Similan Island
Similan Island is a dive paradise 70 km away of Khao Lak. We wanted to find out and booked a daytrip with Kate. We already knew the big price difference from Perhentian but with Kate we got a great discount (still it is 2.5 times more expensive than our little island).
Still we wanted to explore the underwater world of Similan Island and with the speedboat it took us about 1 hour to get to Kho Bon – our divesite. Here we swopped boats and jumped on the liveaboard and joined more divers.
We checked our tanks as we were diving nitrox – another oxygen mixture of gas – and started to get ready. Surely Kate was our divemaster and in our group were two more experienced divers. But one of the divers didn’t feel well and before we jumped in two other divers joined our group.
With 8 other liveaboards packed with divers we started our dive. In the beginning it was still fine and we enjoyed being back in the water. The divesite had so many different Triggerfishes and we were so happy finding the Picasso Triggerfish.
Seeing the Emperor Angelfish at Perhentian Island only one divesite, here they were everywhere. Therefore you couldn’t find the Blueringed Angelfish. Unfortunately at the end we only saw fins and one of the divemasters separated our group because he dived with his in between us.
After lunch – which was really great – we checked our gas mix again and got ready for the second dive. Same divesite, this time we jumped in on the other side. As we haven’t seen a Manta at our first dive we hoped for one on our second dive.
This time the same divemaster swam between Micha and me so we got separated for a short time. We just thought, what an idiot and Kate was already annoyed and said, this guy is doing it all the time.
Nadine searching for nudibranches found some – Chromodoris and Flabellina. Her dive was saved. Suddenly out of the blue came a white tip reefshark. This fellow was curious and slowly passed us, watching closely. Micha saw two tunas passing by.
During our safety stop on 5m everybody looked around for Manta’s but we didn’t see one. Other ones had been lucky and when the came up where cheering excited. OK, than next time.
After the dive we jumped back on the speedboat and back to the mainland. For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant and felt in heaven.
Still Micha wasn’t well yet and finally went to a doctor. He got two injections – one against bacteria infection and one with high dose antibiotics. He has to stay in bed and relax. Get well soon sweety!
Accommodation: private accommodation at a friends place