We just returned from our first cruise into 2021 and must say the beautiful islands in Surin and Similan National Parks in Thailand delivered.

We were delighted to welcome back some familiar faces onboard! Nicola discovered The Smiling Seahorse last week and couldn’t say goodbye, so we were very happy to welcome her for a second week. We also welcomed back Jeff, Hiroshi and Dario, who had met onboard the previous year, as well as our former Dive Master trainee Kostas, back for another cruise.

Thank you so much for your continuous support during good and bad years!

The highlights of the Surin Islands this week were an enormous turtle cruising by as we searched out tiny, cute Pikachu nudibranchs (Thecacera pacifica), eerie ghost pipefish, lobsters, vibrant peacock mantis shrimp and ornate tapestry shrimp. The variety of life and giant schools of fish kicked the trip off brilliantly.

Our second day was filled with some of our favourite locations in the Similans as we explored Koh Tachai, Koh Bon, West of Eden and Deep Six. The bright soft fan corals and giant barrel sponges painted a beautiful underwater landscape as we floated through massive schools of fish in excellent visibility.

Nudibranchs were everywhere, including some of our favourite slugs: psychedelic batwing slug (Sagaminopteron psychedelicum) and Pikachu nudibranch (Thecacera pacifica)!

The most exciting sighting of our trip happened at Shark Fin Reef. Not only did we see some whitetip reef sharks sleeping under coral heads, but we also had a tiger shark saying hello at the safety stop! Safety stops can really get thrilling with such a special guest visitor. Again, no photo of this special guest, who tends to show up only in front of divers when they don’t have their camera!

Tuna Wreck at Anita’s Reef sent us into our deepest dive as we descended to catch a glimpse of the unique ship tipped on its side at the bottom of the sea at around 30 metres.

We also experienced a fun-filled dive at Elephant Head Rock, which led us through underwater boulders and swim-throughs. We found more whitetip reef sharks swimming around and the trio of black, yellow and blue ribbon eels poking out to say hello. Between dives, we made a stop at Donald Duck Bay to enjoy the iconic rock formations and pristine white sand beach.

The journey back north towards Surin National Park held four more days of amazing sea life. We found bright tiger cowries latched onto fan corals, crabs nestled around their eggs and nudibranchs galore!

Koh Tachai was so fishy this week, and we spent most of a dive in a swirling school of thousands of chevron barracudas covering the reef between 10 and 20 metres deep. The big fish kept coming through in massive schools of giant trevallies, bluefin trevallies and jackfish, as well as 10 huge tunas passing over the top of us! Wow!

We glided through schools of batfish, surgeonfish, rabbitfish and jackfish at Richelieu Rock. We found two giant frogfish, a bent stick pipefish, a seahorse and some ghost pipefish. But what I loved most was an eagle ray passing less than a metre away on our night dive there!

We celebrated not only these beautiful sites but also the arrival of the New Year! As we were moored in the Bay of Koh Bon, we enjoyed our infamous barbecue night and were gifted with the lovely voice of one of our passengers, an opera singer, to start the year in beauty. It made the New Year truly special for everyone and, after a bit of dancing, singing and laughing, we made it to bed awaiting our dives on the 1st!

Our New Year began with another amazing trip through our favourite Thai islands, and we are so grateful for our new and returning friends who joined us.

Thanks to Andrew for sharing your photos of the trip! And a special congratulations goes out to Martina and Fabian for completing their Nitrox certification course!