As I have mentioned, Hari and I very quickly became scuba diving addicts. We loved Koh Tao and diving in the Gulf of Thailand, but while we were there we couldn´t stop hearing all about the Similan Islands which are located in the Andaman Sea off the west coast of Thailand. Since we were already planning on going to Phuket for a few days, we could not pass up the opportunity to head to the Similans, which were just a few hours from the mainland. Plus as things between us were getting serious, we wanted to spend some more time together on what became known as ¨The Honeymoon¨.
After a few days on the beaches of Phuket, we did a bit of research at some of the local dive shops and found out that a live aboard dive boat is really the only way to go to see the Similan dive sites. Day trips are possible, but we wanted to spend some more time and see as much as possible. We signed up with South Siam Divers for a 5 day/4 night dive trip where we would be able to get in 19 dives. We could not wait.
From Phuket we took a 1 hr mini-bus to the port where we boarded a speed boat that would take us out 1.5 hrs to our home for the next 5 days, SSD3. The speed boat ride was rough, so bumpy that several people on the boat got sea sick. Luckily, Hari and I both have strong stomachs so we made it to the dive boat unscathed. As soon as we arrived at the SSD3, we met the crew, dive masters, and the rest of the divers. The boat was quite small, about 35 people total, but really cozy and comfortable. The lower deck had a large dive deck for all the equipment where we would wet suit up before getting into the water, the middle deck had tables and benches where we would eat and just hang out, and the top deck was lined with lounge chairs to relax on in the sun inbetween dives. All of the cabins were either on the same level or below the lower deck and they were quite nice; we didn´t expect much since most of our time would be spent in the water, but we were pleasantly surprised at the quality of the rooms.
Now let´s get down to business - within an hour of arriving we were getting ready for our first dive. Vincent, the head dive master, gave us a briefing about the dive site and got us excited for everything we were about to see. He said conditions were excellent and improving everyday. The water was a bit warmer than Koh Tao, 27°C, blue unlike I have ever seen, and so clear; even from the top deck of the boat you could see down several meters. So we wasted no time and got right into the water with our dive team and Stefanie, our dive master who would lead us around the sites. Stefanie was great, she simply acted as a leader to show us the best parts of the dive sites and gave us freedom to go off with our buddies to explore. She has over 3,000 dives and is only in her mid-20s! I strive to be her someday...
We jumped in, descended, and immediately knew why everyone had told us that the Similan Islands are some of the best dive sites in the world...the visibility was 30+ meters, unbelievable to be able to see everything even from so far away. And the coral formations were spectacular, some were easily the size of a house. I thought Koh Tao was great and this put it to shame (don´t get me wrong, I still love Koh Tao and the diving there is awesome). The acquatic life was incredible and the colors were absolutely brilliant. We were constantly surrounded by schools of fish and saw fish that are considered rare during every dive. Hari and I were like kids in a candy store during every dive, we kept grabbing each other´s arm or leg to signal that there was a massive parrotfish or a coral formation covered in Christmas Tree Coral which look like tiny, colorful trees growing out of hard coral that go into hiding if you wave your hand in front of them.
Our lives for the next 5 days pretty much followed this schedule: up at 6am for a beautiful sunrise, dive, breakfast, dive, take our small dingy to a private island where we were the only people to hang out for an hour, dive, lunch, relax on the top deck of the boat and jump off 10 meters to cool off in the water, dive, dinner, beautiful sunset, dive, hang out for a bit, bed. Like I said, it´s a good life.
There definitely are many highlights of our time at the Similan dive sites, but I´ll go through a few (in no particular order):
#1: One afternoon while hanging out on the top deck inbetween dives we saw some huge sea turtles just swimming around the boat. Everyone ran down to the dive deck to see them closer and the crew started throwing bananas into the water, sea turtles love bananas. They were so relaxed and friendly that we jumped into the water and they would eat the bananas right out of our hands and swim all around us, they were so cool.
#2: Hari and I were on a shark hunt during our dives, we made it our mission to find sharks, as neither of us saw any in Koh Tao. During one dive I turned my head ever so slightly and saw 2 massive (at least 2 meters long each) leopard sharks just lying on the bottom of the ocean. They are not aggressive towards humans, so we were able to get within a few meters of them and just checked them out for a few minutes, it was very exciting to see them up-close and we were lucky enough to see several leopard sharks over the 5 day period.
