Manta
Fantastic encounter with one of our favourite creature during the last trip!
We were alone with them in Koh Bon pinnacle, and then they joined us again in Koh Tachai :)
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Fantastic encounter with one of our favourite creature during the last trip! We were alone with them in Koh Bon pinnacle, and then they joined us again in Koh Tachai :)  Whale shark What a wonderful trip we had in Thailand a couple of days ago! Our customers have been blessed ... not surprised to see their smiles on the group picture on the boat ...  This trip to Thailand has been a bliss! Four days in the Surin, Similan Islands and Richelieu Rock, with a bunch of fun people from all over the world. We were very pleased to welcome on board: Fabrice, Marie, Sophie, Olivier, Jeremie, Thierry and Florence from France; Julien, Kamilla and Peter from Australia; Wolfgang from Germany; Jesper from Denmark and Lynn from the USA. Lots of laughing and diving would be the best resume for it! Look at those smiling and charming faces ;) " Where to start? Top team! Top organization! Top boat! Top food! And of course top dives!"  "Thank you for two fantastic and fun trips. Taking my whale shark, eagle ray, manta ray and harlequin shrimp virginity was nice ;)"  " 2 croisières incroyables avec the Smiling Seahorse! Tout est parfait ... plongées inoubliables en Birmanie et en Thaïlande!!! Mantas, requins baleines, requin léopard, requin guitare ... le TOP!! " " 2 incredible cruises with the Smiling Seahorse! Everything is perfect ... unforgettable dives in Burma and Thailand!!! Mantas, whale sharks, leopard shark, guitar shark ... the TOP!! "  " Croisière de 3 jours géniale! Equipe extraordinaire, repas excellents ... Et beaucoup de poissons: raie, requins baleine, requins pointe noire ... N'hésitez pas, c'est vraiment exceptionnel! " " Amazing 3 days cruise! Great team, excellent food ... And a lot of fishes: ray, whale sharks, black tip sharks ... Don't hesitate, that's really exceptional! "  " Tout était parfait: les sites de plongée, les guides, l'ambiance, la nourriture, le comfort ... Et la cerise sur le gateau: le requin baleine à Richelieu !!! " " Everything was perfect: the dive sites, the guides, the atmosphere, the food, the comfort ... And the cherry on the top: the whale shark at Richelieu !!! "   " Not fluent in Finnish ... sorry! But looks good, NO?!!! "   Right after celebrating Songkran, the Thaï New Year, we headed to the the Surin and Similan islands for our last trip in Thailand of the season. On board, we welcomed very soon to be "spoiled customers" ;) Starting with Mélanie, Max, Geoffrey and Isabelle from Belgium; Christophe, Bénédicte, Mathis and Christelle from France; JP and Henriikka from Finland. The conditions were great, amazing visibility, low current and lots of life all around. From day one in Surin, we have been lucky enough to spot black tips, lots of Kuhl's rays, ghost pipefishes, turtles ... and so much more!    Day two, in the morning, we went to Koh Bon, where the serious stuff started ;) Beginning with nice sceneries and big schools of fishes ...     ... to a guitar and a leopard shark ... Unfortunately, we don't have any picture of the first one. But enjoy the second one ;)   Paragraph. Cliquer ici pour modifier.  And then, it was time for Koh Tachai and its beautiful corals! On the way, we met a group of dolphins at the surface.  Look at this splendid colors!      Happy divers!   Back to the boat, it was barbecue night!  And a box game, we will remember! Third day, cherry on the top: Richelieu Rock!     And last but not least ... the biggies, everyone was expecting to see!!!          It has been a great start of a season in Thailand. A fantastic group of French, Chinese and Italian people. The weather was great, the water crystal clear and the atmosphere on the boat was explosive ... all conditions were combined to make this trip unforgettable! Surin and Similan Islands, Richelieu Rock ... Marbled rays, white and black tip sharks, leopard shark, turtles, massive napoleon wrasses, octopuses, mantis shrimps, seasnakes, massive schools of barracudas and trevallies ... We couldn't stop looking everywhere! At the end of each dive, big smiles in everybody's face :) Thanks to Shen, Hao, Yiwen, Philippe, Gwen, Ben and Patrizia to have shared this first trip with us, the first one is always special! Congratulations to Hao and Yiwen for achieving their adventure deep dive, "Team China" left the trip with such a great level! Congratulations also to Ben and Patrizia for their Nitrox certification! Ben and Gwen are continuing the adventure with us on the next trip to Burma. We hope to see you again soon ... And don't forget: "Are you ready?"!!!!! Say cheese!!! 
Always great to see and have onboard some return guests. This we had the pleasure to welcome back Jean Paul and it's happy french buddies, who came two years ago, are back for another two cruises in our company.
As soon as the trip started, we felt at home, we shared the different diving trip we all did since the last time we met and shared our best pictures, we also laughed at the video montage from the last trip, what a fun time!
​ As good french, we also love to talk about food, specially when we can enjoy this amazing cheese from the continent. Thanks for the little present. 
Very nice to dive one more time with our doyenne, Brigitte, who is still following the group and to find some nice creatures underwater.
​ We had the chance to see some turtles, a ghost pipe fish, a nice clown triggerfish, few rays, barracuda, snapper and trivially. 
So the first cruise is done, and our lovely guests are now enjoying the quiet island of Koh Phayam while we prepare the next depature,. We are alllooking forward for our last exploration trip in Myanmar this season. Last time we went up there a group saw a school of mobulas passing by and we hope this time we'll all get lucky!!!
