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…!

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It is with great excitement that we started this trip, the last one of the season where we get to dive all the best Andaman Sea dive sites from Koh Lipe to Richelieu rock. 

Our awesome guests came from 11 different countries this week: Germany, England, France, Belgium, Denmark, Nederland, Portugal, Luxembourg, Austria, Singapore and Thailand, which made for a very multicultural experience :)

The following day we traveled to Koh Lipe, starting with 2 dives at 8 mile rock. In order to have the best experience we modified our schedule and timed it with the tides…
​
What a great idea! That allowed us to enjoy the dive sites without having to fight the current.
Massive schools of barracudas and jacks in the blue and ghost pipe fish and seahorses in the reef, enough to please both scenic and macro enthusiasts.

Stonehenge and its million colours was also fantastic: Alternating vibrant solft coral with tomato clownfish in their anemone and giant barrel sponges in perfect visibility made the most beautiful coral garden ever seen! 

We have been trying for a while now to have an exploration blue water dive at the end of the continental shelf, where the bottom drops to several hundred meters… The conditions were perfect and everyone on board was game to try, so we finally had it and what a fun experience!

We didn’t see the sharks we were hoping for but we still had a nice Wahoo and giant barracudas visiting us and were surrounded by thousands of surreal jellyfish!

Next dive was at shark fin reef, where 2 turtles and a big school of barracuda came un front of the lense.

The next day started at elephant head rock, the regular fully grown up ribbon eels where there and the swim through always pleased our guests.
 
The 2nd dive at 3 trees, allowed me to take few shots of our guests and to try new photo angles on the barrel sponge ;)

3rd and 4th dive are planned to be at Koh Bon where we had the pleasure to see 1 manta on the first day and a whale shark the following morning.

This week was particularly busy because of Songkran holidays (Thai New year) but with the end of the week, went all the other boats! And we had it all to ourselves until the end of the cruise! That's when the whale shark paid us a visit!

The next 2 dives were at Koh Tachai Pinnacle, and we marvelled in front of the jacks, batfish and red snappers!
 
After the sunset dive was time for our fun-filled barbecue night! The courtesy cocktails and lamb legs got everyone in the mood for a great party night!

We finally made it to Richelieu rock for our last 2 dives… I must say, I rarely saw Richelieu rock as good as this day! We suppose that the fact that there was no boat for 2 days made the fish really friendly! They totally ignored us passing really close to us!

All our guests came back with sparkles in the eyes and the happy chatters lasted until our arrival in Ranong in the late afternoon. Good bye everyone and thanks for sharing this fantastic adventures with us!

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

After a nice overnight ride to our first dive site we started with a nice and easy check dive at Koh Chi.
This week was a new moon week, so we knew we would have to deal with a great deal of current. We could do our second dive as planned around Torinla, but we had to change the plans for dive 3 as the current was ripping at Yellow Rock, so instead we dived Ao Pragaad and everyone was stunned by the beauty of the coral reef there! We had our night dive in the same bay to see the different population coming alive after the sunset…

The next day was a full day at Richelieu Rock , and even if we didn’t have the luck to see some gentle giant, we still had all the massive school of jacks and emperors hunting in the myriad of silversides coveting the colorful reef . On the macro side, ghostpipe fish are really everywhere! Some seahorse and harlequin shrimps as well.
The sunset dive, our favorite there as all the schools come into action grabing this last chance to feed before the night settle in.

We travelled overnight to Koh Tachai for our first dive and were greeted by a furtive but big school of barracuda, some nice lobsters, bannerfish, batfish having a thorough clean-up…
The day went by with 2 more dives at Koh Bon where we had great hopes for Manta encounter as we had 2 new individuals there the trip before, but unfortunately, this time none showed up however we had a very nice close encounter with the baby eagle ray and it lasted…!

As we came back from the last dive, the cocktails on board were ready for us as an prelude to our infamous barbecue night!

The trip carried on with the north of similan island. Starting with 3 trees, where the coral garden never stop to amaze me! The colors and the fish life is just perfect there! From the massive barrel sponge, the huge seafan and the bright colored soft coral it’s the perfect combination of color and shapes. The shallow part of 3 trees is also great with hard corals and wipe corals…
Even if the dive site is very exposed we were lucky to have a very mild current allowing us to explore the whole dive site with ease.

Elephant Head was our third dive site of the day, swimm troughs, massive boulders, and good visibility is what you expect, and it was all there and more…
As we made it to the bottom, we bumped into a hawkbill sea turtle peacefully grazing, allowing us to take a few shots.
If you are familiar with this dive site you would know the little window in the wall just at the end of the channel… I found some surgeon fish, bannerfish and a parrotfish having fun going through the hole again and again, just the same as kids going up and down the slide at the kinder garden!

This night was the night we planned to do the blackwater dive, so I make a presentation explaining to our guests what is it all about so They can choose between having the sunset dive or the blackwater dive and everyone voted for the black water so we skipped the sunset and headed to the edge of the continental plateau where the depth drops from 8 m to 200 m, but unfortunately the storm hit us forbidding us to dive at all… everyone was bumped about it but we had great hopes for doing it the next evening…

Our next morning dive was at West of Eden, what a great coral garden, and very special place where you can easily find some psychedelic batwing sea slug on the shallow part and reef sharks on the deeper end…

Followed by deep six and tuna wreck we are working our way down to have the sunset dive at Shark Fin Reef, but as per the previous day, everyone wanted the blackwater dive instead, so we started our journey south toward the Racha island where we were planning our next diving day and stop for the blackwater at 19h30 where the sea bottom is 200 m below the surface…
​This blackwater dive was a hit, with so much life! Squids as usual, but also larvae sleeper lobster, spearing mantis shrimp, 2 male paper nautilus, a seahorse and a drift fish!

Everyone was mesmerized by it! It is such a different experience!

The next day was also the last one of this trip, we started with Racha Noi south tip! Amazing dive site reminding me of the Merguy Archipelago with soooo much soft corals and huge schools of fish but the current didn’t let us stroll all over the dive site, we had to play hide and seek to make the dive last longer.

Racha Yai was our 2nd dive working our way up toward Phuket and our last dive was at Shark Point no disappointment with its fish population but once more the current was playing tricks with us, and we could witness underwater tornados as the water was swirling and sucking the sand up in it!

We had a smooth ride back to Phuket after that and used the couple of hours navigation to stamp logbooks and watch a slideshow of the pictures of this trip ;)

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. 

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.

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…

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.

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!

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.

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!

​My favorite photos this week are of Ghost pipefish, the Regal Anglefish and the pretty pipefish... What do you think?

The highlight for most diver was for sure the surprise visit of a magnificent Whale shark but unfortunately all the photographers went on this dive with a macro lense! So we didn't get any new photo but thankfully a talented videographer got a great video! Thanks JC!

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