Category: Similan Islands

Trip report from our North to South Andaman cruise from 4th to 11th of November 2022

14/11/2022

Welcome to 72 Aquatics from Tucson, Arizona for this great trip.

We had the pleasure to welcome this group, all the way from the United States to dive with us in the beautiful Andaman Sea of Thailand. Checking in on the MV The Smiling Seahorse and starting this trip in Ranong, we cruised to the South of the country and dove the best dive sites of the Andaman Sea from Myanmar's border all the way to the Malaysian border.

Snappers and bluefin trevally

Trevallies hunting

Lobsters

bAfter our check dive on the north of Surin, we headed to the famous and beautiful Richelieu Rock for the rest of the day! Loads of glass fishes, trevallies, barracudas and bat fishes were swimming around us and the purple rock.
When we looked closer on the reef, we found a seahorse, two baby ghosts pipes fish and the first pair of harlequin shrimps of the season!

Ornate ghost pipefish

Time to head for the Similan National Park and dive there for a couple of days. Colorful Nudibranchia and their eggs were found on the big boulders of granite. A huge and old green turtle came to visit us during our surface interval, and some guests were happy to swim with it for a while.

Psychedelic Batwing slug

Nudibranchia eggs

Netted Miamira nudibranchia

A friendly green turtle came to say hi in the Similans

After those two great days of diving, it was time to navigate south overnight to Hin Daeng and Hin Muaeng: two dives sites of Lanta National Park. Time to change the types of rocks we are diving on and explore a pinnacle made of limestone and basalt with a full mix of soft and hard corals.

Schooling bannerfish

Lunar eclipse

We celebrate the full moon and witnessed the lunar eclipse from the boat, while some of the guests were trying to blackwater dive for their first time and loved it.

Pelagic Larval Stage of a Tube Anemone - Ceriantharia

The Pumpkin afloat

Larval Flounder

Zoanthid larva - Zoantharia - Cnidaria

Larval Amphipod

Sea butterfly

Next day we went close to the Malaysian border and dive the underwater pinnacle of 8 Mile Rock and around Koh Lipe at the famous soft coral garden of Stonehenge. We found a frog fish, indian walkman and some cute cuttlefish.

Occelated Frogfish

After this great day of diving, we headed back toward Koh Lanta National park to dive on Koh Haa and ended the trip with Phi Phi for the last day of the trip.

Thanks again to 72 Aquatics Tucson for joining us on this amazing trip. We are looking forward to diving with you again very soon!

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6th April 2022: South Andaman dive trip report

12/4/2022

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Heading back South Andaman after a month in the north Andaman. Was great!...

6th April North Andaman dive trip report

It is with 11 guests that we are setting sails. Four of them are return guests, which is for us the best review we can hope for! Among them, Pook is taking her photo skills to a new level and signed up for a full on photo coaching with Alex for the whole trip, while Nicolas is getting started with his brand new TG6 and signed up for 4 dives photo coaching with Franck.

After about one month spent in the northern part of the Andaman Sea, this week we are taking you back to the southern Andaman, going all the way to Koh Lipe, near the Malaysian border.

A great diving days ending with cocktails and barbecue

South Andaman Island

The trip started from Phuket and after everyone checked in we enjoyed our first shared diner and started cruising toward Koh Haa, where we planned to have our first dive the next morning.

The first dive to be the check dive we picked the Laguna and had a nice and relaxed dive to start with allowing everyone to get back into diving mood and getting comfortable with the gear again…
We then went further south to Hin Daeng and Hin Muang for the rest of the day. Even though this is a famous dive site for manta sighting we were not lucky enough to spot one, but instead we were the happy witnesses of a big underwater ballet where the actors were trevallies, mackerels and tunas hunting into massive bait balls of glassfish moving like clouds again and again.

