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Thailand diving liveaboard - Mermaid liveaboard trip report / blog

Trip leader : Andrea
Divemasters : Andrea, Debbie, Jerry, Johan and Rut.
Weather : Some cloud and some sun.
Seas : Flat as a pancake
Visibility : Similans-Koh Bon(25+) - Tachai-Richelieu (30m+) - North mainly 25+

It’s been a while since I was in Burma so I had been looking forward to this trip for a while now to see if it lived up to my memories.
We started at high rock and busted out, couldn’t find the seahorses, frogfish or harlequins. The second and third dives were much the same poor vis and not so much to see but I consoled myself with there’s always tomorrow.
The next day we had arranged it with another boat there that they would be at south twin and we would be at shark cave. We woke in the morning to see their boat sitting at shark cave and their divers gearing up, so a quick change of plan ensued and we jumped at the site next to shark cave and had a fantastic dive, the current was running but it made it all the more entertaining and the fish were all in the blue feeding and we found 3 seahorses and myriads of other critters but we were still mad at the other boat for reneging on our deal.
The second dive they went where we had been and we went to shark cave to find no sharks in the cave, whether they had been scared off by the 28 divers on the other boat or they were not there in the first place I’m not sure but none the less the cave was bare. Heading to the coral reef, one of my favourite places to dive in the world, due to it’s ability to constantly surprise, I found a beautiful tiger tail seahorse and then another, a ghost pipefish, bent stick pipefish, snowflake and harlequin morays and many other things. I headed back to up the reef to see Jerry swimming out towards me making the sign we all love to see, WHALE SHARK!! And he’s pointing over my shoulder, I spin and there it is. 5 metres long and powering through the current right behind me, I would have missed it if it hadn’t been for jerry. It stayed for a few minutes and then headed into the blue, fantastic...oh and the best thing was the other boat didn't see it - karma?!
The rest of the trip continued in the same vein, we had nurse sharks, white tips, mantas, leopard sharks, harlequin shrimps, ghost pipefish, so many seahorses and myriads of colourful nudibranchs all in excellent visibility making this trip one of my favourites of this year so far, Burma has changed a little since I was last here but it still rocks.

Trip leader : Andrea
Divemasters : Andrea, Debbie, Jerry and Rut.
Weather : Still a bit cloudy due to this pain in the a... high pressure system over northern Thailand
Seas : Flat as a pancake
Visibility : Similans-Koh Bon(15+) - Tachai-Richelieu (30m+)

Ok, back from another trip.
We did the usual route of a check dive at Anita’s but for a change went to west of Eden for the second dive. This is one under-rated site. The sea fans that grow in the depths here rival any other in the Similans for size and colour and by looking over someone’s shoulder they were kind enough to point out 2 stunning ghost pipefish. I know we have many ghost pipefish in the Similans right now but these 2 se the bar that b it higher, purple bodies surrounded by beautiful white fur and using a purple soft coral as their home, not the smartest move really but there you go, not known for their brains.
After west of Eden we went north to Koh Bon to not see the mantas, I don’t know what’s going on with Koh bon this year, we have had hardly any mantas all season there, the most we have had are down south at Hin Daeng.
Richelieu the next day blew us away with zero current and azure water we had a great days diving after the green of the Similans, yes it’s green again, go figure!
Masses of fish surrounded the reef and the glassfish are starting to spawn bringing in the pelagics to buzz around the reef for the buffet. Lionfish are hanging over the reef waiting for a stray glassfish pushed out of the group by the passage of a hunting trevally and all the other usual suspects were in evidence, seahorses, ghost pipefish and the harlequin shrimps that are now huge, not surprising really as every passing dive guide seems to drop a sea star leg when they leave. They have become the harlequin equivalent of couch potatoes, reef potatoes?
Did I forget to mention that we had 6 leopard sharks at Koh Tachai, awesome, 4 together and they were getting very frisky, could be some good action going on there in the next few days.
Well that’s it for another trip we are off to Burma for 9 days tonite, should be interesting,
Cheers

Trip leader : Andrea
Divemasters : Andrea, Debbie and Johan.
Weather : Still cloudy due to a high pressure system over nothern Thailand
Seas : A bit rough due to the continuing wind from the East
Visibility : Similans (30+) - Hin daeng (10m) - Koh Ha (10m) - Phi Phi (5-10m)

