A Week Diving the North Andaman Sea: Richelieu Rock, Similan Islands and Blackwater Diving
After a nice overnight ride to our first dive site, we started with a nice and easy check dive at Koh Chi.
This week was a new moon week, so we knew we would have to deal with a great deal of current. We could do our second dive as planned around Torinla, but we had to change the plans for dive three as the current was ripping at Yellow Rock. Instead, we dived Ao Pragaad, and everyone was stunned by the beauty of the coral reef there!
We had our night dive in the same bay to see the different population coming alive after sunset. It was a completely different atmosphere, with the reef revealing a whole new side of itself once the sun had disappeared.
A Full Day at Richelieu Rock
The next day was a full day at Richelieu Rock. Even though we did not have the luck to see one of the gentle giants, we still had all the massive schools of jacks and emperors hunting through the clouds of silversides covering the colourful reef.
On the macro side, ghost pipefish were really everywhere! We also found some seahorses and harlequin shrimps.
The sunset dive was our favourite there, as all the schools come into action, grabbing their last chance to feed before night settles in. Watching the reef change as the light fades is always a special experience at Richelieu Rock.
A spectacular school of jacks
Koh Tachai and Koh Bon
We travelled overnight to Koh Tachai for our first dive and were greeted by a furtive but big school of barracuda, some nice lobsters and bannerfish, while batfish were having a thorough clean-up.
The day continued with two more dives at Koh Bon, where we had great hopes for a manta encounter, as we had seen two new individuals there on the previous trip. Unfortunately, this time none showed up. However, we had a very nice close encounter with a baby eagle ray, and it lasted long enough for everyone to enjoy the moment.
As we came back from the last dive, the cocktails on board were ready for us as a prelude to our infamous barbecue night!
Ready for our infamous barbecue night
Exploring the Northern Similan Islands
The trip carried on with the north of the Similan Islands. We started with Three Trees, where the coral garden never stops to amaze me. The colours and fish life are just perfect there!
From the massive barrel sponge and huge sea fan to the bright-coloured soft corals, it is the perfect combination of colours and shapes. The shallow part of Three Trees is also great, with hard corals and whip corals.
Even though the dive site is very exposed, we were lucky to have a very mild current, allowing us to explore the whole dive site with ease.
North Point
Our next dive was at North Point, just next to Three Trees. The particularity of this site is its rock formations, which create channels to swim through. With the visibility being crystal clear, it was easy to see the bottom way beyond 30 metres!
Elephant Head Rock
Elephant Head was our third dive site of the day. Swim-throughs, massive boulders and good visibility are what you expect, and it was all there and more.
As we made it to the bottom, we bumped into a hawksbill sea turtle peacefully grazing, allowing us to take a few shots.
If you are familiar with this dive site, you will know the little window in the wall just at the end of the channel. I found some surgeonfish, bannerfish and a parrotfish having fun going through the hole again and again, just like kids going up and down the slide at kindergarten!
When the Weather Changes the Plan
This night was the night we planned to do the blackwater dive. I made a presentation explaining to our guests what it is all about, so they could choose between having the sunset dive or the blackwater dive.
Everyone voted for blackwater, so we skipped the sunset and headed to the edge of the continental plateau, where the depth drops from around 8 metres to 200 metres.
Unfortunately, the storm hit us, preventing us from diving at all. Everyone was bummed about it, but we had great hopes of doing it the next evening.
West of Eden and the Journey South
Our next morning dive was at West of Eden. What a great coral garden, and such a special place! In the shallow part, you can easily find psychedelic batwing sea slugs, while reef sharks can be found towards the deeper end.
Followed by Deep Six and Tuna Wreck, we were working our way down to have the sunset dive at Shark Fin Reef. But, as on the previous day, everyone wanted the blackwater dive instead.
So we started our journey south towards the Racha Islands, where we were planning our next diving day, and stopped for the blackwater dive at 19:30, where the seabed was 200 metres below the surface.
This blackwater dive was a hit, with so much life! Squid as usual, but also a larval sleeper lobster, a spearer mantis shrimp, two male paper nautiluses, a seahorse and a driftfish.
Everyone was mesmerised by it. It is such a different experience!
Racha Noi, Racha Yai and Shark Point
The next day was also the last one of this trip. We started with Racha Noi South Tip, an amazing dive site that reminded me of the Mergui Archipelago, with so many soft corals and huge schools of fish.
Unfortunately, the current did not let us stroll all over the dive site. We had to play hide and seek with the current to make the dive last longer.
Racha Yai was our second dive as we worked our way towards Phuket. Our last dive was at Shark Point, which did not disappoint with its fish population. Once more, however, the current was playing tricks with us, and we could witness underwater tornadoes as the water swirled and sucked the sand up into it!
We had a smooth ride back to Phuket after that and used the couple of hours of navigation to stamp logbooks and watch a slideshow of the pictures from this trip 😉
