Guests: America, China, Switzerland, Taiwan, Andorra, Spain, Norway, New Zealand, Canada, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Germany.
Our North and South Andaman cruise embarked on a week-long journey filled with exploration, adventure, and a delightful mix of guests from around the globe. From April 25th to May 2nd, 2023, we set sail from Tap Lamu pier, eager to uncover the captivating underwater wonders that awaited us.
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Surrounded by an international camaraderie, we began our expedition with a remarkable start. The first day brought us to the renowned Surin National Park, where the marine world welcomed us with open arms. Delving into the turquoise waters, we were greeted by the mesmerizing sight of Kulh's stingrays gliding gracefully across the sandy seabed. The garden eels and vibrant fish added to the vibrant tapestry of marine life. With exceptional visibility, the underwater realm unfolded before our eyes, revealing its true magnificence.

Next on our itinerary was the legendary Richelieu Rock, a destination that left us in awe. This submerged pinnacle proved to be a cornucopia of marine diversity. As we descended into its depths, we were surrounded by an abundance of life. Schools of fish in all shapes, sizes, and colors, ghost pipefishes hiding among the soft and hard corals, and the regal presence of Harlequin Shrimps captivated our senses. Everywhere we turned, glass fishes twinkled in the sunlight, creating an ethereal spectacle that will forever be etched in our memories.

To our esteemed guests, we hope you thoroughly enjoyed the trip and experienced unforgettable moments. Your presence and enthusiasm added an extra layer of joy to our adventure. We extend our sincere gratitude to each of you for choosing The Smiling Seahorse as your gateway to the wonders of the Andaman Sea.

Continuing our journey south through the archipelago, we arrived at the Similan National Park. The second day was spent exploring the vibrant dive sites of Koh Tachai and Koh Bon followed by the wonders of Three Trees, Elephant Head Rock, and West of Eden, treating us to four exhilarating dives, including an enchanting night dive.

​Our encounters with turtles, lobsters, barracudas, trevallies, fusiliers, and the delicate beauty of Spanish dancer eggs added to the tapestry of marine life we witnessed.
The blackwater dive that night added an extra touch of intrigue, revealing the mysterious creatures that inhabit the depths of the sea.

The following days we crossed over to the South Andaman Sea starting with Hin Daeng and Hin Muang. These dive sites in the Koh Lanta National Park offered a different perspective, emphasizing macro marvels and showcasing a plethora of nudibranchs and crustaceans as well as a cool albeit grumpy Stone fish. The rich biodiversity hidden within the coral reefs was a testament to the delicate balance of nature.

As we ventured further, the stunning coral reefs of Tarutao National Park near the pretty Koh Lipe island captivated our senses. The impressive underwater landscapes dazzled us, offering glimpses into a thriving marine ecosystem.
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Our journey culminated in the enchanting Phi Phi Islands and Shark Point. Here, we encountered the graceful blacktip reef sharks, alongside a multitude of beautiful nudibranchs and flatworms. The marine life surrounding us was a testament to the splendor and diversity that the Andaman Sea has to offer.

We split ways in Phuket with hearts full of gratitude, reminiscing about the extraordinary marine encounters and the shared moments of awe and wonder. To our esteemed guests, we express our deepest appreciation for joining us on this extraordinary adventure. The memories we have created together will forever be treasured.

We hope you all enjoyed the trip and had an amazing time with us.
Thank you for choosing The Smilling Seahorse! 

Ahoy there, fellow adventurers! We've just returned from an epic liveaboard dive trip in the North Andaman of Thailand, and boy oh boy, was it a blast!

Our guests this week came from France, Austria, Germany and switzerland to dive with us, and we had a blast!

First day of diving, we were at Surin National Park and it was incredible! We saw some reef sharks and a lot of school of fishes.
​The Surin Islands (Thai: หมู่เกาะสุรินทร์, Thai pronunciation: [mùː kɔ̀ʔ sùrin]) is an archipelago of five islands in the Andaman Sea, 60 km from the Thai mainland. Administratively, the islands are part of Tambon Ko Phra Thong, Khura Buri District, in Phang Nga Province, Thailand.

The following days we were at Similan National Park. The visibility was good about 20 meters +.
The Similan Islands (Thai: หมู่เกาะสิมิลัน, RTGS: Mu Ko Similan, Thai pronunciation: [mùː kɔ̀ʔ si.mi.lan]) is an archipelago in the Andaman Sea off the coast of, and part of, Phang Nga Province in southern Thailand. It was established as Mu Ko Similan National Park in 1982 by the forestry department.

​We saw a group of long nose emperors, group of blue fin trevally, big eye trevally, fusiliers, glass fish everywhere, a group of banner fish, and much more.

For the first dive and the sunset dive, there always have a lot of action. It's the time that all the fishes come out and feed themselves and the dive will always make you think that you are in the heaven (surrounded by tons of fish).

This trip was amazing, the diving itself, the food, and we’re trying our best to take an excellent service to make our guests have the most wonderful vacation with us… MV The Smiling Seahorse.

Thank you for choosing us.

Hope you all had a good one.

Cheers!!

