Hi StevenI.
Yup, guilty as charged, non-resident. You may have more data averaged over more seasons than me, I was just there for awhile.
Yeah, on my 3 trips tours, all three stoped at Koh Bon (2 on one boat, 1 on another). Since there weren't any Mantas there yet our season, it was a nice but not amazing place (cept for the sea snakes, which were beautiful) until the boat stopped at Koh Bon Pinnacle the last trip (Nov/Dec 2007), which was fabulous. After Koh Bon it was Koh Tachai, then Similans, then Richilieu, then (I think) Koh Tachai again, then home. Maybe they stopped there bc I loved it so much, but I doubt it. ;-)
[Edited to add: Checked my dive log, and I got the order completely wrong, Koh Bon and Koh Tachai were indeed between Similans and Richilieu Rock.]
Yeah, there's dynamite fishing in Burma. I hate that. It's really depressing to see it, and even more so to hear it (from a distance). When I went (way back in 2005, right after the tsunami, the quality of the diving was spectacular). It may have detiorated since then; I know Mergui used to be known for pelagics, not so much even in 2005. I've never seen bigger schools of baitfish though. I hope they aren't all fished out now, that would be sad.
Maybe I just missed out on the good diving around Phuket. Not saying the diving's not worth doing, sorry to give that impression, esp if the diver is most interested in land-based diving. It's just that from what I saw and from what I've read on here, Similans is many times more lovely, especially if one is flying across the ocean to do it.
In the US, Thailand diving is much undervalued among the general dive population, among my peer group anyway. When I tell them I spent 18 days diving back to back in Thailand, they just kind of stare at me like, "Why?". I was pretty amazed when I came, and how really good it was. It was totally worth extending my booking from the original short stay to the longer stay.
Highly highly recommended.