#3: We learned in our dive courses about nitrogen narcosis, which occurs when diving at extreme depths. Essentially, you get a little bit of nitrogen poisoning which makes you feel and act a little bit high. It sounds dangerous and it is, but as long as you are not too deep for too long and stay with your buddy it really is not that big of a deal. All the dive masters talked it up and said it is actually kind of fun, but neither of us had ever been deep enough to get narced. Then we went on a really deep dive. Thirty-eight meter deep. I started to feel it and looked at Hari who signaled to me via hand wave that he was a bit loopy. It felt kind of strange, I was giggling a little bit into my regulator, but it wasn´t that intense that either of us worried. We were only down that deep for a few minutes and as soon as we ascended to a safer depth we were both fine again. It was interesting to feel the narcosis that we had heard about but there is really no need to dive that deep when there is so much to see at 20 meters.
#4: The highlight of all highlights, manta ray day. We went to one dive site that is known for being home to manta rays. We didn´t want to get our hopes up too high and be disappointed if we didn´t see any, but once again the Similans did not disappoint...they delivered, oh they delivered more than we could have ever imagined. During this one dive we saw at least 6 massive mantas, I´m talking 6+ meters wingspan massive. They were just swimming all around us, it was as if they were putting on a show for us and knew how excited we all were to be seeing them so closely. They hovered around us for a solid 45 minutes, we didn´t even really explore much of the dive site, as we all just stationed where we were and looked all around us to see them so gracefully swimming around. It was almost like huge airplanes flying above us, they would block out the sun completely when they were above us and all we could see was their huge wingspan. Hari was the luckiest one during this dive, at one point he was just hovering and one of the mantas swam directly above him, he had to be less than a meter away. Stefanie had an underwater dive camera and got the whole thing on video, it was awesome. After the manta swam away everyone at the dive site did some underwater clapping, Hari was the star of the day.
Needless to say again, I obviously loved the Similans and could go on for hours about them. If you are a diver spend the money and go there, you will not regret it. In addition to having 19 incredible dives during our 5 day stay on SSD3, we met some really cool people and got to go to some beautiful secluded Thai islands. It was definitely 5 of the best days I´ve ever had.
After a few days on the beaches of Phuket, we did a bit of research at some of the local dive shops and found out that a live aboard dive boat is really the only way to go to see the Similan dive sites. Day trips are possible, but we wanted to spend some more time and see as much as possible. We signed up with South Siam Divers for a 5 day/4 night dive trip where we would be able to get in 19 dives. We could not wait.
From Phuket we took a 1 hr mini-bus to the port where we boarded a speed boat that would take us out 1.5 hrs to our home for the next 5 days, SSD3. The speed boat ride was rough, so bumpy that several people on the boat got sea sick. Luckily, Hari and I both have strong stomachs so we made it to the dive boat unscathed. As soon as we arrived at the SSD3, we met the crew, dive masters, and the rest of the divers. The boat was quite small, about 35 people total, but really cozy and comfortable. The lower deck had a large dive deck for all the equipment where we would wet suit up before getting into the water, the middle deck had tables and benches where we would eat and just hang out, and the top deck was lined with lounge chairs to relax on in the sun inbetween dives. All of the cabins were either on the same level or below the lower deck and they were quite nice; we didn´t expect much since most of our time would be spent in the water, but we were pleasantly surprised at the quality of the rooms.
Now let´s get down to business - within an hour of arriving we were getting ready for our first dive. Vincent, the head dive master, gave us a briefing about the dive site and got us excited for everything we were about to see. He said conditions were excellent and improving everyday. The water was a bit warmer than Koh Tao, 27°C, blue unlike I have ever seen, and so clear; even from the top deck of the boat you could see down several meters. So we wasted no time and got right into the water with our dive team and Stefanie, our dive master who would lead us around the sites. Stefanie was great, she simply acted as a leader to show us the best parts of the dive sites and gave us freedom to go off with our buddies to explore. She has over 3,000 dives and is only in her mid-20s! I strive to be her someday...
