Scuba diving Thailand’s Similan Islands – live aboard fun with Similan Dive Safaris

Thailand is famous for its scuba diving and marine life, so we just had to make diving here a priority. Having never done a diving live aboard before, and with countless trips on offer for the Similan Marine Park, it seemed this was the place to do it!

We went for a three night option with Similan Dive Safaris’ Similan Explorer, as it seemed the best value for money. And it was fantastic! Some of the best days we’ve had on our whole trip since we left home, for sure.

The trip started from Khao Lak, which is about an hour north from Phuket. We spent a few days here before the trip and enjoyed the beautiful White Sand Beach. It wasn’t until late afternoon that we headed out to meet our boat, so the first day was just spent getting to know the crew, the equipment and the boat. We set sail just after dark, at about 6.30pm, which was when the crew let off a firework! All the boats do this as a sign of respect to their gods, so they’ll look after us out at sea. A fun way to start anyway!

After this point it was literally eat, sleep, dive, repeat! We were up at 6am each day for our first dive, with another two during the day. On the first day our fourth dive was a night dive and the second day it was a sunset dive. Then on the last day we had two morning dives before heading back to the mainland. And all of the dives were amazing! The visibility was always a good 20 metres and the warm waters were just teaming with life. There was loads of beautiful coral and we saw so, so many different types of fish. Trevally, tuna, fusilier, cornet, lion, scorpion, emperor, snapper, clown, puffer, porcupine, glass… the list just goes on! We also shrimps, crabs, moray eels, and even a sea snake!

The thing that really amazed me at these dive sites was the quantity of fish – I’ve never seen so many all in one place or shoals so big. It was awesome! Especially at our final dive site, Richelieu Rock, which is in between the Surin Islands and the mainland. It’s world-famous and I can see why, it was definitely my favourite dive site! We spent most of the dives here completely surrounded by shoals of fish. At one point I was even laughing because there were just hundreds in every direction all around me! It was fantastic so see the groups of trevally hunting the glass fish and seeing the shoals all moving as one to avoid the hunters. We also saw some (rather amorous) giant cuttlefish here, and a seahorse! I’ve seen seahorses lots of times from diving at Clifton Gardens in Sydney, but they are so cute I can never get bored of them! And I’d only ever seen tiny cuttlefish before so seeing the huge ones was massively exciting for me, they’re just so cool!

The other dive sites that we did were around Similan Islands 8 and 9 and around the island Koh Bon. While they weren’t as incredible as Richelieu, this was only by a little bit. They were still great with almost as much life. We also saw a lovely hawksbill turtle while diving at Koh Bon, which was so lush! The general Similan area is known for the odd whale shark and manta ray, but sadly we weren’t so lucky. We hadn’t counted on it at all though so it would just have been a bonus to an otherwise lovely trip. A massive bonus that we did enjoy was the pod of dolphins that were swimming around the boat for around 20 minutes. So lush! 🙂

The diving was the star of the show for the trip, and rightly so, but the whole experience was wonderful from start to finish. The crew was split between Thai boat staff and European dive staff, and all were so friendly and happy and just generally made sure everyone was safe, well fed and having a fun brilliant time! Our instructor Jonathan was great and we were so glad that we had decided to do our advanced certification on the trip. I can’t think of many better situations to have done the course! We had all the expert knowledge and the studying that came with didn’t feel like a chore as boat life just creates a chilled approach to everything!

We did the studying mostly around dinner time so we were still able to enjoy the sunbathing hours in the day between dives. On the first day we got to get off the boat and visit the beautiful beach on Similan Island 8. Sadly it was a bit overcast and drizzly but it was still really warm and the view was still gorgeous from the lookout at the top of the hill. It was lush to swim in the crystal clear, turquoise water of the shallows just off the beach, too. For day two our chill out time was spent on the boat anchored just off Koh Bon, which was a beautiful and tiny place. The beach here is closed at the moment, though, in an attempt to repair damage done by an overload of tourists during recent years. But it was lovely to chill on the boat with it alongside us – or to jump off the boat into the water as George did! 🙂

There is a five night option of this trip and I think they visit more beaches/islands on that one. This might be an option for another year when we might have a bit more money, perhaps! I would definitely love to do this trip again.

Another thing I have to praise is the quality and quantity of the food on board! We had biscuits, fruit, bread, jam, marmalade, tea, coffee or hot chocolate whenever we wanted, as well as electrolyte drinks and water to keep us hydrated. We would start the day with a snack then have a cooked breakfast after the first dive, lunch after the second, extra snacks in the afternoon and a slap up buffet style meal for dinner. We had Thai curries, fried chicken, lots of veggies, calamari, prawns, grilled fish, chicken Kiev… it was all DELICIOUS and all went down very well after all that diving!

All in all it was a bloody wonderful trip. Everything from the diving to the food to the company was of the highest standard. I can’t recommend it enough! 🙂

Cost

The trip cost us around £1000 each for everything, including the advanced course. It’s not especially cheap but you can guarantee it’ll be some of the best days of your trip!

It’s worth noting that most of the dive sites are below 18 metres, so if you do this trip and only have Open Water certification then it’s compulsory to at least get the adventure deep dive certificate while on board. Once you’ve paid for this and your gear hire, it’s not much more to just do the Advanced course instead, as the gear hire was included in the course hire price. So if you’re thinking about doing a live aboard and getting your Advanced, this is the place to do it! 🙂

For more information on this trip visit SDS’s website: www.similan-diving-safaris.com