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 ;)

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 departure,. We are all looking 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.

6D  Burma: Mergui Archipelago
7D Burma: Black Rock in a week
8D/7N Burma: Undiscovered Mergui
5D Thailand: Best of Surin/ Similans
​Read more about Burma's best dive sites

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.

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.

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... 

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 ?

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 !

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 ?!

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 ?

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 !

With so much bounties to enjoy, we'll be back very soon, that's a promise !

We just had a fantastic dive safari, 3 days and 3 nights around Surin Islands and Richelieu rock : awesome !

We leave Ranong in the afternoon of the 18th of November and after a little ceremony to Buddha, we are off to the National park of the Surin islands. We have a great dinner onboard with massaman curry, my favorite and some crunchy pork, yummy! Its with a full tummy that we go for a good night sleep, a big day awaits us tomorrow.

We wake up in the early morning to discover a dream-like landscape, the virgin forest  covering the islands looks impenetrable, there must be so many birds and animals hiding in this green! We only see a sea eagle and some white sea birds but here a jungle melody and I’m sure there is more to Jungle cicadas make a very loud and strident noise.

We jump in the water at 7:30 AM, late start for a first day, but we have all day. We finish to wake up underwater even though diving feels like a dream. I love this feeling of floating half awake in the middle of fish morning frenzy. Its time for them to find their breakfast and they are busy at it.

We see some beautiful nudibranchs on this first dive and the fishes are so numerous, we don’t know where to look, small shinny blue ones hold my eyes for a little ones, when a big puffer fish come in the background to steal the show. Some huge barracudas are floating on top of us, not afraid by our bubbles, they seem intrigued.

We spend 2 days on Surin island and have the time to go around the island to many different dive sites. One is covered by yellow soft coral and I enjoy spotting the small sea snails hiding and laying their eggs of the same color in it. On another dive, we spend more time on sandy parts at the bottom of a sloppy wall, garden eels look at us from the far and I wouldn-t have seen them if the visibility wasn’t so good as they are getting back to their hole as soon as we get closer. I must say we are very lucky about the clarity of the water, which we could see even before rolling out of the dingy. We see some blue spotted sting ray hiding in the sand only to get away when we get too close.

The variety of fish is remarkable: a school of bat fishes are looking at us curiously, a turtle take of before our eyes and circle around before flying away. We also see some sweetlips parked behind a rock as to be sheltered from the current.

_I spot many mantis shrimps on this trip, some going as quickly as they can back to a safe spot from where only two curious eyes can be seen, other mind their own business sorting through rocks and coral particles on the ground to see if they find anything interesting.

Looking in the cracks, we can also see many shrimps, mostly Durban dancing shrimps, but also cleaner shrimps and transparent ones, those are a wonder to me, they can swim like if they were walking on the water and still you can see through them!

There are many moray eels around the national park and we don’t look at them much anymore but from time to time, I like looking at them for a little longer and feel privileged to assist to their toilet when cleaner shrimps climb on to them, they open their large mouth and the shrimp get busy cleaning the inside, then the shrimps gets to the top of its head and enjoy her price.

In the afternoon of the 2nd day, we set sails towards Richelieu Rock, still Thailand’s best rated dive site to do our night dive there. We are lucky to be alone on the site for our first dive there, it’s a real aquarium.

We dive 3 more times around the rock on the following day and can see several pairs of mating cuttlefishes , we spot a pipe fish, barely visible on its rocky background.

For more fishy story, keep tuned!

"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."