Similans and Surin with the Junk
(If you don't like reading, there is a short video at the bottom of this page)
Breakfast at Hotel Khao Lak Golden Place, nothing special, then meet Mam Hugs Khao Lak across the street, she is as fresh and smiling as last year.
Took a massage at Coconuts, the Beach Bar at Suwan Palms, some lunch, and start editing the Pawara video. Pickup is supposed to be at 5, but the van is 30 minutes early, so I don’t manage to complete the upload to Vimeo.
We pick up Tasha from Canada, she just had some Yoga in India and is a vegetarian now for three weeks. Next is Tim from Australia, with asian roots obviously, and off we go to Tab Lamu Pier. Or Taplamu, or, as it is written on the road signs: Taph Lamu. Anyway, we get there at around 6, the parking lot is full of vans, a lot of dive boats wait for their passengers, it’s Embarkation time at Taph Lamu…
We wait at the Navy „Café“, other passengers from other vans join us, until we are 16 guests for the cruise.
Brian pickes us up, I didn’t meet him for two years now, happy to see him face to face again, he hasn’t changed a bit.
But oh, yes, something does have changed in the life of Brian: He is daddy now, he has a daughter, a beautiful cutie with incredible eyes.Man, this feels like coming home, very good. Next I see Bee, she had sent me a FB friend request, I introduce myself and tell her I can now accept her request. I don’t accept anyone who I haven’t seen face to face in real life. She seems to find it funny, with her vivid eyes, a cheerful person, always good for a smile.
Same procedure as last year, after a short boat briefing you get a tank number and a cabin number, set up your equipment, then the fire drill kicks in and everybody meets at the muster station at the bow.
Dinner on the way out to the Andaman Sea, and here comes Marco’s and the Junk’s first trick: All boats go out tonight to Similan Islands, mostly Island #4 for check dives at Monuments or somewhere close (since Anita's Reef is closed by now), but we head directly to Koh Bon, thus always a day ahead of the crowd. Hehehe
Day 1, March 29, Koh Bon and Koh Tachai
We are on a far more relaxed schedule than on the other boats, start the day later and finish with real nightdives instead of sunset dives.
There is only two other boats at Koh Bon Bay, we don’t run into any other divers.
Marco put me in Brian’s group, together with four friends from Switzerland. They will show some hilarious dive skills later on...
It’s actually the first time I dive in a group guided by Brian, two years ago we were on the same boat, but I was in Marco’s group as I was the year before, on my first liveaboard trip to the Similans. I am the air hog on the group, but just 10-20 bar more than the others, so this will play out fine.
Dive 2 at Koh Bon Ridge, super chilled, going up north...
until we reach the corner, very healthy and beautiful hard coral up here, haven’t been so far up here before, being very relaxed I get 58 minutes out of a tank with 65 bar left at surface. Getting into it…
For Dive 3 we travel north to Tachai, doing a nice afternoon dive there at South Reef
Dive 4 is a bit further up the reef, dive site is Tachai Ne Reef
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Day 2, March 30, Richelieu Rock
We do four dives here over the day, and it’s completely different to 4 days ago. Only four other boats out here with us, two of them small ones. No traffic jam under water, just pure fun diving.
We visit the Thorned Seahorse again, I am looking for it too far up the slope, it has moved down to 32,4 meters, and Brian, of course, finds it.
Second dive gives us a beautiful Giant Trevallies hunting show, lots of fish action, and again, no other divers…
Dive Three is more GT’s, cute little Boxfish,
nice currents to swim against. Brian lures us into a narrow channel, where the anemones are flat as flounders by the current coming straight in your face. Nice workout… The Swiss guys brought CapriSun in their BCDs, so we all have a CapriSun at the Safety Stop ;-), not sure if "Salty Lemon" is my favorite flavour... hilarious!
Clicki clicki below:
CapriSun at Safety Stop from Vo Sta on Vimeo.
Dive 4 at Richelieu is a classic Sunset Dive with more GTs hunting, big yellowfin barracudas and the usual reef suspects.
After each Dive Bee with her warm smile awaits us with cold juice at the deck,
most always food is ready as soon as all groups have arrived and gotten out of their wetsuits.
This ship feels home already.
After the last dive we travel north west to the Surin National Park, sleep in a calm bay, no engine noise, just the generator. Tim from Australia likes the AirCon set to 20-23 degrees Celsius, but my hoody takes me into dreamland easily. I am prepared for all kind of things, hehe. Aint nobody mess with the bluelegdiver...