Ok , so I have a confession to make, the conditions over the last couple of weeks have been pretty bad and it really wasn’t making me or inspiring me to write about it so I missed a couple of trips.
But good news, after 3 days down south we went north to encounter stunning visibility and beautiful azure blue waters all over the Similans and the north.
Finally the green is gone, it always comes this time of year and lasts around a month but it always seems longer.
The white sand of Anita’s was blindingly bright as the sun shone through the gin clear water, no thermo clines and no sediment, the soft corals were out and the site was alive, black ribbon eel and a new ghost pipefish found by our s truly along with ever colourful reef are the reason I love this dive site.
Spending more time than usual in the Similans this trip due to the stunning vis we dived elephant head to see the we now suspect pregnant frogfish that is no longer white but more of an orange and moving his place each trip so we have to go hunting each time.
We dived East of Eden next and had the most amazing dive due to the incredible colours surrounding the bommies, I can’t describe how beautiful I think this site is when it’s like this, I’ll just have to show you, I hope you enjoy the photos.
Moving north we dived at Koh bon and had a friendly manta hanging over the heads of all the divers just posing for photos.
Richelieu was it’s usual stunning self with harlequins, seahorses, nudibranchs, schooling barracudas and masses of yellow snapper hanging over the reef creating a surreal landscape.
Great trip and nice to have the Similans back.

Trip leader : Andrea
Divemasters : Andrea, Debbie, Jerry and Rut
Weather : Mostly cloudy due to a high pressure system over nothern Thailand
Seas : Flat as a pool table
Visibility : Hin daeng (20m) - Koh Ha (10-12m) - Phi Phi (5-10m)

Jumping in at Hin Muang on the southern leg of this trip after having a well earned trip off with Andrea she was surprised to have her first brief whale shark encounter of the season and luckily all her customers saw it but none of the rest of the guides or customers including me saw it but due to the evidence on one of the customers cameras we had to believe them but it was touch and go there for a while. Them’s the breaks!
The current at Hin Daeng was raging, as it will be all this week, as we approach the spring tides and having just had full moon. So we were overjoyed to have a manta hovering over the rocky bommies getting cleaned and able to hover in one spot due to the current, pretty much everything else got forgotten as the manta stayed around the whole dive giving everyone multiple photo ops.
It was an especially beautiful as also with equal measures of white and black stripes running over it’s upper side creating a sort of go faster stripe deal.
Moving up to Koh ha for some cave action Rut found a new couple of harlequin shrimps as the guests explored the caverns.
Bida provided the waited for leopard sharks and ghost pipefish, a good weekend trip made by the manta and a great group of people.

Trip leader : Andrea
Divemasters : Andrea, Debbie, Hans and Rut
Weather : A little cloudy in the morning, wind from the south.
Seas : Slightly rough in the morning but calming as the day went on
Visibility : Similans (green )15m - North (Koh Bon-Tachai) (green)15m, Richelieu (blue) 25-30m

Off we go again to the north.
After last trips manta kissing experience it would be hard to top it on this trip.
We swapped the schedule around a little bit to keep things interesting and did Anita’s second. I love that site as I have mentioned and we found the mia mira nudibranch again, this is a stunning nudibranch that hosts many colours on it’s small body and is surprisingly hard to find considering.
Elephant head was next to check in on the pipefish and frogfish. The pipefish were obviously having the week off but the frogfish was still there, surprising considering the amount of people who now know where he is and were trying to take his photo.
We had a couple of juvenile white tips and a leopard shark to round this dive out nicely.
Unfortunately during this trip the whole of the Similans, Koh Bon and Koh Tachai had decided to go green, the water that is.
The vis wasn’t that bad, it was green but clean and this happens every time the plankton blooms, so maybe we have big thigs to come.
Koh Bon was third and I had another affectionate manta, I am beginning to wonder if it is my large dome port on my camera, they seem to come closer every time I have that one on, maybe I’ll start calling it my manta port, no I won’t, just kidding.
 Richelieu was it’s usual amazing self, it took us a while to find the harlequins but we found an extra one for our trouble and all the originals also.
The 3 seahorses are still hanging out together on the fan looking mighty cute, the pinecone fish have done a runner this week and we have found another couple of ghost pipefish. It seems very much swings and roundabouts this season with things coming and going as they please with never a by your leave, most disconcerting.
The highlight of the trip was at east of Eden where we had 3, I say again,3, shovel-nose rays in only 4 metres, I was not diving of course so no pictures of that one, one of the customers has video though and I will vouch for them. One very large 2-3 metre one and 2 babies.
A nice way to finish this weeks trip off.

