pakman
Contributor
Finally got around to posting this report on a Similan Island I did over New Year's with Andaman Scuba/ mv Bunmee II.
I've got some photos up in my SB photo gallery
http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/1441/page/2
Andaman Scuba and the Boat...
the good ship mv Bunmee II
Boat staff was great. Thumbs up to a really nice crew and fun DM's (1 frenchman Olivier and a thai nicknamed "O"). mv Bunmee II was a nice cozy mid size boat (we had 8 divers only). Excluding myself and my two aussie friends, the rest of the divers were French as Andaman Scuba is run by a Frenchie and caters to the French. Quite amusing to have our briefings in French and English... The boat was showing its age and there were a few niggles in the rooms. We could never figure out how to turn the aircon on and the hot showers were hit and miss. Fortunately as long as there was a breeze, it was fine but I was cursed to be on the leeward side every time we moored! The dive area was tight even with just 8 divers. There was no dedicated area for cameras but rooms had plenty of electric sockets. But they would shut down the generator at midnite once in awhile! The food was barely edible by liveaboard standards. We all were really disappointed in this! And to make things worse, the only beer they had was Chang!!! grr....
The itinerary
Dec 27-Jan 2. Nice thing about this trip was that we took in Hin Daeng/ Hin Muang to the south in addition to Similans, Surin, and Richileu Rock. So we departed from Patong to Hin Daeng/ Hin Muang to the south (near Koh Lanta), then back to Phuket for a quick stop (seems they forgot a new yrs cake or something...). Then up to Surin and Richilieu. And finally hitting the Similans and back to Phuket. I think it's been awhile since they have been back to the area, as we hit some tsunami devastated sites like one site at Koh Racha Noi. Maybe some of the more knowledgable operations/ DM's would have avoided these.
Hin Daeng/ Hin Muang
After motoring out of Patong late evening of Dec 27, we moored off Hin Daeng. Woke up to find a number of liveaboards and tons of day speed boats coming in from Pi Pi and Lanta later in the morning. We did both sites all day. Coral was nice (Hin Muang) but no mantas... Vis wasn't so hot. Lots of big morays (in fact we would get sick of morays by the end of the trip)... Large schools of batfish. Nite dive at Hin Daeng proved to be interesting. Seems the barracuda love nite divers with strong torches to light up a late nite snack for them. Once in awhile, if you flash your beam to your side, you'd find a huge barracuda swimming along with you!!! We got a great show that nite as one 1+meter long barracuda just came in and tore up some little fish one of us had just lit up with their torch. On another occaision, while I was busy snapping a lion fish on the wall, all of sudden the divers around me were flashing their torches at me in a frenzy to get my attention. I looked away from my camera just in time to see a huge moray come cruising down a verticle crack that I had my hand near. 2nd day, we dove Hin Muang early morning before the hords of day boats started to show up on the horizon... As we were preparing our gear, we were moaning a bit about the lack of mantas or big fish... but then we were treated to a great 20+min show by a single manta early into our dive that kept circling the pinnacle. There was a strong current there but if you stay near the rocks, you were fine.
2nd dive that day we saw a couple of leopard sharks.
Racha Noi/ Surin
Nothing too thrilling here, but we did get a good size school of barracudas. Some sites showed some bad coral damage from the tsunami.
Richelieu Rock
On Dec 31, we got up to Richilieu Rock for 2 dives and Koh Bon Pinnacle for 2 dives. These were my favorite sites as the visibility was absolutely stunning. Felt like we were in a large aquarium. On our safety stops, you could clearly see the bottoms on some areas where it was 40m down. Saw another small school of barracudas, lots of fish everywhere, and really beautiful coral. Found two stunning yellow ornate ghost pipefish hiding in a small cave which I proceeded to botch with my camera (just couldn't focus in with my new macro lens). Fortunately I handed my lens over to my more experienced photographer friend who got a great pic with his Oly and my macro lens! Will try to steal that photo to post in my SB album... Nite dive found some nice porcelain crabs who were very uncooperative with my camera (kept hiding deep in the staghorn coral). Also found a nice cuttlefish which gave us a nice color show.
Similan Islands
Celebrated New Years Eve on Koh Bon. Must have annoyed the other boats around us by playing absolutely horrible 70's music... But most of us were dead asleep not much after the clock hit midnite... We did Breakfast Bend, Beacon reef, Elephant Head Rock,Japanese Garden, and East of Den. While we stopped at Donald Duck Rock beach, we got a chance to snorkel with a friendly turtle that came in near our boat. Got some nice photos and videos of the turtle before the boatman on a nearby boat started to lure the turtle to their boat with bananas...
The sites in the Similans were interesting, good but nothing overly amazing. And since this with the peak holiday season, it was absolutely chock full of liveaboards and day boats. We spent out surface time jealously looking on at some of the nicer luxury liveaboard yachts. Some of the sites got really crowded with boats constantly blaring their horns and dumping in 20+ divers at a time. Some sites like Shark Fin Reef was a zoo of boats and divers bobbing all over the place. But there was nice variety in terms of types of coral fields and some sites with very interesting rock formations and swim thrus.
Overall, I enjoyed the trip but probably wouldn't go back soon. Although I'd be interested in doing richilieu rock again. The crowds in the similans and the other islands were really a turn off (again it was peak holiday season..). And the food issue we had on our boat dampened out enthusiasm a bit...
