​Our second day was filled with some of our favorite locations in Similan as we explored Ko Tachai, Ko Bon, West of Eden and Deep Six. The bright soft fan corals and giant foam corals painted a beautiful underwater landscape as we floated through massive schools of fish in excellent visibility. Nudibranchs were everywhere, including some of our favorite slugs: psychedelic batwing slug (sagaminopteron psychedelicum) and piccachu (Thecacera pacifica)! 

​ The most exciting sighting of our trip happened at Shark Fin Reef : Not only did we see some white tip 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 tend 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 glipse of the unique ship tipped on its side at the bottom of the sea at around 30 meters.

​We also experienced a fun filled dive at Elephant Head Rock, which led us through underwater boulders and swim throughs. We found more white tips reef sharks swimming and the trip 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 toward Surin National Park held four more days of amazing sea life. We found bright tiger cowries latched on to fan corals, crabs nestled around their eggs, and nudibranchs galore! 

​Ko Tachai was so fishy this week and we spent most of a dive in a swirling school of thousands of chevron barracuda covering the reff between 10-20 meters deep. The big fish kept coming through in massive schools of giant trevallies, bluefins trevallies, jackfish as well as 10 huge tunas passing on top of us! Wow!

​We glided through schools of batfish, surgeon fish, rabbitfish and jackfish at Richelieu Rock. We found two giant frog fish this week, a bent stick pipe fish, seahorse and some ghost pipe fish. But what I loved most was an eagle ray passing less than a meter away on our night dive there!

​We celebrated not only these beautiful sites but also a new year’s arrival! As we were moored in the Bay of Ko Bon, we enjoyed our infamous barbecue night and were gifted with the lovely voice of one of our passenger: 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 for our dives on the 1st!

Our new year began with another amazing trip through our favorite 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!

​We just returned from a festive and exciting week of diving in Thailand. After our departure from Ranong, we picked up Gary and Lisa from Ko Phayam and had our diving group ready for an adventure into the Similan and Surin Islands!
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Our first day was spent exploring Surin National Park where we were delighted to be greeted by friendly turtles and roaming napoleon wrasses. We looked a bit closer to search out iridescent peacock mantis shrimp, ghost pipefish, and loads of vibrant nudibranchs, including the cutest little Pikatchu nudibranch. The divers were especially excited when we sited a tiger shark! As calm and cute as a teddy bear.

​The following day we cruised south to Ko Tachai and Ko Bon in Similan National Park. As we hopped into a calm sea, we were in luck and found awesome visibility. We descended into swarming schools of fishes such as batfish, goatfish, cobias and trevallies. As we peaked through corals to find colorful juvenile angelfish, groupers and parrotfish, we also spotted an eagle ray!

​Even though we were overwhelmed with the beauty of the schooling fish, we had an exciting moment of finding a rare psychedelic batwing slug. What a trip!

​In between dives, a friendly green turtle swam up for some air right next to our boat! We grabbed some snorkels and hopped in to say hello. It was so friendly that he stayed with us for some time to have a close look at us as well. 

​After a comfortable night’s rest we traveled to our southernmost destinations. Beneath the famous submerged boulders, we spotted two juvenile white tipped reef sharks at Anita Reef and Shark Fin Reef.

​Our sunset dive at Elephant Head Rock was filled with exhilarating swim throughs and lots of fish nibbling on their evening meals. The most beautiful ribbon eels in all three colours came out of their rocks to watch us swim by: yellow, blue and black, what a treat!

During this cruise we also partnered with the Similan National Park Rangers for a clean-up dive. We met the Rangers on the island and learned more about maintaining the natural beauty of these marine parks and were rewarded with awesome t-shirts to remember our time and work together in preserving the majestic homes of our underwater friends...

​Our night dive at Ko Bon was full of excitement and oddities. A funky frogfish was hanging out with a Spanish dancer nudibranch in the rocks, and we spotted eerie sea snakes and ornate ghost pipefish. 

Our festive cruise had come to an end so we headed home, dropping Wendi off at Ko Phayam.

Thank you to all the divers who made it so memorable! And a big congratulations to Gabriella for her junior advanced open water diver certification, to Sylvia and Ben for their advanced open water diver certification, and to Nici for her advanced open water diver and nitrox certifications!
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Koh Tachai was a magnificent fish soup yet again with batfish hovering in the current, unicorn surgeonfish, many sweetlips, a huge crack full of lobsters, Napoleon wrasse and even a very brave and curious octopus to name a few. ​

​Richelieu rock was rocking and rolling with many boats and divers for our last 3 dives, but despite the crowds we saw some amazing things! Ornate ghost pipefish frolicked in the fan corals while a banded sea snake bumped into a diver on its way up to the surface for a breath startling it into changing its mind and retreating back to the depths. A massive school of chevron barracudas greeted us in the bottom while huge pickhandle barracudas came within mere centimeters of our mask during the safety stop.

​Along the way we met some mantis shrimps, kinky cuttlefish and a pair of ghost pipefish and our safety stop offered the bonus of a curious eagle ray cruising by. We were also very excited to find the eggs of a spanish dancer nudibranch which sparked much excitement for future encounters with their mom!

What a way to kick off the season aboard the MV Smiling Seahorse! Although international travel is still at a standstill and we couldn't visit our beloved Mergui Archipelago there is nothing to do but make the most of it! We had a magnificent tour through the Thai Surin and Similan Islands with a multicultural group of local vacationers happy to be on the sea away from the hustle and bustle of life. We have been waiting for this trip since Covid stole our heart and sea in March!