Divers under a boat with cool sunbeam

Lovely jelly fish and banner fish feeding on its tentacles

Tonight is the blackwater dive as well, off of hin Daeng we are very excited as the previous ones were absolutely mind-blowing…

6 guests out of 11 are game for the blackwater dive so we set up only one line and after half an hour sailing west we decide that it is deep enough, about 80 m of depth…

Lizard fish on blackwater dive, south andaman

One hour later everyone was back on board, the dive conditions were good, but the visibility made it challenging to spot critters…

We still met some baby octopus, lizard fish, butterflyfish and loads of jellies and plankton like organisms making for a good but average blackwater dive.

It was time to sail overnight to Koh Lipe where we planned the morning dive at 8 mile rock…
The visibility was great, allowing us to see this abundance of life and magnificent soft coral covering the entire reef.

Little shrimp on blackwater dive

blackwater diving of Hin Daeng Hin Muang

Hard coral formation with a soft coral growing in the middle

The colour on the reef are so vibrant around Koh Lipe

Huge schools of yellow tail barracuda, jacks and giant trevallies are a regular there, the very mild current let us cruise around the pinnacle freely, we had 2 dives there exploring a bit further we found 2 ghostpipe fish ;)

Everyone was particularly blown away by the beauty of Stonehenge in the afternoon were on top of the vibrant colours we found the cutest baby seahorse! It is a dome like coral garden at about 20 m for the deepest part going all the way to 6 meters.
The site is covered with corals of all sorts mixed with barrel sponges and various clown fish inhabited anemones: it is an explosion of colours! Absolutely stunning! Cruising the dive site we bumped into a massive school of chevron barracuda, it was the cherry on top making it a fantastic dive!

Diver over a school of fish

School of barracudas, Stonehenge, Lipe, South andaman

For the 4th and last dive we picked Koh Taru, a nice drift dive going with the current over the sandy patches looking for critters hiding there and in a lovely coral garden covered in yellow snappers, scorpion fish and fusiliers!

After a well deserved night's rest, we headed back East for 3 more dive at Hin Daeng / Hin Muang before having the sunset dive at Koh Haa neua, aka the chimney! Everyone had a blast there, playing in the swim-through!

Cocktails were ready upon return to start up a lovely party with great food (yummy barbecue with lamb legs, chicken wings, saussages and home made roated tomatoes, French fries and crunchy multi coloured salad).

Fun was had by all, I won't tell you more...

The end of the cruise was coming and for the last day and we start with koh haa yai, aka the cathedral, a very scenic dive with a massive cave in front of a rich coral garden.
The last group got lucky seeing a curious whaleshark! But as not everyone had seen it, we decided to stay for one more dive giving us another chance… unfortunately, that whale shark must have been in a rush because it did not hang around and Franck not being part of the lucky divers, we have no photos to illustrate this fantastic encounter. We were really close to the reef, finding tiny nudibranch one after the other when it came right up to us to say hello!

The Smiling Seahorse at Koh Ha/ that's where we saw the whaleshark

Another wonderful sunset...

Our last dive, the 15th of the trip, was at Koh Bida Nok, a nice and easy spot inhabitted by a group of resident black tip reef sharks!
Turns out, every guest got to see them! Some of us were lucky enough to have a good look at them while they were cruising in front of us, others only got a furtive glance as they were running away from the bubbles...

Phuket was only a 3 hours ride away, giving us plenty some time to look at the pictures of the trip and say good bye to everyone…

Happy divers with yellow seafan

Lovely reef scene, Koh lanta National Park

Thank you all for coming, we had such a great time! we hope to see you again very soon!

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23rd Mars 2022: Manta by day and Paper nautilus by night

29/3/2022

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Female paper nautilus all over this week on the blackwater and 2 Manta visits!

23rd Mars 2022 trip, beautiful Andaman Sea and Manta show!

We started this fantastic cruise in Tap Lamu pier with a lovely mix of international divers from Austria, Germany, France and England and what a treat this week was!

