After meeting our guests in our office, we are happy to set sail from Ranong at 5 pm with half of the guests, while the other half is waiting/chilling on Koh Phayam, where we can pick them up around 7pm.
As soon as everyone got onboard, we went through our traditional Departure Ceremony, praising the good sea spirits with a food offering and scaring the bad ones with fire crackers…
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After a lovely diner and first night onboard the real fun started in Surin national park for our check dive the following morning.
And because everyone was super confortable on this first dive, we decided to head out to Richelieu Rock for the next 3 exceptional dives. Most of us went for a sunset dive but a few others opted for a night dive on Richelieu Rock. Both choices were not only good choices, the dives turned out to be absolutely spectacular
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As I did the sunset, I will write about my own experience: the massive schools of big eye and bluefin trevally bolting at the dense schools of glassfish blanketing the reef: the hunt was simply mesmerising! The enormous bait balls of juveniles where the prey of all kinds of hungry adults making them move like a flock of birds…
The usuals macro creatures were there too, Harlequin shrimps were feeding on a sea star, ornate ghost pipefish where still numerous and we even found again the more elusive robust ghost pipefish and some smiling Tigertail seahorses 🙂
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This week was a half-moon week, making the current a lot less strong than the week before, allowing us to truly get where ever we wanted disregarding the tide phases. We then could go and stay in the blue ahead of the current where it splits… this is where there is most action, all the time, but not always easy to get to.
The night divers came back from their dive with sparkles in the eyes… Richelieu Rock is teaming with life, in every hole you look you will find shrimps or crabs or nudibranchs and witnessing the night creature coming out of their hole there is absolutely fantastic! Their highlight was a sponge crab!
After this phenomenal day we are going south to Koh Bon for the next 2 morning dives…
We slept at Koh Tachai as the sea was very calm and made it to Koh Bon early morning… we all decided to dive the west ridge first hoping for Mantas but no luck, instead we had the nice resident baby eagle ray showing off passing in the middle of us as I was shooting some portrait for our guests on top of the big bummy in the north of the ridge…
There was also the squad of long nose emperor fish, blue fin trevallies and snappers coming and going hunting frantically in the reef!
The second dive some went for the pinnacle while others went back to the north ridge and both were delighted about it, the abundance in life is really heartwarming!
We went to Koh Tachai for the second half of the day as planned and I was glad to see the resident lobsters but sad not to see the regular massive school of barracudas… It is only once back on the boat that 2 groups told us that the barracudas were at the north pinnacle… bummer! I didn’t see them, so no photo
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I could have gone again for the sunset dive but I preferred to go later for the blackwater dive…
The barracudas were there again and the action picked up with great hunting actions as we were happy to hear when the divers came back from the sunset dive. We could then sail toward west for the blackwater and decided to stop and set up the line above 80m of water…
Even if we didn’t make it to the drop off it was pleasantly rich in marine life… jellies, squids, crab, octopus, squirrel fish, soapfish, pufferfish and my first larvae scorpionfish!
Following this we had are great bbq night and the crowed on board made it very special! Starting with some fish imitations and the famous box game it really kicked off when we pulled out the disco ball! Thank you to Tatiana for leading the Zumba dance!
The party went on deep into the night! My big surprise to see every one up on time for the next and last day diving, but it was back to Richelieu Rock again and no one was ready to miss out!
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Indeed, the 2 dives were as expected spectacular again! Richelieu Rock is a special place, one of the 10th best dive sites in the world but from 10 years of experience in the area I can say that Richelieu Rock was on fire!
I had a special request on this trip from Aiara as it was her birthday, she wanted few shots of her with fish… I tried my best to make her happy 😉
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We greated eachothers good bye and I must say I was a bit sad… this trip was the best one I could dream of as a last trip of the season….
Thank you all and see you soon again for more boat, fish, stories, pictures…!
