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6th April 2022: South Andaman dive trip report

12/4/2022

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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15th March 2022: Whale shark expedition but Manta and paper nautilus sighted!

23/3/2022

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15th March 2022: Whale shark expedition but Manta and paper nautilus sighted!

This trip was all about Whalesharks with daily presentation by Kirsty Magson, Marine Biologist and WS specialist.

We took off from Tap Lamu around 6pm, ready to navigate a few hours toward our first dive site in Surin with 15 wonderful guests onboard. Amongst them, 3 more marine biologists from Israel who came to study the reef and Manta inhabitat.

In the mood for diving, eating, sleeping and again!

On the sea again!... So happy!

Koh Chi in Surin National Park was a perfect check dive but we headed to the south of Surin islands for our 2nd dive, choosing to dive Torinla where we've spotted many Pickachu nudibranch this season but instead we got loads of Jenkins rays! Which was a great surprise beside the fact no one was equipped for wide-angle photography on this dive…

Butterfly fish under the coral reef in Thailand

Astonishing school of sweetlips in Thailand

"Diving is life a box of chocolate, You never know what you're gonna get"

Yellow rock and the sweetlips welcomes us for the third dive that day with some barracudas as well as napoleon wrasse and did the night dive not too far from that in search of the colourful Saron shrimps.

Next day was all about Richelieu, we had to deal with a lot of current dues to full moon, but is created for a lot of action, jacks and snappers made the dive!

One of our guest, “Pin”, signed up for 4 photo coaching dives, and Richelieu Rock was the perfect place to do 2 of them as the best dive site in Thailand offers so many opportunities for a photographer.
Underwater photographers are spoil for choice in The Rock and the hardest part is probably selecting the lense as there are so many subject both in Wide angle and Macro.

Harlequin Shrimp

Clown fish eggs

Nemo’s eggs, harlequin shrimp and lots of ghostpipe fish to practice Macro.
We then headed south for the 3rd day to Koh Tachai where there was a massive school of barracudas as well as jacks for 2 consecutive dives there, it was mind-blowing!
We finished the day with a night dive at Koh Bon.

psychedelic sea slug

ghostpipe fish

On the following day, we left Surin National park and headed into the Similan National park starting at 3 trees, for a very pretty dive before a tropical storm come from the west forcing us to get shelter on the east side, so instead of North Rock, we dived breakfast bend, which was also very nice and that's where we found batwing sea slugs, a pshychedelic little critter hiding in plain sight (1mm).
The weather calmed down as quickly as it went rough, so we could carry on with our plan to dive elephant head rock in the afternoon.
Franck carried on with Pin's photographer's coaching, and her photos are improved a lot!

Baby ribbon eel

baby octopus

Baby Flounder

We went to the edge of the continental plateau for our Blackwater dive that night.
We navigated an hour toward the west before we got about 150 m depth under the boat, we deployed 2 lines of lights to give more room for all divers and the dive was amazing.

We were all surrounded by special critters the whole dive, from larvae mantis shrimps, flounders, stargazer, ribbon eel and reef octopus, but the night's favorite was for sure a male paper nautilus!

Male Paper Nautilus

Pelagic Nudibranch

We headed back to the Similan islands for the night and explored shark fin reef in the morning… what a surprise for me to see my first feather tail sting ray there…
The day went on just as planned with 1 dive at deep six playing in the swim throughs followed by 1 dive at Christmas point where we completed the photo coaching with Pin.

Damselfish

Feathertail sting ray

Continuing on our Ultimate Surin and Similan 7 days route, we dived Koh Bon next, where we were greeted at the ridge by the visit of a Giant Oceanic manta ray!

It went a bit too fast to get the perfect ID Shot for Thailand Manta project database, but it was still seen by almost every one onboard!

We were hoping to see it again at Koh Bon pinnacle for the next dive but no manta luck this time … It was still a very nice dive and a big eagle ray played its part and some schooling barracudas kept us company for a while.

Thanks to all our lovely guests for joining us on this great adventure as well as to our special guest Kirsty from Thailand Whale Shark Project.
We were a bit sad the Whale Shark didn't turn up for its appointment (these gentle giants are so unreliable) but we loved Kirsty Magson's presentation and learned so much about them and their environment.
We will run another Whale shark expedition with Kirsty in 2023 from 4th to 12th of February 2023 and will visit this time both North and South Andaman from Richelieu Rock to Koh Lipe!
Get in touch for more info!

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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.

blackwater diving cephalopod in Thailand

There was also plenty of schools of fish to keep our eyes and cameras busy around the reef.

But I must admit my favorite this week were the two whale shark and this shy tigertail seahorse.

The gentle whale shark...

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First North and South Andaman cruise for The Smiling Seahorse...

27/12/2021

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A fantastic expedition all over the Andaman Sea (North and South) from Ranong to Phuket, through 5 of Thailand's best Marine National parks...

Our very first North & South Andaman cruise will be an adventure we will remember for a long time… bad weather, waves, changes of itinerary and quite a few unpredictable adventures… but also our first Manta of the season and awesome divers onboard. We made the best of it!
Thank you all for being such fantastic guests!

Psychedelic batwing slug

Waves stopped us from diving Richelieu Rock but disappointment was offset by very beautiful dives in Koh Surin and the Similan islands during which we were able to admire ribbon eel, psychedelic nudibranchs, schools of majestic fish like Sweetlips. A large male green Turtle came to say hello around the boat when we were moored, and dolphins gave us a magical moment while cruising.

Female Ribbon eel

Barracudas

Yellowtail fusilier

Explosion of life around coral reef

Sweetlips

Blueline snapper

Colorful and lively coral reef

In Koh Bon, we had excellent visibility, and the waves gave us enough of a break to run a cool black water dive.

baby Crab

Some more weird stuff

Fish larvae

baby flounder

After the long crossing between Similan Islands and Lanta national park, we arrived in Hin Daeng and Hin Muang where some of us had the chance of seeing our first Manta ray of the season. One more manta ID shot for Mantatrust database :)

our first manta ray of the season

One more manta ID shot for Mantatrust database :)

West of Hin Daeng, we found lots of nudibranchs, ghost pipefish, and spearing mantis shrimp.

Ghost Pipefish

Goniobranchus geminus

Phyllidia elegans

Cool flat worm

Hypselodoris maculosa

Pikachu nudibranch

We already knew 10 of the 14 guests who joined us for this great adventure, which made the atmosphere nice and warm. What a pleasure to see you all again. 2 guests did the last trip. 6 are doing the next one. And welcome to the 4 new divers joining us for the very first time, we hope you will also come back for more adventures soon...

always amazed at the beauty of coral

Redtail butterfly fish

Clown triggerfish

Lionfish ready for Fashion Week

lovely coral covering the reef

Juvenile angelfish

Now, another departure for the South Andaman for new adventures from 7th to 11th of February with better weather awaits… keep tuned for more fishy stories.

And you, where in the world are you? Answer in comment section...

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