Oh what a wonderful surprise on our last trip!
A Manta Parade where we were not expecting them ;)

The lucky spectators of these fantastic moments were over the moon: Ronen from Israel; Jen and Nuno from Canada; Siu Fun from Hong Kong; Jerzy and Aleksandra from Poland; Kostas from Greece; Juan G. and Juan M. from Spain; Raymond and Martina from Germany; Erica, Taylor and Lynn from USA; Mohamed from Belgium and Laurent from France.

MV Smiling Seahorse, our brand new steel boat is being built in the mangrove forest, near Ranong for the last 6 months or so. It is taking shape nicely and nearly ready for the coming season! While it is not yet all done, we wanted to send you a little update!
​Let me introduce her to you...

From the front, the 2 massives windows on the main deck are the master cabins, so you can have a great seaview while cruising...  :)

From the side, you can see the wooden cabin doors with on the main deck 4 Deluxe cabins and 2 master cabins, and up the stairs, the standard cabins and Dive master cabins. All our cabins will be air conditioned with large windows and doors toward the ocean. Deluxe and Master cabins also have their own ensuite bathrooms :)

The shading area on the roof-top (sun deck) still under construction

A huge sundeck with plenty of shade (and sun), hamac and mattresses. What a spot to enjoy the view!

A large and confortable dinning/chilling area, with power sockets all around, fans, sound system a lovely couch area at the back, 2 bars (bar stool still not installed) 

And seen fromt he other side, you can see the buffet area and the stairs going up to the rooftop sundeck and on both sides, corridors to the standard cabins.

Deluxe and Standard cabin have a smart convertible bed system: it can either be set up as a queen size double bed or single bunk beds, you can see the tile of the bathroom on the bottom right corner (this is the ensuite bathrooms in the Deluxe cabins).
​The bathrooms are not finished yet, so no pictures so far...

Because diving is what we do, we designed a large and functional diving area, and a spacious dive platform. Everyone will have storage area for their personal gear big and small with an additional room for the photographers!

A big improvement with this room special dedicated to photographers! my fav ;)
​... still a little tidying up to do but mostly done :) 

We will have 16,000L of fresh water, which is 4 times more than on our beloved MV ThaiSea. Now we will be able to extend our trips by a few days! :)

And in the engine room: 2 super engines and 2 generators we give us a cruising speed of 10knots and the power to run 2 compressors and all A/C units at the same time...

The Captain cabin: modern and spacious with two berth for our dear Captain and Mechanic

I'm sure you can recognize May! ;)

The Dive Masters cabin, more spacious and confortable than our legendary chicken cabins... lol and downstairs a large staff quarter with 3 cabins for the rest of our dream team.

We are looking forward to have you back onboard for some new underwater adventures!

Wanna come back soon?
We offer 10% discount on the first cruise of the season: be one of the first on MV Smiling Seahorse: trip 3 from 26th to 31st of October! Get in touch!

The Andaman see is home to many cephalopods such as octopus, squid and cuttlefish... If you come dive with us it's pretty much a guaranteed sighting! 

Big reef octopus, (Octopus cyanea) a diurne specie with an amazing camouflage ability.

Theses 2 pictures were taken only few seconds apart. The Octopus can change not only it's color but also it's skin texture in the blink of an eye!

During the mating season you can have a chance to see more than one at a time, otherwise it's a rather solitary specie.

Mating season for cuttlefish (Sepia pharaonis) is from November to January, and it's very frequent to witness some kinky business while diving :)

Often seen in pairs, they are actually 3 or even 4 when mating...

While their best way to defend themselves is to blend in, they can also spray a cloud of ink to surprise it's predator and escape...

Solitary male when not mating...

The pygmy squid, (Idiosepius paradoxus) hard to see due to its micro size (about 5mm) lives on coral reef and are to be seen at night, hanging on corals or floating away with the current.

 The pelagic kind of squid , hanging in mid water. They can team up in order to hunt cooperatively, using active communication!  

Always in group from small to big schools, they are an easy catch for the local fishermen, still using the lamparo that attract them close to the surface...

Amazing group one more time on this cruise in the Mergui Archipelago!
We had the pleasure to welcome on board: Ashley and Keith from the USA; Nikki from Netherlands; Päivi from Finland; and last but not  least ;) Dominique, Geneviève, Bruno and Alex from France!
All of them have deeply fallen in love with these beautiful islands and their surrounding waters.

