Similan, Surin, Koh Bon (and Khao Lak)
Compared to the natural riches of southern Thailand, Khao Lak is a perfectly passable seaside town. You can sit on a nice enough beach, swim in nice enough ocean and and drink cheap cocktails. The real reason people come here though, is located just off the coast: the Similan and Surin islands. I was here, because I had asked the internet where the best diving can be found in Thailand, and Similan and Surin had won outright.
Diving is an expensive hobby, even in Thailand, and I’d done a lot of it recently. This was to be one big, memorable diving trip, before finding some slightly cheaper activities to fill my time. I booked 6 dives over 2 days on a live-aboard boat, and 2 extra dives the day after to Richelieu Rock, meant to be particularly special. In order to see the full beauty on offer, I was also advised to also complete my Advanced Open Water Diver qualification in the process, as that would allow me to descend to a depth of 30 metres. It was the biggest expense of my trip so far by some way, but I decided it was an experience worth the plunge (pun very much intended).
It was frustrating then, when through some 7am confusion at the harbour (partly my tired fault, partly poor communication from the dive school) that the speedboat left without me. After some stressful reorganisation, I ended up on a boat with a snorkelling tour, who would be making three stops before going near to where I was supposed to be. It felt strange to be doing activities I hadn’t booked on what was to me just a frustratingly slow transport boat, but I did my best to enjoy a short climb to a viewpoint, a short sit on a crowded but stunning beach and a couple of snorkelling sessions, one where a hawksbill sea turtle came to say hello for a while.
When I was finally taken to the boat I was meant to be on by a fast dinghy flying over big waves, I was famous - everyone had heard about what had happened to me. I quickly met my instructor, Thomas, who gave me a quick briefing, showed me my kit and we got straight in the water around Similan island 4. I could feel I was still amped up from the stress of the morning, but the world is so serene underwater it was the perfect cure. We started with a bit of compass navigation, me leading a square path underwater. It was more difficult than expected, as unpredictable currents took me in different directions as I swam, but I managed to make a successful enough square to pass and later in the dive we found a spotted garden eel poking its head out of the sand, and a tubeworm - my first sightings of both.
That night, we also completed my first night dive. It was disorientating diving without so many visual cues I’m used to - the sun and shadows telling me which way is up, being able to see all around me to ensure I don’t run in to anything, only being able to see other divers by their torch light. It’s also a completely different world down there at night, with fish hiding in small spaces in the coral and eels fully out of their holes, snaking around and hunting for smaller fish. There were big pairs of pharaoh cuttlefish scooting their way along the bottom and a coral banded cleaner shrimp hiding in a crack in a rock.
There were only about 10 people staying on the boat. We had a quiet dinner together, and discussed our day’s dives, and the boat became very peaceful. I had earlier spent a long period just sitting and looking the wild, unspoiled island we were moored near to, and had watched the sun slowly set in to the sea. At night, with no light pollution, the stars were beautiful and plentiful, and I lay back on the sun deck and looked up for hours, finding Orion and Gemini with some help from the internet.
To make the most of having slept at the next dive site, Koh Bon, our first dive was at 7am and our second around 9am, before anyone arriving from the mainland would be underwater. We looked around the bay and along a huge wall of beautiful coral. At around 10.30am, Thomas and I squeezed in an extra dive, just the two of us, to make up for the one I’d missed on the first day, and something special happened.
Nearing the end of the dive, a batfish came up to me, and swam a circle around me. Without touching it (I’m a responsible diver), I lightly flicked some water at its tail, a way of interacting with fish who initiate an interaction. It swam another circle around me, staying very close, so I flicked some more water. We played in similar ways for a few minutes, before Thomas notified me with needed to ascend to 5m depth for our safety stop - standard diving procedure. I said a quick goodbye to the batfish, and expected that to be the end of things, but amazingly it swam with me, ascending from 12m up to 5m with me, and we continued to play during our 3 minute safety stop. From behind me a school of around 15 batfish arrived, and my batfish friend and I became part of the group. At some point I lost track of which one I had been interacting with (they do look rather similar), but they were all very friendly and a couple of others came to say hello. At that point I had to sadly ascend and leave the water, but I was glad I was leaving my batfish among new friends.
In our final dive before leaving the boat we saw a tiny cleaner crab living in an anemone with a family of clown fish, and a banded sea snake in midwater. Officially an advanced diver (although not feeling any different - the improvement has been consistent but gradual) I left the boat and headed back to the mainland for my last 2 dives booked the next day. In the morning, my body felt absolutely wrecked. I had never done 4 dives in a day before, and had done 2 dives the day before that. My newfound enjoyment of coffee came in very useful and I made it to the boat to see Richelieu Rock, a site in the middle of the ocean, part of the Surin islands.
I can see why people (and the internet) rave about this site. The visibility was not perfect - 10-15 metres, compared to 25-30 on the live aboard dives - but the site was absolutely teeming with life. It was like fish rush hour, as huge schools of tiny fish crossed with huge schools of medium sized fusileers and got scared so darted in different directions. Then seemingly endless schools of big trevally and tuna - each fish around 1m long - would come through the busy junction and send all the other fish in random directions before they regrouped away from the big boys. We were also lucky enough to have picked a quiet day for divers, so we had the site mostly to ourselves. There was interesting and varied life everywhere you looked: beautiful common fish like emperor angelfish, and rarer finds like a navy blue boxfish with orange spots, which didn’t flee, so I got a really good look at it. I came back to Khao Lak and sat on the beach for a couple of hours, watching the sun set and saying goodbye to the island life I’ve been living for the past few weeks.
My experiences in the Similan and Surin islands have undoubtedly been the highlight of this trip so far. Spending so much time underwater and getting to know the locals, watching the sunset behind the sea in utter paradise and stargazing quietly at night. I wish I could have spent more time on the boat. If I still have money left in a few months, I might rectify that.