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Blog about diving in Burma and Thailand

North Andaman trip report 29th of March 2022

6/4/2022

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7 days to cross Surin and Similan Islands from Tap Lumu to Phuket

29th March North Andaman trip... A pleasant week with lots of discovery in incredible places!
Happy guests onboard

A week diving in the North...

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…
A clown fish ready for a nap
A clown fish ready for a nap
Beautiful reef, Similan Islands
Beautiful reef, Similan Islands
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.
Sunset on the Andaman Sea
Sunset on the Andaman Sea
Nice school of jacks tornadoe
Nice school of jacks tornadoe
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…!
titan trigger fish
Titan trigger fish in the blue
Baby eagle ray at Koh bon
Baby eagle ray at Koh bon
As we came back from the last dive, the cocktails on board were ready for us as an prelude to our infamous barbecue night!
Ready for our infamous barbecue night
Cocktails on board were ready for us as an prelude to our infamous barbecue
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.
Next dive was at North point, just next to 3 trees, the particularity there is the rock formation making some channels and swim trough it can get deep and the visibility being cristal clear it is easy to see the bottom way beyond 30m!
Picture
Happy divers :)
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!
Staghorn coral
Staghorn coral
Picture
Hawkbill turtle
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…
Hard coral formations
Picture
Batwing sea slug
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!
Baby mantis shrimp
Baby mantis shrimp
squid on a blackwater dive
squid on a blackwater dive
Some kind of crab on blackwater
Some kind of crab on blackwater
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!
Donald Duck bay, Similan Islands
Donald Duck bay, Similan Islands
Picture
Butterfly fish
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 ;)


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Camille Fogarolo 

Camille has been traveling the world since her mid twenties and dived many seas before finally settling down in Thailand in 2012. With her husband Franck, they opened The Smiling Seahorse liveaboard to offer cruises in the most unexplored area of South East Asia and became quite the experts when it comes to diving in Myanmar! Proud mother of two she still travels as much as she can and usually joins a dive trip to Mergui Archipelago every month.

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  • When & Where
    • Schedule and Prices
    • Destinations >
      • North Andaman Thailand >
        • Similan Islands
        • Surin Islands >
          • Richelieu Rock
        • The essential Underwater photo Guide to diving Thailand
      • South Andaman Thailand >
        • Phuket & Koh Phi Phi National Parks
        • Koh Lanta National Park
        • Koh Lipe and Tarutao National Park
      • Mergui Archipelago >
        • Liveaboard diving holiday in Myanmar
        • Burma's best dive sites
        • The Ultimate Underwater photo Guide to diving Burma
  • ABOUT
    • Our Boat >
      • DELICIOUS FOOD
    • Diving in Thailand in 2024-2025
    • Diving in Myanmar/Burma in 2024-2025
    • Blackwater diving in Thailand and Myannmar
    • Marine life in Thailand's Andaman Sea
    • Marine life in Mergui Archipelago
    • Dive Courses >
      • Learn to Dive
      • Continue diving education
      • Rescue diver
      • Professional Dive Courses
      • Hone your dive skills with a specialty course
      • Photo coaching in Thailand on the Smiling Seahorse
    • Guest Book
    • FAQ
  • Plan your trip
    • Our hotels recommendations
    • Khao Sok National Park
    • Taxi services >
      • Taxi services to and from Ranong
      • Taxi services to and from Phuket
      • Taxi services to Tap Lamu and Khao Lak
    • 10 things to do around Ranong
  • PROMO
    • HOT DEALS
    • Special Expeditions >
      • 8D Special Marine Bio with Gavin Miller - 10 Nov 2025
      • 8D Whale shark expedition - 20 March 2026 - North and South
  • gallery
    • Photos
    • Videos
  • CONTACT
  • BLOG
    • Most popular posts