Whale Sharks for Songkran!

Oupsi it looks like I have been a bit late publishing this one...

​We departed in the evening of April 13th for a 4 nights / 3 days trip over the Thai Songkran holiday. Leaving in the evening allowed us to sail at night and wake up bright and early for our first dive at 7am on Koh Chi Island, Surin. This is our usual spot for the first dive, aka “check dive” of the trip.
The peanut shaped island has a slopping reef going from 5 to 18 meters, finishing on a sandy bottom, and is great for finding bentstick pipe fish, sea moths, Pikachu nudibranchs, as well as turtles, black tip reef sharks, and parrotfish. 

​While the visibility was not the best for Surin on our first 2 dives, (10 to 15 meters) several groups were happy to spot 2 turtles, a pipefish, a baby box fish and lots of colorful angel and butterfly fish.
On the agenda for that afternoon, a visit to a Sea gypsy village and a night dive on Surin before departing for Koh Bon in the morning…or so we thought… 

​Instead, we received a tip after our 2nd dive that a whale shark had been spotted on Richelieu Rock, so submitted our itinerary to a vote and a unanimous decision was reached to sail to Richelieu Rock that afternoon for 2 afternoon dives.
We were excited and had high hopes of encountering the much sought-after sea giant, and were rewarded almost instantly after jumping in the water: it took us a few minutes to realize from the sighting frequency and the trail of fish following the whale shark that is wasn’t one but two that were swimming around Richelieu Rock! How amazing! 

Wave of glass fish on Koh Bon pinnacle

Whale shark on Richelieu Rock

​Managing our depth for a better air consumption, we managed to spend the whole hour with the whale sharks coming and going while we watched in awe. Needless to say, that made for some very happy divers!
As we also had 2 snorkelers onboard, we used the surface interval between dive 3 and dive 4 to snorkel above Richelieu Rock, and there again, were able to spot the friendly giants.
For our sunset dive, we were pleased to spend another 60 minute dive with regular whale shark encounters while we were also admiring the barracudas and giant trevallies. 

​In the evening, we decided to pursue our dive schedule for the next day and sail for Koh Bon, where we dove twice in the morning, followed by Koh Tachai, for one afternoon and one sunset dive.
On Koh Bon, the highlight was diving with a very friendly octopus for a while. We were mesmerized as it moved in the water and we witnessed it change color several times. On Koh Tachai, there was a decent amount of current, ensuring a lot of action! It’s always a pleasure to admire the school of barracudas and giant trevallies hunting, as well as the peaceful batfish. 

School of barracudas

Batfish on Koh Tachai

Diver with Clown Fish

​After a full day of great diving, we went back to Surin for 2 morning dives, were we drifted with current on Torinla and finished the trip off with 2 dives on Richelieu Rock. There, the currents had cleaned the plankton from the water, improving the visibility considerably back to it’s normal self, and we had two great dives, visiting our regular friends, the giant frog fish, ghost pipe fish, harlequin shrimp and we even found a new baby seahorse! 

Diver with Giant Frog Fish

​In the evening, we celebrated our successful trip with a Barbecue and Ti Ponch cocktail and sailed back to Ranong in the morning.
What a lovely way to spend Songkran, we are glad we were so lucky to have you all with us on this trip!

the famous barbeque night!