 14/15th. Rest of the week there I will be at JW Marriott enjoying the life (plus one night before and one after at JW Bangkok)

Looking forward.

Is this mostly just drift diving? How long are the dives usually?

 

[surinboy]

How you dive will depend on the sites dived and at what point of the tide.

50 mins or 50 bar is a common rule of thumb. However, how long you actually get will depend on who is in your group and how flexible the company and DM are. It is easy to get depth at a lot of Similan sites so if anyone in your group is bad on air then it can cut your dive time very short if your DM is not so experienced.

This is perhaps one of the downsides of day trip diving. When there are lots of different people coming through then there may not be any constancy with DMs and groups. When you are on a fixed liveaboard for a few days then each diver gets assessed by their DMs for their abilities and air consumption. This allows groups to be shuffled where necessary and for dive plans to be tweaked. Normally things should get sorted out by the end of the first day so that all divers get maximum enjoyment for the rest of the trip.

 

[FairyBasset]

I did a liveaboard on the similans 2 years ago with Diving Thailand Khaolak with SSA Khao Lak Thailand on the Similan Islands
As they have lots of day trips as well, which dive off the liveaboard boat, you may be able to meet the boat out in the islands and just make a 1 night stay with 2 days diving.
Worth looking into at least.

 

[FairyBasset]

Similan Scuba prices at that time were:
2 Days / 1 night 6 Dives 196,- Euro

 

[penguintom]

How you dive will depend on the sites dived and at what point of the tide.

50 mins or 50 bar is a common rule of thumb. However, how long you actually get will depend on who is in your group and how flexible the company and DM are. It is easy to get depth at a lot of Similan sites so if anyone in your group is bad on air then it can cut your dive time very short if your DM is not so experienced.

Two shops I dived with recently were more like 30 mins / 150 bar. Most disappointing.

 

[iztok]

I did a liveaboard on the similans 2 years ago with Diving Thailand Khaolak with SSA Khao Lak Thailand on the Similan Islands
As they have lots of day trips as well, which dive off the liveaboard boat, you may be able to meet the boat out in the islands and just make a 1 night stay with 2 days diving.
Worth looking into at least.

They look good. Did they have free Nitrox for all certified divers? How long were the dives? Any pros/cons?

 

[Bowmouth]

Two shops I dived with recently were more like 30 mins / 150 bar. Most disappointing.

Penquin,
If a daytrip DM is telling you to be back on the surface after 30 minutes and/or with 150 Bar of air in your tank just smile, nod and stay down for the full hour.
If he/she after the dive is waiting with a red face on the stern of the boat, screams to you and shakes his/her fist in your face then stay calm and smile again, nod a bit and do the second dive exactly the same!

 

[penguintom]

Penquin,
If a daytrip DM is telling you to be back on the surface after 30 minutes and/or with 150 Bar of air in your tank just smile, nod and stay down for the full hour.
If he/she after the dive is waiting with a red face on the stern of the boat, screams to you and shakes his/her fist in your face then stay calm and smile again, nod a bit and do the second dive exactly the same!

They were leading the dive, and before we knew it, we were back at the boat being told lunch is ready.
I was not sure if the guy really knew what he was doing. We didnt really see much other than sand, a few small coral heads and a few small fish on the dive, where we achieved the great depth of 5 metres, and that was whilst going across the sand to and from the boat, most of the dive was at around 2-3 metres.
Whole thing a complete waste of time really.

 

[Bowmouth]

Whole thing a complete waste of time really.

That sounds all pretty horrible to me.
Was this trip sold as a real "day trip dive destination" (if yes; what was the dive-site name, how was it advertised and what were the highlights supposed to be?) or were you joining some sort of check-out or exploration dive?