Every new landscape, every new dive site was ... "magnifique", amazing, incredible!

And that's true, no need for words ... don't you think? 

Between the dives, island hopping to deserted islands ...

​Dream isolated bungalows ...

But mainly, on this trip, the main attraction was the New Game on board thanks to Dominique ... called the "Pan Pan"! Quite an addictive one ;)
​Dominique, Nikki and Sofi got caught!

White tip sharks, huge marbled rays, octopusses, turtles ... as beautiful as always! But this week our special one was ...

A Nautilus enjoying a funny ride with a jellyfish!
Thanks Päivi for the picture ;)

At night time, our dancing queen Nikki was always on the moove!
Ready to dance?

Nice sunsets ... never enough!

And the food ... quoting Dominique: "It's not only organic, it is also orgasmic!" Thanks to our fanstastic Chef Chewi!

A great crazy team always ready to make your journey the best one ...

And a very safe serious Captain!

And for the courses, this week the winner was .... Alexandre Cohen! Not only he did his Open Water course, but also the Advanced one; and he couldn't stop so he passed his Nitrox certification ... and then finally, the cruise was over ;)

Congratulations also to Geneviève for her Nitrox certification; Bruno for the Deep Specialty; and Ashley and Keith for their Deep Adventure dive.

Special thought to Ashley and Keith who were starting a one year trip with us ... hope you'll have great moments, discover fantastic places and meet amazing people! One thing is sure, you'll never be the same after ;)
Have fun!

After one month, we were back to the Surin and Similans Islands !
With an international team again: Neta and Gil from Israel; Pie and Charlie from England; Reinhart and Charlotte from Belgium; Alain from Switzerland; Christian, Dominique, Morgan and Luce from France.
Congratulations to Dominique, Reinhart and Charlotte for their Advanced certifications; and Neta for her Adventure Deep Dive. And also Luce who is continuing her divemaster training!
Kohl's rays, barracudas and trevallies schools all around ...
Koh Tachai was amazing as always with huge colorful seafans everywhere!
It has been a ray and octopus festival ...

And also Maldives sponge snails, turtles ...

And always the sunsets ... 

Wow! a new word guiness record in diving today!
Ahmed Gabr went to 332 metres in Egypt today! crazy!!!!
Congratulation courageous man!

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26th of December, the weather doesn’t allow us to go all the way to Koh Bon, so we decide to go to Richelieu  Rock. Although the dive site is amazing, we still have the mantas in our minds…

The rock is coverd by redish soft corals, Huge school of yellow fusiliers make it fun to swimm through them, barracudas cruising around and giant trevalis hunting in the blue, very nice.

Lower down there are 3 cuttle fish fighting for 1 female it’s mating time…

29th of December, we are back to Burma, which I particularely like because (but not only) we are always alone on every dive site!

25th of December, Christmas day… I wish to get some Mantas for this upcoming dive! We go to Koh Tachai pinnacle. That’s a cleaning station very famous for Mantas sighting, let’s keep our fingers crossed…

As soon as we hit the water, they are there! Finally, that’s the first time of the season that we see them… 2 of them are flying around us passing by again and again, There are so many fish to look at but we can’t get our eyes off the mantas, they are so gracious and so big absolutely fantastic. When the time is up we head towards the mooring line but we don’t want to get out of the water as long as we still have a bit of air in our tanks, we keep staring at them, and as if they felt flattered they come around us just so we can enjoy the show a little bit longer… What a dive!

You might have heard the news of a new tsunami coming into Thailand. An earthquake off the coast  of Sumatra, around the same place than in 2004 and some were expecting a tsunami of the same dimension to touch Thailand.

We heard the news over the radio, Pong came to tell us the news and we immediately cancelled the following dives for the day and left the island side for a deeper sea.

We immediately felt quite safe, knowing a wave doesn’t break until it reaches shallower grounds but we felt quite worried about what we would find back on the land.

Our phones didn’t have much connection but just enough to reassure the family members which needed it most.

News were slow to come over the radio, in Thai and then in English. We first heard of the earthquake, followed by a rumor of a 18m wave, 30 minutes later we listened in silence the news of the wave reaching Phuket and Koh Lanta and only 20 minutes later were we reassured of minimal damage. We were waiting to see the wave pass us by but to no avail. After two hours of stress, we set the cap to Richelieu Rock and celebrated onboard the good news: No Tsunami, we are the Tsunami survivors!!!