Although I have been diving in Maldives a few years ago, Thailand was my first true time and experience visiting Asia!
I was told by my dive buddies over at home, that the Similan Islands, was the best place to dive in Thailand and that I have to go there! The best way to dive there is on a liveaboard, as the Islands are quite far away from the mainland. Day boats do visit the Islands, but you do get the most out of the area by liveaboard. The boats leave from a port near Khao Lak, a small town, about one hour’s drive from Phuket International Airport.
Wow! As soon as I entered the water, I could see thousands of glass fish and all types of fish everywhere. The burst of colours as I shined my torch on the coral reefs was breath-taking. First impressions, wasn’t what I was expecting. I was extremely pleased. I have travelled to many many diving destinations, but Similan Islands, topped up all of them by far!
I did 3 days of diving at Similan Islands, I didn’t see any “big fish” but everywhere I visited was truly amazing. We also visited one of the Islands, where a dense jungle and eco-system had formed. On this Island, park rangers, medics and other authorities lived here on rotating shifts.
One of the dive sites I dived on was an artificial reef, with memorials and monuments placed to revive and remember the disaster caused by the Tsunami a few years ago.
The liveaboard, personally wasn’t great, I had been on much better ones each time I had visited the Red Sea, and even the one at Maldives was better. The rooms had bunk beds and was quite small/tight with no bathrooms. There was a shared bathroom with queues to use, on another deck. There was no communal areas either, the dining area was outdoors.
The liveaboard on the third day, would move in the afternoon away from the Similan Islands, and off to other reefs further north, those who only wanted to dive Similan, like myself, boarded a speedboat back to the mainland.
This however, wasn’t the end of my diving in Thailand! That same evening, I transferred to Phuket, and the next day, was picked up to dive in the Phi Phi Islands!
I had heard good things about diving in the Phi Phi Islands. Most of the divers I known back at home, had dived there, so I thought I couldn’t miss the opportunity. I was picked up from my hotel in Patong and met the rest of the group at a marina in Phuket. To be honest, I wasn’t impressed, the boat was a charter and many companies would hire it at the same time to go off on this day trip to Phi Phi Islands! There were 70 divers all cramped on-board! 27 dive leaders/centres!
The service however was amazing, buffet breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner was served on-board between the dives. The diving into the water seemed like if we were in a military aircraft about to jump off with parachutes! We would all get kitted up when the boat sounded the warning signal. Then waited all in line on the platform until the boat reached the site, which it did at speed, and stopped abruptly and sounded the horn for us to jump in. 70 divers all jumping in 2 seconds apart one after another, was impressive, like I said as if it was a military operation of paratroopers!
The diving was not as I expected, or what people had spoken so highly about back at home! The water was greenish/murky, visibility as at home, and coral reefs mostly bleached/dead and little marine life. However it wasn’t too bad of diving as such. Maybe I had already been spoiled by the amazing dives at the Similan Islands, and expected similar at Phi Phi Islands!
After a few dives at Phi Phi Islands, we did a dive on the way back to Phuket, at a reef called “Shark Point”. The reef got its name from the large amount of Leopard sharks that inhabited the reef, which now longer exists, probably from the amount the divers that visit daily!
There were three “pinnacles” on this reef, the third one was made up of cement blocks, created to make an artificial reef, in the efforts to revive the reefs, after the Tsunami disaster that hit the area, years ago.
My next days in Thailand were spent site seeing this amazing country. The food was also amazing! I am definitely coming back in the future to see parts of the country I wasn’t able to see this time round, and hopefully do some cave diving too!
Below are a few small videos I put together whilst diving in Thailand:
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