Trip leader : Andrea
Divemasters : Andrea, Johan, Debbie and Hans
Weather : Calm seas, cloudless skies and a light wind
Seas : Very flat, a little current on some sites
Visibility : Similans 25m - North (Koh Bon-Tachai-Richelieu) 25m - South 25m

After a week off and seeing Sugi off back home to Indonesia, he was only here for 3 months for a taster of Thailand, it's nice to be back on the boat and with some customer who I know a little about. I have been corresponding with their group leader for a while about photos.
Another week long charter we headed north first.
Anita’s reef as a first dive is still one of my favourite dives, beautiful white sand and clear blue water, about as relaxing a check dive as you are likely to get.
Travelling further north we had a brief manta encounter on Koh Bon before moving up to Richelieu rock for the day.
Alot has been going on whilst we have been gone, all the ghost pipefish have disappeared, the seahorses have multiplied and the harlequin shrimps are on the move and getting greedy, one had a whole starfish all himself this week. We have found a couple of new solitary ones and we now have a tiny yellow tiger tail seahorse and also a large brown one that has taken up residence in the sea fan with the large yellow tiger tail. Not a coincidence I think.
Koh Tachai was great as I moved from one thing to the next, the big red frogfish is back and has brought a friend, unfortunately he is now at 36 metres!
We have a previously unseen Robuastra nudibranch appear also, along with some Dermobranchus ones also and some leopard sharks, pretty good dive for Koh Tachai.
Heading south we dived in at Hin Muang to find no mantas and a really boring dive, there’s always the next dive at Hin Daeng we told the guests not really expecting much, boy were we wrong, I think from nearly 6000 dives this one was the closest I have ever been to a manta, it literally sat on my head, there was 3 in a line dive bombing one bommie I was on, stunning, graceful and massive were some of the adjectives used on the boat, absolutely blinding dive and straight in to my top 20 of all time dives and that takes some doing!!

Trip leader : Andrea
Divemasters : Andrea, Sugi and Johan
Weather : Calm seas, cloudless skies and alight wind
Seas : Very flat, a little current on some sites
Visibility : Similans 25m - North (Koh Bon-Tachai) 25m
(Richelieu 5m) - South 25m

An unusual trip for mermaid2 this one, a 10 day charter with a very pleasant group of Austrians customers.
Heading north for our first leg of the charter we had great calm conditions and good vis all round with many leopard sharks on most of the dive sites such that our customers were waving us off when we tried to show them more. Missing a whale shark at Richelieu by a day…again, we dived into clear calm no current water and had four fantastic dives with the harlequins shrimps, seahorses and ghost pipefish in quantity.
I had my first experience of one of the 6 pine cone fish we now have scattered around the site which was real cool from my point of view.
Moving south again, we had no mantas at Koh Bon and so we headed down to Hin Daeng to be greeted by a great manta day, we estimate at least 4 different ones passing by many times, unfortunately not as good as the week before but all in all a fantastic trip with some of the best vis i have seen in years at koh phi phi and a nudibranch I can't identify with some cool people, the only thing missing was the whale shark, maybe in one weeks time, it’s time for a trip to Malaysia for me for a week to renew my visa, see you next time.

Trip leader : Andrea
Divemasters : Andrea, Hans, Debbie and Sugi
Weather : Calm seas, cloudless skies and alight wind
Seas : Very flat, not much current
Visibility : Similans 25m - North (Koh Bon-Tachai) 20m
(Richelieu 5m) - South 20m

After our trip off we returned to the boat refreshed and ready to go. This trip was a week long charter with some of our repeat guests so we knew we were in for a good time under water as well as on top.
The Similans presented us with another frogfish after a tip from another boat, a juvenile painted one and without doubt some of the best camouflage I have ever seen on a frogfish.(check out the picture and see if you can find the front of it!)
Moving north we heard the usual rumours of whale sharks and mantas but had no such luck although apparently a manta did a fly by on one side of Richelieu as we were on the other. The large red frogfish at Tachai was back after his 2 week sabbatical and leopard sharks were on most of the dives.
After the Similans we moved south to Hin Daeng for our first trip there since before x-mas. Dropping in at Hin Muang I decided on impulse to go west rather than south and at 30 metres I looked up to see half a wing tip hanging over the side of the pinnacle, making a quick ascent I was greeted with a huge manta that was circling the top of the rock at 8 metres just hanging there being cleaned. Everyone else had gone east and there were no other boats on the site so I got 15 minutes all on my own until I ran out of camera angles and my conscience got the better of me and I started banging my tank to call the others over, it turned out there was at least 3 different ones. Fantastic day, real manta madness all 3 dives, to round out another great week in the Andaman sea.

