This trip was all about Whalesharks with daily presentation by Kirsty Magson, Marine Biologist and WS specialist.
"Diving is life a box of chocolate, You never know what you're gonna get"
One of our guest, “Pin”, signed up for 4 photo coaching dives, and Richelieu Rock was the perfect place to do 2 of them as the best dive site in Thailand offers so many opportunities for a photographer.
Underwater photographers are spoil for choice in The Rock and the hardest part is probably selecting the lense as there are so many subject both in Wide angle and Macro.
We then headed south for the 3rd day to Koh Tachai where there was a massive school of barracudas as well as jacks for 2 consecutive dives there, it was mind-blowing!
We finished the day with a night dive at Koh Bon.
The weather calmed down as quickly as it went rough, so we could carry on with our plan to dive elephant head rock in the afternoon.
Franck carried on with Pin's photographer's coaching, and her photos are improved a lot!
We navigated an hour toward the west before we got about 150 m depth under the boat, we deployed 2 lines of lights to give more room for all divers and the dive was amazing.
We were all surrounded by special critters the whole dive, from larvae mantis shrimps, flounders, stargazer, ribbon eel and reef octopus, but the night's favorite was for sure a male paper nautilus!
The day went on just as planned with 1 dive at deep six playing in the swim throughs followed by 1 dive at Christmas point where we completed the photo coaching with Pin.
Continuing on our Ultimate Surin and Similan 7 days route, we dived Koh Bon next, where we were greeted at the ridge by the visit of a Giant Oceanic manta ray! It went a bit too fast to get the perfect ID Shot for Thailand Manta project database, but it was still seen by almost every one onboard! |
We were a bit sad the Whale Shark didn't turn up for its appointment (these gentle giants are so unreliable) but we loved Kirsty Magson's presentation and learned so much about them and their environment.
We will run another Whale shark expedition with Kirsty in 2023 from 4th to 12th of February 2023 and will visit this time both North and South Andaman from Richelieu Rock to Koh Lipe!
Get in touch for more info!