We jumped in, descended, and immediately knew why everyone had told us that the Similan Islands are some of the best dive sites in the world...the visibility was 30+ meters, unbelievable to be able to see everything even from so far away. And the coral formations were spectacular, some were easily the size of a house. I thought Koh Tao was great and this put it to shame (don´t get me wrong, I still love Koh Tao and the diving there is awesome). The acquatic life was incredible and the colors were absolutely brilliant. We were constantly surrounded by schools of fish and saw fish that are considered rare during every dive. Hari and I were like kids in a candy store during every dive, we kept grabbing each other´s arm or leg to signal that there was a massive parrotfish or a coral formation covered in Christmas Tree Coral which look like tiny, colorful trees growing out of hard coral that go into hiding if you wave your hand in front of them.
Our lives for the next 5 days pretty much followed this schedule: up at 6am for a beautiful sunrise, dive, breakfast, dive, take our small dingy to a private island where we were the only people to hang out for an hour, dive, lunch, relax on the top deck of the boat and jump off 10 meters to cool off in the water, dive, dinner, beautiful sunset, dive, hang out for a bit, bed. Like I said, it´s a good life.
There definitely are many highlights of our time at the Similan dive sites, but I´ll go through a few (in no particular order):
#1: One afternoon while hanging out on the top deck inbetween dives we saw some huge sea turtles just swimming around the boat. Everyone ran down to the dive deck to see them closer and the crew started throwing bananas into the water, sea turtles love bananas. They were so relaxed and friendly that we jumped into the water and they would eat the bananas right out of our hands and swim all around us, they were so cool.
#2: Hari and I were on a shark hunt during our dives, we made it our mission to find sharks, as neither of us saw any in Koh Tao. During one dive I turned my head ever so slightly and saw 2 massive (at least 2 meters long each) leopard sharks just lying on the bottom of the ocean. They are not aggressive towards humans, so we were able to get within a few meters of them and just checked them out for a few minutes, it was very exciting to see them up-close and we were lucky enough to see several leopard sharks over the 5 day period.
#3: We learned in our dive courses about nitrogen narcosis, which occurs when diving at extreme depths. Essentially, you get a little bit of nitrogen poisoning which makes you feel and act a little bit high. It sounds dangerous and it is, but as long as you are not too deep for too long and stay with your buddy it really is not that big of a deal. All the dive masters talked it up and said it is actually kind of fun, but neither of us had ever been deep enough to get narced. Then we went on a really deep dive. Thirty-eight meter deep. I started to feel it and looked at Hari who signaled to me via hand wave that he was a bit loopy. It felt kind of strange, I was giggling a little bit into my regulator, but it wasn´t that intense that either of us worried. We were only down that deep for a few minutes and as soon as we ascended to a safer depth we were both fine again. It was interesting to feel the narcosis that we had heard about but there is really no need to dive that deep when there is so much to see at 20 meters.
#4: The highlight of all highlights, manta ray day. We went to one dive site that is known for being home to manta rays. We didn´t want to get our hopes up too high and be disappointed if we didn´t see any, but once again the Similans did not disappoint...they delivered, oh they delivered more than we could have ever imagined. During this one dive we saw at least 6 massive mantas, I´m talking 6+ meters wingspan massive. They were just swimming all around us, it was as if they were putting on a show for us and knew how excited we all were to be seeing them so closely. They hovered around us for a solid 45 minutes, we didn´t even really explore much of the dive site, as we all just stationed where we were and looked all around us to see them so gracefully swimming around. It was almost like huge airplanes flying above us, they would block out the sun completely when they were above us and all we could see was their huge wingspan. Hari was the luckiest one during this dive, at one point he was just hovering and one of the mantas swam directly above him, he had to be less than a meter away. Stefanie had an underwater dive camera and got the whole thing on video, it was awesome. After the manta swam away everyone at the dive site did some underwater clapping, Hari was the star of the day.
Needless to say again, I obviously loved the Similans and could go on for hours about them. If you are a diver spend the money and go there, you will not regret it. In addition to having 19 incredible dives during our 5 day stay on SSD3, we met some really cool people and got to go to some beautiful secluded Thai islands. It was definitely 5 of the best days I´ve ever had.
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