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| I love these ornate ghost pipefish, have to try this flash thingy once, though |
…
Day 3, March 31
We wake up at Surin <foto map> beyond the point of return for all the other boats, which travel in the crowd. I have never been here before.
Morning dive at Korinla Pinnacle, nice Cowry shells, Ribbon Eel, Bended Pipefish, bit of current
Dive 2 on Korinla Reef is an enjoyable Drift dive with Jenkins Whipray, and a turtle on the coral rubble.
Got no good picture, but no problem, I will see so many turtles at Mabul...
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| Jenkin's Whipray, looking at you, kid |
After lunch some guests jump from the sundeck, and I get more than one "Jesus!" commentary for this one:
After the lunch surface time we dive at Turtle Ledge, healthy hard coral, beautiful coral gardens with many different species and colors in the shallows.
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| Tasha takes the Advanced Course with Marco |
We take a trip to the beach after the afternoon dive.
Ek, master of Zodiacs,
takes us to the island as close as he can, but it’s low tide, so we have to walk, or wade, the last 100 meters or so.
Surin National park offers the possibility to stay here in a camping tent or a bungalow,
there is a rustique restaurant, an information center, a small shack selling ice cream and syrup with water or ice, as you wish. Being a park, there is no beer or spirit or wine being sold.
But before everything else, it offers a deeply tranquil and serene atmosphere,
with untouched forests on the hills going down to the waterline,
jungle sounds from the trees, monkeys and flying foxes. Today they are hidden, they might be feeling the rain and thunderstorm coming up from the horizon.
This is not an "official" dive site, so we simply call it "Explorer's Point". Brian likes to explore and dive off the beaten tracks sometimes... We see the flashes of lightning under water. That’s a bit puzzling at first, you can’t tell if it’s your guide calling you by shaking his torch at you or just a lightning above.
Lots of crabs and massive Lobsters all around. Sutam, the deck engineer, asked me to bring one for him, but I had to tell him they were too big to put in my BCD (LOL)
When we surface it rains heavily and the wind is chilling, we are all happy to be back on board and thankful for warm water…
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| Coming home |
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| Oliver Fitch, enjoying his dive |
Sailing to Tachai during the night, diving over healthy coral gardens, eating fantastic food prepared by Pina, relaxing on deck or in the salon,
and repeat, and so on and so on...
Each day getting better than the other, the guests get more familiar every day
I was not able to take notes too much, being very busy enjoying my time on board...
We do our last dives at The Channel between Monuments and Island #4.
As Brian likes to dive off the beaten track, he takes us to the wreck, between Anita's reef and Monuments. I didn't even know there is a wreck here. It's lying there tilted on the port side, the starbord hull at just 32-33 meters depth.
As we are on EAN32 (32% Nitrox), my MOD (maximum operational depth) is 34 meters. Would have loved to do down to the propeller some 4 meters deeper for a nicer shot,
but better not take risks, we are pretty saturated everybody by now.
Some of us do the last dive as skin dive, like Shaun here,
and Team Switzerland comes up with an extra skill feature, lets call it "race at the bottom"...;-)
The Race at Monuments from Vo Sta on Vimeo.
On our way back to the mainland we set the sails, that requires a lot of manpower by the guests and skills by the crew. The boat looks absolutely awesome under sails. The crew love that, too, you can see that ine the expression on their faces.
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| Cannot miss the notorious "dragon shot" |
Super relaxed atmosphere, cannot remember a boat crew with so much good spirit, they chat and laugh together very much, true real giggling and laughter coming from deep inside everybody.
This is true, real, genuine, not the fake smile on the face that dies as soon as the customer turns around.
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| Tiger, good man, checking the sails' position |
If you are looking for a liveaboard dive trip to the Andaman Sea, on a beautiful vintage sailboat,
with top notch dive professionals, awesome boat crew, dinghi diving, true night dives, and fantastic food: I enjoyed this so much and will recommend it to anybody. Book here
Thank you, Brian, for taking me to sites I never dived, on a seventh trip to this area. Let me just mention "Screaming Rocks", "Explorer's Point" and the Wreck in the channel...
Special thanks to my trusted dive buddy, freelance entertainer and tourleader on this trip, Marco Coelho
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| Ring the bell |
See you under water
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