Chris, one of our regular and talented underwater photographer

Day 1: woke to an amazing sunrise in the Surin islands. With our check-out dive at Koh Chi followed by Torinla Rocks, had lunch and during our surface interval we were greeted by a large male green sea turtle. Our next dives were at Yellow rock and we finished up the day with a night dive at Ao Pragaad.
Amongst others, we had the chance to see big schools of Fusilier, Trevallies, Batfish as well as lobsters and colourful nudibranch.

blue fin trevallis

School of yellow back fusilier

Richelieu Rock was our spot for the whole of the second day, with a calm sea to enjoy 4 these beautiful dives; and there was so much to see! Between the Ghost Pipe Fish, Peacock Mantis Shrimp, Longnose Emperor and trevallis hunting together, it was a lovely show for all, even for the most experimented divers diving Richelieu Rock throughout the season.

not 1 ghost pipefish but 4!

reef landscape with tomato grouper and bannerfish

silver sweetlips

The chef and his son prepared us a wonderful barbecue to end this perfect day! and to accompany this superb dinner, Franck prepared us a rhum based cocktail.
Music, good atmosphere, and fun discussions made this superb evening one we will remember.

Enjoying a cocktail before the bbq

Barbecue and good vibes

A big "surprise" 3rd day!

We started the third day with 2 dives at Koh Tachai Pinnacle, large granite boulder formations on the south side and a beautiful coral garden to the north with many school of different Reef fish to keep us entertained.

Our third dive for the day was at Koh Bon, diving the West Ridge where we spent the whole dive with a majestic Oceanic Manta Ray and a Spotted Eagle Ray swimming a ballet around all the divers from the boat. Wow! Everyone came back on the boat with stars in their eyes, excited to share the moment and photos with the other guests.

Lionfish

Hello again manta!

Perfect belly shot for Thailand's Manta ray database

Lobsters on coral reef

While the plan was to do only one dive at Koh Bon, we decided to stay and meet the manta again!But that day was also the day we planned the blackwater dive and many people found it hard to choose between a manta dive and a blackwater dive so we decided to do both!
After dinner, we head offshore to the end fo the continental plateau for a perfect blackwater dive, what a great experience to see these pelagic and deep sea creatures we would never otherwise see. We saw the sea butterfly, paper nautilus, turnicates, jellyfish, a pelagic sea snake and so much more.

It was a first for most of the divers and everyone loved it! What a funny feeling to float motionless in this dark, but far from empty space!

Pelagic snake

Paper nautilus riding a jellyfish

Day 4: for our ur last diving day we decided to go back to Koh Bon Pinnacle and Koh Bon West Ridge and guess who decided to greet us again? If you are thinking Manta! You'd be correct, a friendly Manta Ray spent more than 20 minutes swimming gracefully around us! Second dive at West Ridge, our hopes were high to see again Mrs Flappy but no luck this time.
A big thank you to mother nature for these two magnificent dives with these gentle giants!

Manta visit us again

Time to head back, but with a quick stop and dive on our way at Boonsung Wreck. There we saw Honeycomb Moray Eels, White Eyed Morays, Nudibranch with weird shapes and patterns, a school of Yellow Tail Barracuda, massive schools of rainbow runners and snappers and all the Porcupine fish you can imagine. The dive on the wreck was fantastic and concluded the this perfect week so well!

To top it all off, Franck gave us an amazing photo presentation documenting the trip and all the amazing things we have witnessed while we ate yummy burgers as we made our smooth journey back to the pier to say our goodbyes.

Congratulation to Adrian, Laura, Jean Louis and Noelle for completing their Nitrox certifications and well done Xavier for your fantastic improvement with Franck's photographer's coaching.

Sunset on Similan

Divers and beautiful seafan

Divers have fun underwater

Diner time

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South and North Andaman Liveaboard: 13th of January

27/1/2022

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We started this new adventure from Phuket on a very windy day, heading towards our very first dive at Koh haa lagoon. After we went down to Hin Deang and Hin Muang for the next 2 dives and the night dive at Hin Deang, it was really nice!
Boris Mekler, the photographer featured in this blogpost played with UV lights which gave these funky colours to coral and anemones.

The following day was planned to be around Koh Lipe area but we could only have 1 dive at 8 miles due to wavy conditions. We found shelter for dive 2 and 3 at Pattaya corner and finished the day with calm conditions at the brightly coloured Stonehenge with a magnificent dive full of barracuda and 20m visibility!