The first day was blessed with a gorgeous sunrise to set us off on our merry way. A bit of cloud cover over the course of the weekend made for very pleasant weather to go along with the up to 30m visibility and fish soup underwater. 

We had a beautiful second day at Koh Bon and Koh Tachai where we got swarmed by fish, found gorgeous Nudibranchs and harlequin shrimp and one group even sighted the first Giant Manta ray of the season! 

The last day of the trip brought big wind and waves so we headed to Surin island for a quiet night and first dive. We started the day at Yellow rock, with a lovely appearance from an Octopus and so many sweetlips everywhere. We then moved over to do two marvelous dives at Richelieu Rock featuring cuttlefish, ghost pipefish, giant frogfish, seahorses and all of the beautiful usual suspects. 

We ended our cruise night diving in the Surin islands where we had the chance to encounter a shaded batfish, a little party of pipefish, some nice nudibranchs and cuttlefish! 

Special mentions and a HUGE congratulations to Menno and Sanne for becoming Advanced Open Water divers and also to Claire and Eva for completing their Enriched Air Nitrox course while on the trip! Happy future bubbles to you all! 

Also wishing Sawittree all the best on her birthday! Thank you so much for choosing to celebrate with us!
Thanks for all the fish, friends. Hope to dive with you again soon!

A first time for Darren King and his buddies who has been diving in Thailand since 2005. 
"We dropped usual place in Elephant Head Rock, Similan: southern side of the main rock, before the channel and the tiger shark came up from the deeper water to check us out. It came very close and there was no doubting it. "
Unfortunately this time the divers didn't have a camera to capture the moment but what a thrill!!!
​Tiger sharks are very rarely sighted by divers as they usually prefer to live in deeper/ colder waters.

Such sightings of Tiger sharks in Similan, Thailand sure give us hope for the future of Shark population in Asia. Thailand still has a bountiful Marine life to explore!

Want to know more about these wonderful creatures? Check out our blog answering all the questions you may have about Tiger sharks.

And if you want to try your luck, come dive with us to Surin and Similan islands!
We still go room on these 3 trips in December 2020 with a 20% Discount!

There has never been so little ice in the Bering Strait for 5,500 years, according to a new US study...
New alarm in the Arctic sea! Last month, the arctic sea ice reached a new record low. The iced area has never been so small for a month of October...

First, Siberia has experienced extreme temperatures. Then, further west, in Svalbard, halfway between Norway and the North Pole, the thermometer displayed temperatures up to 10 ° C above seasonal norms for several days. These phenomena, which have been accompanied by extraordinary fires this year and an accelerated melting of glaciers and permafrost, worry those who live in the middle of this fragile ecosystem. At the forefront of global warming, they explain to us why what they see today should already concerns us all.

Only two plots north of Greenland and along Canada's northern islands are still covered with ice throughout the year in 2020, warns a study published on October 15 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Sadly, even these last areas of "eternal" ice are melting at twice the rate of the rest of the Arctic Ocean.

"The area of the Arctic sea ice in October will be the lowest on record and the growth rate of the sea ice is slower than normal," Rasmus Tonboe, an expert at DMI, told AFP. According to preliminary satellite data used by the institute, its area was only 6.5 million square kilometers large on October 27.

Satellites have been observing these areas very precisely since 1979, and the downward trend is clearly quickening in pace. For Mr. Tonboe, October set a "low record" unmatched in 41 years. If you check number for October 2020 alone, the ice cover shrunk by 8.2% compared with the last ten Octobers.

"With less ice on the sea, the sun is also warming the seawater for longer every year, resulting in warmer seas and less ice settling down. Winters get shorter and shorter, the ice doesn't have time to thickens as it did before, "Mr. Tonboe summed up.

The size of the sea ice had already recorded a very low level in September with its second smallest area ever recorded, after 2012. On September 8, it measured only 4.2 million kilometers, according to the researcher.

Mr Tonboe just came back from the longest international scientific expedition to the North pole. The Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) voyage lasted 389-day and was led by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Germany.
AWI is now issuing an urgent appeal to try to save the "disappearing" summer sea ice. We are now only seeing a "melted, thin, crumbly ice", and "surfaces of liquid water as far as the eye can see, up to the horizon line".

There has been less and less sea ice in the Arctic in the last 40 years, and it some maritime areas which used to be iced year long (such as Barent sea in the north of Norway) are now only covered for a small part of the year.

This ice melting opens up new maritime passages, which will play a growing role in international trade and stirs up greed for its potential riches. The region is indeed likely to contain 13% of oil reserves and 30% of undiscovered natural gas in the world.

What about the human impact in all of this?
“Global warming is a multiplier of the effects of natural variability”, specifies a researcher. The average rise in temperature implies that the natural heat episodes, controlled by the North Atlantic Oscillation, are stronger and longer. It is this mechanism which also explains why we will have, if we do nothing, more and stronger heat waves in Europe in the decades to come.

What do you think can be done to reverse this trend? Leave us a comment below.

Dive in Koh Bon and other Thailand amazing dive sites...
​3D Thailand:
​Thailand's best Dive weekend: Surin islands and Richelieu Rock
​4D Thailand:
Best of Thailand Dive Cruise: Surin, Koh Tachai, Koh Bon and Richelieu Rock​
​5D Thailand:
​Best of Thailand Dive Cruise: Surin, Similan and Richelieu Rock​
​7D Thailand:
​DIVE ALL OF Surin, Similan and Richelieu Rock​