I know there have been some mix reports on the similans lately on SB. Do your homework and find a good boat and knowledgeable DM's and maybe hit a less crowded time and you'll probably guarantee yourselves a memorable trip!
cheers,
I've got some photos up in my SB photo gallery
http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/1441/page/2
Andaman Scuba and the Boat...
the good ship mv Bunmee II
Boat staff was great. Thumbs up to a really nice crew and fun DM's (1 frenchman Olivier and a thai nicknamed "O"). mv Bunmee II was a nice cozy mid size boat (we had 8 divers only). Excluding myself and my two aussie friends, the rest of the divers were French as Andaman Scuba is run by a Frenchie and caters to the French. Quite amusing to have our briefings in French and English... The boat was showing its age and there were a few niggles in the rooms. We could never figure out how to turn the aircon on and the hot showers were hit and miss. Fortunately as long as there was a breeze, it was fine but I was cursed to be on the leeward side every time we moored! The dive area was tight even with just 8 divers. There was no dedicated area for cameras but rooms had plenty of electric sockets. But they would shut down the generator at midnite once in awhile! The food was barely edible by liveaboard standards. We all were really disappointed in this! And to make things worse, the only beer they had was Chang!!! grr....
The itinerary
Dec 27-Jan 2. Nice thing about this trip was that we took in Hin Daeng/ Hin Muang to the south in addition to Similans, Surin, and Richileu Rock. So we departed from Patong to Hin Daeng/ Hin Muang to the south (near Koh Lanta), then back to Phuket for a quick stop (seems they forgot a new yrs cake or something...). Then up to Surin and Richilieu. And finally hitting the Similans and back to Phuket. I think it's been awhile since they have been back to the area, as we hit some tsunami devastated sites like one site at Koh Racha Noi. Maybe some of the more knowledgable operations/ DM's would have avoided these.
Hin Daeng/ Hin Muang
After motoring out of Patong late evening of Dec 27, we moored off Hin Daeng. Woke up to find a number of liveaboards and tons of day speed boats coming in from Pi Pi and Lanta later in the morning. We did both sites all day. Coral was nice (Hin Muang) but no mantas... Vis wasn't so hot. Lots of big morays (in fact we would get sick of morays by the end of the trip)... Large schools of batfish. Nite dive at Hin Daeng proved to be interesting. Seems the barracuda love nite divers with strong torches to light up a late nite snack for them. Once in awhile, if you flash your beam to your side, you'd find a huge barracuda swimming along with you!!! We got a great show that nite as one 1+meter long barracuda just came in and tore up some little fish one of us had just lit up with their torch. On another occaision, while I was busy snapping a lion fish on the wall, all of sudden the divers around me were flashing their torches at me in a frenzy to get my attention. I looked away from my camera just in time to see a huge moray come cruising down a verticle crack that I had my hand near. 2nd day, we dove Hin Muang early morning before the hords of day boats started to show up on the horizon... As we were preparing our gear, we were moaning a bit about the lack of mantas or big fish... but then we were treated to a great 20+min show by a single manta early into our dive that kept circling the pinnacle. There was a strong current there but if you stay near the rocks, you were fine.
2nd dive that day we saw a couple of leopard sharks.
Racha Noi/ Surin
Nothing too thrilling here, but we did get a good size school of barracudas. Some sites showed some bad coral damage from the tsunami.
Richelieu Rock
On Dec 31, we got up to Richilieu Rock for 2 dives and Koh Bon Pinnacle for 2 dives. These were my favorite sites as the visibility was absolutely stunning. Felt like we were in a large aquarium. On our safety stops, you could clearly see the bottoms on some areas where it was 40m down. Saw another small school of barracudas, lots of fish everywhere, and really beautiful coral. Found two stunning yellow ornate ghost pipefish hiding in a small cave which I proceeded to botch with my camera (just couldn't focus in with my new macro lens). Fortunately I handed my lens over to my more experienced photographer friend who got a great pic with his Oly and my macro lens! Will try to steal that photo to post in my SB album... Nite dive found some nice porcelain crabs who were very uncooperative with my camera (kept hiding deep in the staghorn coral). Also found a nice cuttlefish which gave us a nice color show.
Similan Islands
Celebrated New Years Eve on Koh Bon. Must have annoyed the other boats around us by playing absolutely horrible 70's music... But most of us were dead asleep not much after the clock hit midnite... We did Breakfast Bend, Beacon reef, Elephant Head Rock,Japanese Garden, and East of Den. While we stopped at Donald Duck Rock beach, we got a chance to snorkel with a friendly turtle that came in near our boat. Got some nice photos and videos of the turtle before the boatman on a nearby boat started to lure the turtle to their boat with bananas...
The sites in the Similans were interesting, good but nothing overly amazing. And since this with the peak holiday season, it was absolutely chock full of liveaboards and day boats. We spent out surface time jealously looking on at some of the nicer luxury liveaboard yachts. Some of the sites got really crowded with boats constantly blaring their horns and dumping in 20+ divers at a time. Some sites like Shark Fin Reef was a zoo of boats and divers bobbing all over the place. But there was nice variety in terms of types of coral fields and some sites with very interesting rock formations and swim thrus.
Overall, I enjoyed the trip but probably wouldn't go back soon. Although I'd be interested in doing richilieu rock again. The crowds in the similans and the other islands were really a turn off (again it was peak holiday season..). And the food issue we had on our boat dampened out enthusiasm a bit...
I know there have been some mix reports on the similans lately on SB. Do your homework and find a good boat and knowledgeable DM's and maybe hit a less crowded time and you'll probably guarantee yourselves a memorable trip!
cheers,
