Ko Similan Serenity

We find ourselves en route to Khao Lak (via the dusty township of Klok Kloi) for some premium diving at the Similan Islands with our mates Leesh and Skiv. Rumor has it these islands harbor some of the best diving in the world so we decided to check out for ourselves what all the buzz is about. Not surprisingly, diving is what makes this place tick but still we marvel at the never ending number of dive shops that somehow eck out a living here - dozens of them line the main (and only) street. The place is lively and has made a great comeback since that disastrous Christmas four years ago. One of the worst hit places, the tsunami rolled in with tidal waves up to 11 meters and wiped it off the map, a beached police boat next to the motorway, 2km inland, testament to the havoc wreaked here. We check in at the Youth Club at the end of town and score a pretty sweet room which even has its own hot water and beer fridge (a steal for 350 Baht). Time for cheap drinkies from the local 7 eleven!

The next day is pretty cruisy and spent on the curvy white sand beaches that make up Khao Lak, since we’re waiting for Leesh & Skiv to arrive back from Khao Sok National Park. Met up in the arvo and had good catch ups over dinner, followed by some Changs and choccies on the beach and lucky lanterns that reach for the skies around us (it brings good luck to light one of these things – a Thai tradition).

Up at the crack of dawn for our three day liveaboard dive trip with a diving outfit called "Wicked". We have a traditional Thai fireworks show as we leave the pier for good luck… and so begins the four hour boat trip to the Similan Islands – rated as one of the top ten dive sites in the world! A chain of nine islands, 64km off the mainland where 3 days of eating, diving, socializing, eating and diving eagerly awaits.

Stunning topography surrounds us. The islands, simply referred to as number one to nine are shaped by smooth weather worn granite boulders, set in lush jungle and surrounded by crystal clear waters at an inviting 29 degrees and, of course, 30 meters visibility. The diving is pretty much picture perfect with a large variety of dive sites for the picking; submerged mammoth boulders and tunnels to navigate through at Elephant head rock, coral gardens aplenty at East of Eden. We’re consistently surrounded by an abundance of marine life to entertain us – seal faced pufferfish, banded sea snake, nemo's, oriental sweetlips, napoleon wrasse, jellyfish, lionfish, morays, unicorn fish, clown triggerfish, batfish, sea turtle, porcupine puffer, baby white-tipped reef shark, garden eels (that look like finger puppets sticking out of the sand), barracuda, khule stingray, and many many more. We even saw a couple of leopard sharks at Xmas Point dive site – definitely one of the highlights. It’s the kind of thing you have to see and experience but we really didn’t want to fork out lots of moolah for murky photos so we googled a website that already did it for us – www.similans.net (I know, we’re cheapasses).

Since the whole thing cost us an arm and a leg anyway we did our Advanced Open Water Certificate with Leesh and Skiv so had 5 dives of the 9 to count towards specialties – "navigation" (who would've thought it would be so hard to go in a straight line?), "Peak Performance Buoyancy", "Deep Water" (where you go to 30 meters depth but most of us had already done so with dodgy operators elsewhere), "Night Dive", and the bio geeks fave "Fish ID". Interesting experience, since our instructor (fresh from diving school) was a weird sort of headmistress personality - always over excited about everything and wet her pants every time she saw fish. And who would have guessed that a 7.30am dive would be the perfect way to wake up… so peaceful, dreamy, relaxing.

The food is spectacular too thanks to the Thai chefs onboard who cook for us round the clock. We get fed five times daily, huge buffet style and we don't have to clean up or lift a finger either! We're treated like royalty as the Dive Master Trainees (DMT's) are running the show and try to make a good impression as it is their last exam on this trip. Downtime onboard includes relaxing on the sundeck, chatting, and more eating – who needs weight belts anyway? The four of us even went snorkeling with a very friendly sea turtle at Donald Duck Bay while everyone else opted for the beach. Alana jumped in first – slight trepidation as the sea turtle headed straight for her… but it was just curious and looking for an easy feed. The turtle hung around for a while so we swum with it for ages – a mutual attraction and an amazing experience!

We later got the opportunity to go ashore and walk up to the viewpoint – a pristine, practically secluded environment with stunning views. Once the sun sinks, so do we, for our night dive. The night dive is particularly freaky at first, jumping off the boat into ink black water which then turns into some sort of suspension in utero. We see lobsters, morays, lionfish, scorpionfish, cleaner shrimp, flatworm, and a large purple parrotfish sleeping vertically, wedged in amongst the coral – how strange!

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end and on our way back to Khao Lak we stop for our final dive at a wreck called Boonsong (an old tin miner). No luxury of 25 meters visibility here – but that just adds to the charm. However, there are millions of lionfish hovering around, scorpionfish hiding and large porcupine pufferfish surround us. One pufferfish gets the boot from Thomas, our DMT instructors fins - never trust a man diving in speedos and adorned in a cape (a tradition for his 100th dive). Never seen a pufferfish so horrified either! On top of this we see many tiny honeycomb moray, white-eyed moray, batfish, yellow boxfish, and goatfish. Back on board as the sun sets we head back to Khao Lak - many people seasick at this point… So we wrote the day after off as a recovery day and lay in the sun by the pool dining on Pringles, ice creams and 7 eleven burgers (no wonder we all felt ill!) and had drinks on the deck at Youth Club to celebrate our completed Dive Certificate – go us!