Subscribe to our blog post below to get the next episode from our exploration up north the Mergui Archipelago.
Big creatures were present for this first trip and made it an awesome start for 2016 in Thailand ! The boat was full and we all enjoyed the ballet from at least one big manta ! Some were too amazed by the way it was swimming that they almost missed the leopard shark sleeping in between the rocks.  French, Belgian, Russian, Australian, German and English shared the place on the MV Thai Sea and were delightled by the food, with a special innovation for Chewi, who made magic with only one wok and his barbeque to satisfiy all the different diets requested, vegan, vegetarian, only fish eater, gluten intolerant, without carbs, without fat and of course different level of spicy.  Congratulations to Son Ca and Bertrand for your Wedding and we are more than happy that you chose us for your honeymoon ! Hope you had a good trip and wish to see you again, maybe as a staff member the next time ;-) Congratulations to Delphine also for your Open Water and Eric to refresh your skills after more than 10 years.   All the team of The Smiling Sea Horse wish you a Merry Christmas, we are just back from our Christmas cruise and was really enjoyable for all of us. The guests were delighted, novices and beginner shared the cabins on the MV Thai Sea to spend christmas over the Thailand water.  Half of the guests on boat are swiss, two of them came to learn how to make bubbles and 5 to improve their skills. Congratulations to Luca and Romain for your Open Water Diver Certification, and for Coralie who are now Advanced Open Water !  We had also on board two snorkelers, Laurence and Lea, non-diver but who enjoyed swimming at the surface and relaxing on the boat while we had a busy programme, between the 4 dives a day, eating, sleeping and studying for some, analyzing the pictures for the others already certified.  Thanks to the national park of south thailand to give us such some good dive sites and to our guests for the nice atmosphere and good laughs on the boat.
For this past trip, we had on board a very lucky group of divers. They have embarked for a combo of two trips, that has already taken them to the very best sites of Thailand, and is about to make them discover everything Burma has to offer.  Hum you... you've got salad in your teeth... We came back two nights ago from the first part of this adventure, with eyes filled of beautiful images. Thailand has again spoiled us with loads of perfect moments : being the only boat around Surin on the first day, snorkeling AND diving with a whale shark on the second, enjoying Richelieu Rock without anybody else in the water and seeing this very special reef slowly awakening as the sun rose...  Schools of snappers at sunrise. The first four days have gone so fast ! We left our divers on Koh Phayam to enjoy a well deserved rest : endless beaches of white sand, laid back atmosphere, hammocks and good food... Could you dream of a better place to stay in-between two diving trips ?  Juvenile batfish : just like any baby, you wish they'd never grow up... And today, they will join us again on the MV Thai Sea to start the second - and twice longer - part of their trip. Burma awaits us, full of promises !  Always impressive, from 15m to the surface, school of barracudas. To be continued... We had not returned to Thailand for a while, all of our last trips having been burmese ones. But this first 2015 thai trip made us want to visit again and again ! Clear water, beautiful sceneries above and under the surface, just the right amount of current... and of course, loads and loads of fish everywhere, how come we stayed so long without cruising the thai waters ?!  Cheeky snapper in a ball of glassfish. And since the wind was blowing a little bit too much for most of the boats from Phuket to take the journey, we enjoyed most of the dive sites with very few people around ! Private diving on the most beautiful dive sites in the Similan, does it get any better ?  Graceful lionfish hunting on the reef. Some of us had a special treat : a very big manta came to salute them twice on Koh Tachai, sticking around a few minutes, making sure they truly enjoyed the show. No need to say they came back on board with sparkling eyes !  Some of us made som sticky friends.  Underwater storm. Thankfully, the sky was much clearer above the surface ! With so much bounties to enjoy, we'll be back very soon, that's a promise !
 Vibrant colors on the reef and fish in the blue... Some of our guests were doing their first dives in tropical waters (hello Heather Lucky Charm ;) ), and two of them passed their Open Water on this trip (Congratulations Charlotte and Tarek !). What a way to start a diver's life...  Barracuda fireworks. Once again, thanks to all of our guests of the week : Hubert, Peter, Fabienne, Tarek, Charlotte, Heather, Andrew, Bern and Maria. It was a pleasure sharing these magic moments with you all !  Instants of pure magic... Picture by Maria Radoslavova.  We just came back from our first thai trip, and it was absolutely great ! We had a lovely group of both french and german divers on board, laid back atmosphere, loads of laughs and good times !
Fireworks ceremony on the departure night.
But some of us also had some serious studying going on. We want to welcome Myri in the diving community : she passed her Open Water with flying colors, and is already incredibly at ease underwater. Meanwhile, her friends took the opportunity to continue their education. Anna, Angie, Sebastian and Cosi are now Advanced Open Water ! And good ones at that, you should see them navigate squares with a compass in hand... Congratulations to you all !!
Yes people, these were some serious students...
A little video from our dives: barracudas and batfish are around :)
" thank you for this nice trip to Ko Surin island and Richelieu Rock. Was fantastic finish fr our vacations. Really beautiful places you have showed us." 
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The Smiling Seahorse Blog
AuthorsThe Smiling Seahorse has been running dive cruises from Ranong since 2012.
Our team of instructors: Elween, Julien and Simon are reporting with a short blogpost after every trip. Keep tuned for more fishy stories :) Want to receive the next articles via email?
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