Five of us from the dive club (me, Dave Taylor, Tristan Green, Jo Webb and James Field) fancied some warm weather diving over Chinese New Year (2003) and so we all headed over to Thailand for the week. The plan was to head out on a liveaboard for a few days and then have a couple of days crashing out on the beach in Krabi.
After doing lots of internet searching for various liveaboards we decided to go with Ocean Lovers Dive Centre, on the boat MV Le Mahé. This was quite a small boat with only 12 divers on board (plus crew and dive masters) and it was a very reasonable price (US$400 per person for four days, four nights). This is the first season for the boat hence why they are offering it at a good price.
The diving was out in the Andaman Sea, to the west of Phuket, around the Similans and other islands (Koh Bon, Koh Tachai, and Surin) further north. We were picked up from the dive centre and headed up to the Tap Lamu pier for departure on the Friday evening. After a brief low-down on the boat and the offer of seasickness pills we were off to the sound of firecrackers to wish us good luck and ward away any evil spirits!!!
The next morning after travelling throughout most of the night (I certainly didn’t get too much sleep being in the cabin next to the boat engine!!!) we arrived at our first destination, Richelieu Rock. After getting all our gear unpacked we dropped into the water at about 7.30am for the first of a stack of dives over the next four days. This was Jo’s first dive for over eight months and it was great to see those bright pink fins and BCD back in the water again!! I also think we all quite enjoyed being able to see loads of fish and 30m plus visibility – a refreshing change from the fairly barren and gloomy waters of HK. Richelieu was a good dive – a rock outcrop in the open ocean attracting various fish etc and also whale sharks but we were a little too early in the season to see them!! A group of cuttlefish caught our attention during the second dive – trying to mate/lay eggs with 6 of us floating around, James aiming to film the scene for the next BBC wildlife show and Dave and Tristan both quite intent on snapping away with their digital cameras. Jo and I just hung around!!!
After two dives the word was out around all the liveaboard operators that Mantas had been spotted at Ko Tachai – further north from Richelieu Rock so off we headed along with the other liveaboards in tow. Now Ko Tachai didn’t disappoint with a brief sighting at the end of our first afternoon dive – I was the only one not to see the manta given my no air situation but the others did.
The site comprised of some rather large boulders at about 20 to 30m deep and a flatter platform at about 12 –15m with interesting corals. We did our first night dive at this site, which was certainly abit of a buzz as the currents had picked up and jellyfish in their masses were out to get us. So dealing with dropping girlie pink jelly fishes and a current was a tad tricky but fun, until a load aaaarrrggghhh emitted through James’ regulator after he was got on the back of the calf muscle by one of them.The duty free spirits purchased at the airport on the way out of HK were certainly consumed that night for medicinal purposes (of course!!!) along with lots of vinegar and any other jelly fish burn remedies we could think of!
The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn. Just as the sun started rising from the horizon and we were back in the waters at the same site. This time we found a number of leopard sharks:
some just waking up and a couple of glimpses of a manta ray. During the safety stop when we were all hanging onto a rope the manta appeared from the depths and just floated along below us, very gracefully and effortless. The next dive was even better – this time we just fancied jumping in and not really swimming very far. We had managed to perfect our fining techniques for most of the dives so far and Jo had got herself back into peak physical fitness. The manta I think was really into showing off now given that there were masses of divers in the water and hence he was just parading around, giving Tristan the opportunity to snap away and get pretty close up!!!
Other fish around included a large school of batfish, chevron barracuda titan triggerfish and also cleaner wrasse offering their services to whoever required them!!!After all the manta excitement at Ko Tachai, the boat headed back down south to the Similan islands for some more relaxed sloping reef diving, taking in such sites as Breakfast Bend, Beacon Beach, East of Eden and the large boulders of Elephant Rock. The night dive at Beacon Beach didn’t have the excitement of jellyfish but at one point we all found Dave practicing his crossed leg yoga position on the sandy bottom. We only found out after the dive that he needed to chill out abit as his digital camera housing had flooded!!! Plenty of reef fish to see on all these dives, variety of soft and hard corals, one turtle and a few blue spotted string ray in the sandy bottoms at about 25 to 30m deep.
The final destination was over to Ko Bon for three dives. The early morning dive involved plenty of fining just to wake us all up, an eagle ray was woken up by Dave as he headed off to explore the depths and a number of octopi sat in the corals at about 15m deep. Some more leopard sharks were spotted and a sea snake, along with all the normal reef fish.
After two dives on the last day it was time to head back to the pier at Tap Lamu and then on to Phuket. A good few days diving – well run on the boat and they allowed plenty of time between dives. The food was pretty good as well – local Thai food with plenty of chillies at lunchtime and more western based food in the evening. All in all highly recommended.
After the diving we all headed over to Krabi for a few days to relax and chill out and that is basically all we did, apart from eating and drinking lots, playing silly card games, and watching the sunset!!! We attempted to go diving for one day from Railey Beach but didn’t achieve it as the dive operator was very disorganised, arguing over boats with another local operator and not even able to ensure there was enough tanks for the right number of divers!!
Amanda Blanksby
