18 of us full-boat chartered The Phinisi for the ten-day “Best of Thailand” trip to the North and South Andaman, in March 2024. 14 of us toured Thailand together for a week prior to boarding the boat. The touring and the boat trip were both arranged by Caradonna Diving Adventures and were booked and invoiced separately.
Bottom Line: Great trip! Glitch or two in the touring/transfer arrangements, nothing major. Boat’s crew and operations were flawless…happy and competent and helpful folks. Lots of very good food, mostly Thai. Incredible soups. 10/10 for the trip.
Some Details
Touring:
Bottom Line: Great trip! Glitch or two in the touring/transfer arrangements, nothing major. Boat’s crew and operations were flawless…happy and competent and helpful folks. Lots of very good food, mostly Thai. Incredible soups. 10/10 for the trip.
Some Details
Touring:
- Arrived Bangkok for the touring, met by tour guide to transfer to hotel, visited major sites around Bangkok. Tour split one evening into a bicycle tour or a TukTuk tour, both with stops for food.
- Flew to Chiang Rai (where we were met by a different tour guide) for an overnight and some local touring, then a bus trip to Chiang Mai with touring along the way. We all wished we’d had more time in Chiang Rai; the hotel was lovely, and it would have been fun to go north for a day and see the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system where the Thai soccer team was rescued.
- Three nights in Chiang Mai with touring, including an elephant sanctuary that turned out to be quite interesting and fun. One day was either guided birdwatching at Doi Inthanon National Park, or a cooking school.
- Then a flight to Phuket where the first trip-glitch occurred; we were not met by our tour guide and had a several hour delay at the airport while it all got sorted out. The Phuket Island tour for that afternoon had to be rescheduled for the next day, and was an abbreviated tour. One night in Phuket.
- NOTE: as trip leader, I used WhatsApp to contact the tour arrangers and guides and make the necessary adjustments. It would not have been feasible without WhatsApp.
- Transfer to Thap Lamu Pier to board The Phinisi; were joined by our four non-touring group folks who had flown directly to Phuket for the diving part of the trip.
- We boarded The Phinisi using its tenders from the dock to the boat. I was immediately impressed that all stepping surfaces had rugs on them to prevent slipping, and there were at least two crew hanging on to me and assisting as I boarded the tender and exited the tender to the boat.
- The usual flurry of cabin assignments and bag movements and gear arrangements followed, then a group intro and safety briefing, then a very good and large dinner.
- The safety briefing included much info on location of PFDs, fire extinguishers, exits, and portable/extensible ladders to get from one’s cabin out the hatch at the top. We did not practice with any of this other than a life jacket assembly drill and I wish we had.
- The double cabins were small but adequate. The quad cains were cramped with not enough storage/cabinet space. Decent A/C. Daily room service, major service (towels, sheets) halfway through the trip. Two towels each, one kept on the dive deck.
- No charging allowed in the cabins, period, whether you are in the cabin or not. This is not what we were told prior to the trip; we were planning for charging being OK if we were in the cabin at the time. There were plenty of not very convenient charging outlets in the saloon, and others on the dive deck at the camera/working tables. It all worked out OK. I had brought a multi-outlet (with USB ports) extension unit that I left plugged in at my camera table (shared with 2-3 others).
- Eating was at one large banquet-style table that required a lot of sliding around on the padded seats to squeeze everybody in.
- The saloon/common-access area, an indoor lounge, was an odd configuration of padded platforms you could lie on, but not any place to actually sit except at a one small high table. It was very social, but did not allow for any loners.
- A refrigerator was kept full of soft drinks and fruit juices, and there was a water cooler. Not very convenient little water cups with tops were provided to everybody to use; I wish I’d brought my own HydroFlask for its size, thermal insulation, and convenience. A sign-out sheet allowed access to beer and wine after your last dive of the day. 24x7 coffee access via a fancy machine.
- The nominal daily schedule was a wake-up bell at 0630 (that I never heard), light/continental breakfast, dive briefing at 0700 followed by dive #1, big breakfast at 0900, briefing followed by dive #2 at 1100, 1230 lunch, briefing and dive #3 at 1445, afternoon snack at 1615, briefing and dive #4 at 1800, dinner at 1930. Sunset was around 1840, so dive #4 was a dusk/night dive.
- Food was served buffet style, with multiple choices and good options for our vegetarians and pescatarians and non-red-meat eaters and various food allergies in the group. It was impossible to go hungry. Dishes were mostly Thai, with the occasional effort at Italian and American. Sticky rice with Mango twice! Breakfasts always had eggs in some form. Lots of fruit and candies and cookies out 24x7.
- The 18 of us dived in four groups of 4 or 5 people each, plus a guide. There were four guides. A RIB tender would take group 1 to the dive site, and return for group 2, etc. A second tender was on duty so the divers were never left alone. The next day the rotation would start with group 2, and group 1 would be last. Etc.
- We sat in assigned spots on the dive deck, put on our gear, walked to the tender location on the open rail, boarded the tender, sat down on the pontoon. Fins were already on the boat. Cameras were handled (very carefully) by crew. Back-roll all together to enter. Exit was hand up weights (and scuba unit) if desired, hand up fins, climb ladder and sit down. Tender returned to boat, you stepped up onto the dive platform, and entered the boat, walked to your seat. All movements from the boat on and off the tender had at least two crew holding onto you, and one walking to from and to your seat. Very secure. The crew assisted one diver with a bad back by putting her gear on the tender and lifting it out of the water for her. She never had to stand up with her gear on.
- Fresh water warm showers were at the dive deck, and we were always greeted when we came off the tenders with hot (morning and evening) or cold (midday) beverages.
- We did 19 dives over 5 days in the Northern Andaman area at Surin Thai, Richelieu Rock, Koh Torina, Koh Tachi, Koh Bon, and Islands #9, 8, 7, 6, and 4 in the Similan National Park. Richelieu Rock was both amazing and disappointing; amazing for its topography and fish life, and disappointing for the number of dive boats (10) and divers (thousands?) …including a group of maybe 20 inept divers who dropped right on top of us and swam through while kicking us and pushing us aside.
- We transited south to Phuket (Chalong Pier) for reprovisioning and an optional shore excursion for shopping and lunch.
- In the South Andaman we did 14 dives over 4 days at Koh Doc Mai, Shark Point, Islands #1,2,3,4,5 in Koh Haa National Park, Koh Rok, Koh Bida Nok, and Koh Bida Nai. We chose not to go to Hin Muang and Hin Daeng because conditions there were reported to be murky and cold.
- Most of the diving North and South was good to excellent, with acceptable viz and temperatures (85F+). Lots of good fish, some sharks, no mantas, good soft coral, pretty good hard coral, interesting topography, acceptable currents, fair number of nudibranchs and eels, very few crabs, couple of sea snakes, a few turtles, occasional pipefish, cowries, and octopuses.
- After each dive the crew would wash and rinse and hang our wetsuits. Nice! They would take the cameras from the tenders and put them in the camera tub.
- Each evening the crew would fresh-water rinse our gear. We felt very well taken care of.
- After each person announced their last dive, the crew took apart their gear, rinsed it, and hung it to dry for packing.
- Our last morning involved being off the boat by 10am. This was the second trip-glitch. Our transfers were to the Phuket airport, but nobody had a flight before 8:40pm that day, with most being later than that. We made last-minute (extra-cost) arrangements for our taxis to the airport to take us shopping and to lunch on the way to the airport, but this only used up some of the considerable extra time on hand. This could have worked out better if we had not already done our Phuket touring prior to the dive trip; we had no desire to do the same tour again. Not clear how to do this better in the future.