After that it was time to go back west to Hin Muang and hin Daeng hoping to see some giant flap flaps... no luck with pelagic this time but we still had some beautiful dives with great visibility and no more waves! Our 3rd dive of the day was at koh Haa Neua before setting sails for the Similan Islands, this part was really nice as we were cruising we had some nice drinks watching the sun go down… It was a beautiful moment to share with our guests!

1 Next day started at shark fin reef, followed by West of Eden. After that we made a stop at our beloved Donald Duck bay for some beach hopping before the 3rd dive at 3 trees!
At night we offered the option between a Blackwater dive and a sunset dive at Koh Bon, both were amazing!
Sunset divers caught a glimpse of 2 white tips and a guitar shark and Blackwaterdivers saw a seahorse and 2 paper nautilus (male and female) during floating offshore! It was amazing!!

Next day we did 2 dives at Koh Bon which were both amazing with 2 white tips again and an eagle ray! Then we moved to Koh Tachai with great conditions and a massive school of black fin barracudas! We wrapped up the day with our infamous bbq night taking this occasion to celebrate Marco’s birthday with some delicious cakes!

Male paper nautilus are much smaller then their female counterpart

female also build a shell to hide their eggs giving them this "nautilus look"

Did you know Paper Nautilus are actually not Nautiluses at all?

The trip ended in Richelieu Rock for the next 4 dives… We found even more ghost pipe fishes than the previous trips, they seem to be everywhere these days. We were amazed by the abundance of macro life! In Koh Bon we found another white tips shark before saying goodby to the islands and heading back to shore.

Big up to Anka for completing her advanced open water certification as well as the nitrox specialty and to Emma for the nitrox specialty too! Thanks to our lovely guests, we had an amazing time once again :) Don't forget to subscribe to our blogpost to receive regular updates and more illustrated fishy stories directly in your inbox.

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North and South Andaman Liveaboard : January 4th 2022

14/1/2022

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North and South Andaman Liveaboard : January 4th 2022

We had, once again, a Fantastic trip on the Andaman Sea this week. Joining us from Switzerland, a lovely group of fun divers chartered the boat and brought a lot of good vibes with them! Aurélie, Eva, Yan alias Loudou, Coranda, Tanguy, Damien alias titi, Marilyn, Gilbert, Alex, André, Roxane, André, Jean Louis,Thomas et Nadia: Thanks for joining us!
The cruise started late on the 4th of January as the group just landed in Phuket in the morning and were waiting for their PCR test to clear. We visited on this cruise the best dive sites of the Andaman Sea from Richelieu Rock to Koh Lipe over 8 days of fun.
The highlights of this trip were certainly the dolphins and whale sharks!!

The cruise started very well with excellent visibility at Richelieu Rock. We had the chance to witness emperors, trevally and tunas hunting the glass fish covering the reef.

Unfortunately Franck wasn't in the water this week so we have less underwater photos than usual but a lot more surface photos :)

the smiling seahorse dive platform with happy divers

We continued our journey in Koh Tachai the next day, where we had 2 wonderful dives on the pinacle, one in company of a Magestic Whale Shark!!!

On the way to Koh Bon, we got lucky to see a pod of pilot whales from the boat! It was so exciting!

The next day we visited the infamous Donald Duck bay and viewpoint! The weather was super nice and we had amazing views on the beach.

the smiling seahorse from similan viewpoint

During our surface interval we had the surprise visit of a huge green turtle checking out the boat which allowed us to swim with it for a few wonderful minutes.

In the South Andaman, we did some nice dives around Hin Daeng and Hin Muang and a cool blackwater dive; a first experience for most of our guests!!

Our blackwater diving line

the smiling seahorse dive platform ready to jump from

The next day we travelled to Tarutao National park near Koh Lipe where we met a second amazing whale shark which came again and again during the whole dive.

We just could never get tired of it!

a whale shark in 8 miles rock, lipe, thailand

Hin Muang was amazing with crazy visibility and no current at all: just a pure delight!