A small group for a big trip, this week MV Smiling Sea Horse had 7 lucky guests, coming from United States, France, Singapore and Israel. Franck, our co-owner and onboard photographer wasn't onboard this time so a big thank you to Boris Mekler for illustrating this blogpost with fantastic photos. Thanks a lot for coming back with us for the sixth trip in a year! It is always a pleasure diving with you! 

We start the trip cruising south from Lanta National Park, Hin Daeng and Hin Muang to Tarutao National Park. Harlequin shrimps were present for our first night dive in Hin Daeng, a big school of barracuda and some nice nudibranch. A Mobula rays few by us on 8 miles, next to koh lipe and a we also found a sneeky frogfish hiding in plain sight!

Blackwater this week was fantastic so most guests asked to make a second black water dives this trip. We saw so many cool and weird creatures. The first blackwater dive was loaded with baby puffer fish blowing up in front of our masks as well as a baby stargazer! The second BW dive was full of baby Moray eels with long transparent bodies and sharp/tinny tooth! All the energetic babies were quite fast moving and so hard to photograph so we can't show you unfortunately this time, you'll have to come see for yourself! 
But we can still show you flying guenard, anemone, baby squids and octopus and a sea elephant.

After the crossing overnight from south Andaman to North Andaman contouring Phuket, we spent the second part of the trip between the Similan and Surin National parks. Visibilty was great, especially around Koh Bon and koh Tachai. 

After meeting our guests in our office, we are happy to set sail from Ranong at 5 pm with half of the guests, while the other half is waiting/chilling on Koh Phayam, where we can pick them up around 7pm.
 
As soon as everyone got onboard, we went through our traditional Departure Ceremony, praising the good sea spirits with a food offering and scaring the bad ones with fire crackers...

As I did the sunset, I will write about my own experience: the massive schools of big eye and bluefin trevally bolting at the dense schools of glassfish blanketing the reef: the hunt was simply mesmerising! The enormous bait balls of juveniles where the prey of all kinds of hungry adults making them move like a flock of birds…

The usuals macro creatures were there too, Harlequin shrimps were feeding on a sea star, ornate ghost pipefish where still numerous and we even found again the more elusive robust ghost pipefish and some smiling Tigertail seahorses :)

This week was a half-moon week, making the current a lot less strong than the week before, allowing us to truly get where ever we wanted disregarding the tide phases. We then could go and stay in the blue ahead of the current where it splits… this is where there is most action, all the time, but not always easy to get to.
 
The night divers came back from their dive with sparkles in the eyes… Richelieu Rock is teaming with life, in every hole you look you will find shrimps or crabs or nudibranchs and witnessing the night creature coming out of their hole there is absolutely fantastic! Their highlight was a sponge crab!

After this phenomenal day we are going south to Koh Bon for the next 2 morning dives…
 
We slept at Koh Tachai as the sea was very calm and made it to Koh Bon early morning… we all decided to dive the west ridge first hoping for Mantas but no luck, instead we had the nice resident baby eagle ray showing off passing in the middle of us as I was shooting some portrait for our guests on top of the big bummy in the north of the ridge…
There was also the squad of long nose emperor fish, blue fin trevallies and snappers coming and going hunting frantically in the reef!
 
The second dive some went for the pinnacle while others went back to the north ridge and both were delighted about it, the abundance in life is really heartwarming!
 
We went to Koh Tachai for the second half of the day as planned and I was glad to see the resident lobsters but sad not to see the regular massive school of barracudas… It is only once back on the boat that 2 groups told us that the barracudas were at the north pinnacle… bummer! I didn’t see them, so no photo

I could have gone again for the sunset dive but I preferred to go later for the blackwater dive…
 
The barracudas were there again and the action picked up with great hunting actions as we were happy to hear when the divers came back from the sunset dive. We could then sail toward west for the blackwater and decided to stop and set up the line above 80m of water…
 
Even if we didn’t make it to the drop off it was pleasantly rich in marine life… jellies, squids, crab, octopus, squirrel fish, soapfish, pufferfish and my first larvae scorpionfish!
 
Following this we had are great bbq night and the crowed on board made it very special! Starting with some fish imitations and the famous box game it really kicked off when we pulled out the disco ball! Thank you to Tatiana for leading the Zumba dance!
 
The party went on deep into the night! My big surprise to see every one up on time for the next and last day diving, but it was back to Richelieu Rock again and no one was ready to miss out!

Indeed, the 2 dives were as expected spectacular again! Richelieu Rock is a special place, one of the 10th best dive sites in the world but from 10 years of experience in the area I can say that Richelieu Rock was on fire!
 
I had a special request on this trip from Aiara as it was her birthday, she wanted few shots of her with fish… I tried my best to make her happy ;)

Was time now to head back to Ranong without forgetting to let some guests out on Koh Phayam…
We greated eachothers good bye and I must say I was a bit sad… this trip was the best one I could dream of as a last trip of the season….
Thank you all and see you soon again for more boat, fish, stories, pictures…!

​Want to reed more fishy stories? Check our most popular blogpost!

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.

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.
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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.

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. 

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!

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!

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! 

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…

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

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North Andaman

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.

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.

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.

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.