We had the pleasure of welcoming once more a bunch of lovely British expats from Bangkok and Hua Hin onboard MV Smiling Seahorse. The 26th of February was Makha Bucha, a public holiday and the second most important Buddhist festival, celebrated on the full moon day of the third lunar month in Thailand. Because of this, it seemed like all the divers in Thailand had congregated in Surin National Park and the Similan Islands to celebrate together! We found ourselves in the middle of 12 liveaboards at Richelieu Rock.

This didn’t stop us from having a fantastic time. Conditions were stunning, with a sea as flat as a lake, visibility of around 30 metres and an abundance of marine life!

We started in the north of Surin Islands National Park at Koh Chi, where we saw a guitar ray once again on the sandy bottom. Once more, it passed in front of mesmerised divers but stayed well away from the cameras! We also spotted a sleeping whitetip reef shark, and all of this happened on the very first dive… what a great way to get back into diving!

We started the second day at the Koh Bon pinnacle at slack tide, with no current, and Franck spotted three of the biggest giant barracudas he has ever seen. They came towards him and opened their giant mouths, full of needle-like teeth. A bit scary, but also thrilling! Once more, no camera, damn!

This week was also a full-moon week, so we had some current as the tide went up and down, attracting so much life closer to the reef for a giant hunt!

Koh Tachai pinnacle in the afternoon was even more fishy, with a tornado of trevallies: bluefin, giant, golden and bigeye trevallies swirling in front of us in the deep blue water. Wow!

The friendly batfish were still here and came to say hello. We also found a red reef rose: the eggs of a Spanish dancer nudibranch, which lay hundreds of thousands of tiny eggs, all stuck together in a soft, gelatinous material in circular rows, giving it the appearance of rose petals. If you look closely, you can see each tiny egg!

To continue with the sea slug family, we saw many false cowries this week. Ovulids are a type of seashell with colourful ornamental patterns on mantles that they can stretch over their shells to cover them in incredible colours. Some of them really do look like aliens!

We did four dives at Richelieu Rock and didn’t get bored of it! Four harlequin shrimps, two ghost pipefish, a tornado of trevallies and more schooling barracudas kept us entertained.

The sea was so flat that we slept and partied on top of Richelieu Rock with no one remaining to enjoy our music!

Thanks to all the participants for the awesome time we had with you, and we hope to see you again very soon!

A big congratulations to three new Nitrox divers: Sam, Christine and Gregor!

If you are looking for a special cruise, we were running Thailand’s first Manta and Whale Shark expedition in collaboration with two local marine biologists specialising in these gentle giants!