blueline
Guest
Hello fellow divers,
I just wanted to post a few pictures from the Similan Islands liveaboards and to report on the diving conditions that existed in this last month's post tsunami trip.
First of all we went through Sunrise Divers in Karon Beach/Phuket (dealt with Simon who was very helpful and friendly) to book the trip which was 4 days - 14 dives with the LeMahe boat. The crew on board did everything they could (especially the Thai guys that helped with our rig) to make this trip pleasant, and in general I and my buddy had no real complains at the end, other than the fact that they served french fries for breakfast(?). Make a note: LeMahe is rather small and mostly a no frills boat, however,it only takes 12 divers max(even though it was overbooked for our trip(we did receive a free T-shirt though)),
and diving is done in small groups from the deck. It is not luxurious or anything, nevertheless, it was quite comfortable given its size and at $595 a real bargain. Major advantage for me - en suite rest rooms/bathrooms and only 12 divers on board.
We did 3 dives at Richelieu Rock ( vis. was approximately 70+ feet and less) - saw no Whale sharks/Mantas (per divemaster though, another boat reported a sighting of a 12 foot juvenile whale shark near by, on the day we were diving at Richelieu). Also saw no Mantas.
We also dove Koh Tachai(night dive too), Koh Bon/night dive (excellent Acropora/stag horn corals), as well as Christmas Point, Elephant head, Breakfast Bend/night dive and East of Eden.
Favorite dives: Richelieu Rock, Breakfast Bend, Koh Bon, East of Eden. Since I like triggerfish, I was pleased to see Titan, Gray, Clown, Lei, Niger, Black durgeons, and the bad boys "undulated/orange tail triggerfish". No blueline triggerfish though (my favorite).Many other colorful fish and a Napoleon Wrasse on a night dive.
In general, there have been some negative reports about the quality of diving and I want to clarify something. Coral wise, the Similans have excellent soft/hard corals, good macro life (i.e saw Ornate ghost pipefish, nudibranchs, Arabian(Richelieu), Mauritiana cowries in Phuket(believe it or not we saw 10-15 cowries snorkeling in Karon Beach(by where the rocks are at the end of the beach)) and some pretty good reef scapes for photographers. We did see some damage on a couple of sites(Koh Bon/East of Eden) but those were old scars from anchoring or fishing with dynamite. However, those sites are fairly big, the damage (corals were already growing on the damaged areas) was only a small %; there were plenty of pinnacles/plateaus and ledges with healthy corals that "probably" rival the best sites in the world. If you have any doubts before heading over to Similan/Burma, I would order Nick Hope's CD " Reef Life of the Andaman" which has amazing footage from the Similans/Phuket/Burma (I liked this CD better than the Coral Reef Adventure). A very good job indeed!
Pictures (found in Member galleries under Blueline) were taken with an Olympus 5050 w/ an Inon D-2000W strobe - (first attempt w/ strobe and no wide angle lense).
I just wanted to post a few pictures from the Similan Islands liveaboards and to report on the diving conditions that existed in this last month's post tsunami trip.
First of all we went through Sunrise Divers in Karon Beach/Phuket (dealt with Simon who was very helpful and friendly) to book the trip which was 4 days - 14 dives with the LeMahe boat. The crew on board did everything they could (especially the Thai guys that helped with our rig) to make this trip pleasant, and in general I and my buddy had no real complains at the end, other than the fact that they served french fries for breakfast(?). Make a note: LeMahe is rather small and mostly a no frills boat, however,it only takes 12 divers max(even though it was overbooked for our trip(we did receive a free T-shirt though)),
and diving is done in small groups from the deck. It is not luxurious or anything, nevertheless, it was quite comfortable given its size and at $595 a real bargain. Major advantage for me - en suite rest rooms/bathrooms and only 12 divers on board. We did 3 dives at Richelieu Rock ( vis. was approximately 70+ feet and less) - saw no Whale sharks/Mantas (per divemaster though, another boat reported a sighting of a 12 foot juvenile whale shark near by, on the day we were diving at Richelieu). Also saw no Mantas.
We also dove Koh Tachai(night dive too), Koh Bon/night dive (excellent Acropora/stag horn corals), as well as Christmas Point, Elephant head, Breakfast Bend/night dive and East of Eden.
Favorite dives: Richelieu Rock, Breakfast Bend, Koh Bon, East of Eden. Since I like triggerfish, I was pleased to see Titan, Gray, Clown, Lei, Niger, Black durgeons, and the bad boys "undulated/orange tail triggerfish". No blueline triggerfish though
(my favorite).Many other colorful fish and a Napoleon Wrasse on a night dive. In general, there have been some negative reports about the quality of diving and I want to clarify something. Coral wise, the Similans have excellent soft/hard corals, good macro life (i.e saw Ornate ghost pipefish, nudibranchs, Arabian(Richelieu), Mauritiana cowries in Phuket(believe it or not we saw 10-15 cowries snorkeling in Karon Beach(by where the rocks are at the end of the beach)) and some pretty good reef scapes for photographers. We did see some damage on a couple of sites(Koh Bon/East of Eden) but those were old scars from anchoring or fishing with dynamite. However, those sites are fairly big, the damage (corals were already growing on the damaged areas) was only a small %; there were plenty of pinnacles/plateaus and ledges with healthy corals that "probably" rival the best sites in the world. If you have any doubts before heading over to Similan/Burma, I would order Nick Hope's CD " Reef Life of the Andaman" which has amazing footage from the Similans/Phuket/Burma (I liked this CD better than the Coral Reef Adventure). A very good job indeed!
Pictures (found in Member galleries under Blueline) were taken with an Olympus 5050 w/ an Inon D-2000W strobe - (first attempt w/ strobe and no wide angle lense).