And speaking of delight, we enjoyed our special barbecue night surrounded by Koh Ha scenic islands, with our traditional "aperitif" to start what became a wild evening, some threw ourselves into the water in the middle of the night on Koh Phi Phi and others who had not asked for anything, were thrown into the water... poor people.

We ended our journey with nice dives at Bida Nok and Shark Point with amazing visibility once again and some curious Blacktip sharks. We caught a glimple of Tigertail seahorses, a perfect way to end our cruise!

Thanks again to our amazing guests! We loved this trip and can't wait to welcome you onboard again! :)
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27th December cruise... We get a whale shark for new year!

13/1/2022

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Diving into 2022 with lovely guests and 2 beautiful whale sharks!

Happy New Year 2022 to all ocean lovers! How did you celebrate? We hope that you had fun and that this year will be filled with happiness and marvellous diving. For us, 2022 got off to a good start with delightful encounters: not one but 2 Whale Sharks and the oh so pretty juvenile shaded batfish were the higlights this week!!

This journey started in 2021, on the 27th of December from Tap Lamu pier with a full boat ready to visit the top dive sites in Surin and Similan National parks.

juvenile Shaded batfish in Surin National Park

Ornate Ghost pipe fish

We started by exploring Surin Islands on the first days where we went nudi hunting, this season is particularly great to see pikachu nudibranchs which are always a hit. We caught a glimpse of a guitar fish in Torinla but unfortunately couldn't get a shot this time. Yellow rock was beautiful, with amazing visibility and a massive school of sweetlips. But what we loved the most on this dive was this gorgeous juvenile batfish playing model for our pleasure.

We did the first night dives in the bay where divers could see various types of crabs, moray eals hunting and cool nudibranchs.

But for sure the highlight of Surin National park this week, was once more on Richelieu rock, the next day, where we met 2 friendly whale sharks, it was so exciting!

Similan islands had perfect conditions: maybe 50 meter viz this week and mild current.
Schols of fusilier, jacks, trevallis and barracudas were surrounding us and we went through some fun swim through making the perfect frames for our photo shooting session :)

weird crustaceans met on blackwater dives in thailand

We also did some blackwater diving and met some curious types of shrimp and a fish larveas.

We could aslo admire a clownfish family watching its nearly hatched eggs!
This juveline angelsfish was also magnificient. Don't you think?

This cruise was special as well because we celebrated New Year's eve on the boat!
We had a lovely time and had some nice food and drinks to share with our amazing guests!

Subscribe to our blogpost to receive regular updates and more illustrated fishy stories directly in your inbox. We have some pretty exciting things coming up in 2022! :)

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Christmas gifts on this North and South Andaman cruise! 18-25 Dec 2021

10/1/2022

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The best Christmas gifts ever: 2 whale sharks!

Have you been good this year?? What did you get for Christmas?
We have probably been very good this year, cause Santa brought us a whale shark!!!

This trip was just awesome! We left Phuket on the 18th of December with 15 fantastic guests and explored Thailand's 4 best Marine National parks.
We started down south, near the Malaysian border with Tarutao National park next to Koh Lipe, also dived in Koh Lanta National parks around Hin Daeng, Hin Muang and Koh Ha before going around Phuket island to explore the North Andaman National parks of Surin and Similan islands next to Myanmar border! What an adventure!

The Smiling Seahorse Christmas tree

Batwing sea slugs

The 2 whale sharks were not the only gift we got on this trip, there were a rainbow of criters in all shapes and colours from this wonderful Batwing sea slugs (top right) to pretty Harlequin shrimps (below) read more about these Anibal lector of the sea in this dedicated blogpost.

Arlequin shrimp in her colorful environment

We found a Mama Clown fish (clark to be precise) eye to eye with her nearly hatched babies.

Mama Clown fish (clark to be precise) and babies

Several Ghost pipefish on our North and South route as well as Napoleon fish and reef steaming with life!

Napoleon fish

Ghost pipefish

Black water diving on every trip: We love it!!!

Just like on every other trip, we did an optional Blackwater dive and met a myriad of Fish larvaes, all cutest than can be as well as cephalopods and drifting crustaceans in various stage of development.