Trip leader : Andrea
Divemasters : Andrea, Hans, Julie and Sugi
Weather : Scattered clouds but sunny, strongs winds
Seas : Rough but flattening out by the end of the trip, alot of current
Visibility : Similans 15-20m - North (Koh Bon-Tachai) 25m
(Richelieu 5m)

The Similans was eerily quiet after the mad x-mas / New Year season, for the first time in my 10 year Thailand diving career we were the only boat on Richelieu rock, very weird.
The start of the trip was it’s usual industrious melee as we jumped in for the check dive, great vis and a small current awaited us and a new long nose hawkfish to add to the ever growing list of known Similans inhabitants.
In the last 2 weeks the whole of the Andaman sea has had one of it regular glassfish spawns and the now cover all the dive sites creating a glittering cloak over the reef making for stunning vistas but pretty hard to find the critters hiding in the midst of them.
Lots of luck on this trip with leopard sharks and turtles, they seemed to appear on most of the sites and even ones where you don’t normally expect them.
Heading north we were unlucky with the mantas spotting none this trip but they were there as another boat moored next to us saw one about an hour before us. I think we had too many leopard sharks, it all balances out in the end.
Onto the famed Richelieu rock to visit my new buddies the harlequin shrimps, they have now moved house, not surprised after the amount of torch lights they experienced over the New Year period, but I found them again after a 5 minute search. We also found another seahorse in a crack not far from the harlequins.
Unfortunately the vis was very poor and the current running strong so we did 2 dives and headed south again.
A great trip was had by all with a real nice atmosphere on the boat, I look forward to many more trips the same,
Regards
Jez

Trip leader : Andrea
Divemasters : Andrea, Hans, Debbie and Sugi
Weather : Scattered clouds but sunny, scattered rain showers also
Seas : pretty flat most of the time
Visibility : Similans 15-20m - North (Koh Bon-RIchelieu) 25m

Happy new year!
Sorry it’s been a while since my last entry but we are running a really tight schedule around Christmas and New Year, returning to phuket at 4pm and leaving again with new guests at 7pm, it doesn’t leave much time for anything but work so I will condense the Christmas and New Year trips into one report.
Although actually both trips were very different, the x-mas trip was full of mantas, turtles, leopard sharks and macro critters and for the New Year trip it seemed like they all had somewhere better to be.
Koh Bon was going off at x-mas with an estimated 3 large mantas giving us the close up show all dive, hovering over the coral garden being cleaned. Leopard sharks were around at Koh Tachai and we found a new large red frogfish down deep sitting in a discarded fishing cage a long way out. It’s nice to see that fishing cages can perform another function for the fish.
Richelieu was it’s usual great self with nothing new to report there, we are still looking for the elusive harlequin shrimps.
The bad news was we missed a whale shark fly by at shark fin reef, of all places, by about 10 minutes, it was only a drive by sighting but it’s nice to know they are constantly around this year. There seems to be one spotted about every 3 days somewhere, the trick is being in the water at the exact moment it passes that particular point! Hmmm…
The New Year trip brought a new group of customers and somewhat different diving. It’s amazing how different 2 consecutive trips can be, just goes to show it’s all about luck.
We had very little big stuff (is that an oxymoron?) until at the end of the trip at north point we had mating leopard sharks and 3 feeding turtles.
The big news of the trip was I found the harlequin shrimps at Richelieu rock unfortunately someone looked over my shoulder whilst I was filming and now most of the dive boats in Phuket also know where they are, Cést la vie.
We are out again tonite after our 3 hour break and then a much needed trip off to recharge the batteries.
See you after the next trip,
Jez

Trip leader : Jerry
Divemasters : Hans, Debbie, Alwin and Sugi
Weather : Windy but sunny, scattered rain showers
Seas : 1-2m swell
Visibility : Hin Daeng/Muang 20-25m - Koh Ha 25m

Welcoming Debbie's parents onto the boat for this trip we jumped in on our check dive at Hin Muang to a 4 metre whale shark!!
Swimming around us for most of the dive it didn't seem concerned about our bubbles and due to the fact we had fairly rough conditions we were one of only 2 boats on the site. Luckily for us no-one chased or bothered the shark and we all hovered and watched it swim between us as we all got a good long look at one of the oceans primary wanna sees.
Conditions on the surface were a little rough but under the water you wouldn't know it, the vis at Hin Daeng/Muang was in the 20-25 metre / 70 foot area with no current.
Moving on the next day to Koh Ha we were treated to the same conditions under the water narrowly missing another different larger whale shark when we dived on one site whilst it swam around another. But having seen one this weekend we couldn't be greedy and with the caverns, chimneys, frogfish, leopard sharks (courtesy of Hans) and my favourite the 3 Harlequin shrimp we discovered last week stil hiding out in their hole everyone seemed pretty happy with this weekends diving.
Rumours : 2 more whale sharks were spotted at Richelieu rock on the same day and 5 mantas a t Koh Bon, so far the season is really shaping up to be a good one!
hope to see you soon - Jez

 

Similan islands liveaboard blog - how the 2007/8 season is going.
Similan islands liveaboard and Hin Daeng trip report / blog from Mermaid liveaboards photo and video professional Jez Tryner in the Similans. Check out how the season is going this year.