This is my third time diving the Similan Islands over the past 13 years, and my second time on the boat White Manta. Great that two years since my last time, the head dive master, most of the boat crew, and the cook were all the same people. I think it speaks highly of the success of the boat when the crew sticks around for several years.
We were fortunate to be traveling and diving on a new moon, which meant that the tides were not excessive, and the currents were none to just moderate. Weather was clear, winds were low, and seas were calm. All of that made for some very easy conditions, which made doing 4 dives a day for several days much easier. Water was a balmy 81 degrees, and though Max and I were in 3mm wetsuits, several divers chose to go commando.
I'm not going to go blow by blow and sight by sight - just hit the highlights here - although the highlight we had at Koh Tachai made everything else into a b-movie. I will say that the start of the trip was a challenge. Max had some head congestion, and was having a hard time equalizing his ears. After two dives on the first "check-out" site, Anita's Reef, it was questionable as to whether Max was going to get to dive this trip. I asked him to sit out the last two dives of the first day, and fair to say, Max was not a happy diver.
The next day, we moved to Koh Bon which is not a shallow or particularly easy dive. We had two dives here, and the first one Max spent snorkeling while the rest of us were down at 100 ft exploring the site and looking for mantas which are sometimes found here (some saw mantas, but not me :(). On the 2nd dive, I told Max that I'd just stay on the surface with him, and we'd go down just as little or as much as he could and just snorkel if need be. To my surprise (and his too I'm sure), he dropped down to the bottom with no issues. Back in the game!
Whether you believe in divine intervention or not, the next dive on Koh Tachai proved to be the Dive of My Life, and having Max down in the deep blue with me after his issues was nothing short of a miracle.
Before every dive, we have a briefing from Chris, the British lead dive master who tells us about the site, what to do and what to look out for, and details the dive profile including depths, currents, and how to get down safely and without getting swept out to sea. On Koh Tachai (north of the Similans in the Surin Islands), the currents were "moderate" and we were to follow a mooring line down to the dive site.
As we got into the Zodiacs and made our way to the start of the dive, there were several other boats around us. Someone was shouting repeatedly, and I asked out dive master what they were saying. "Whale Shark!!!!!" With that, all plans were abandoned, and we went over the side into the deep blue.
I have never ever ever had such and experience. We dove into the open ocean, surrounded by huge schools of barracuda and jacks. Even the dive master who had dived this site hundreds of times said he had never seen so many jack schooling. I swam close to the schooling barracuda to take some photos, then headed down to a ridge where several people were parked looking at something. Hoping to see the whale shark that someone seemed to have spotted, everyone was transfixed on a ~ 6 foot barracuda (a different species I'm told than the schooling ones) with big long teeth and a mean disposition.
Breaking off from that sight, we moved back into the blue. When all sorts of scuba noise makers (horns, rattles, tank bangers) started going off, I looked down, and saw a whale shark - 15-20 foot long (so a juvenile) swim through an enormous school of jacks straight underneath me. I knew that my GoPro that I had been using religiously on all of my dives was not set right due to our hasty departure from the Zodiac, so I had my hand-held camera in video mode. After he passed below me, I quickly switched to photo mode and handed the camera to Max who caught a most iconic shot.
Nothing before or nothing since can even compare to the experience of that dive. Having Max recovered from his ear issues and having him down there to experience all of that was just amazing. In our subsequent dives, we had a wonderful and amazing time, but nothing can even come close from a pure out of this world experience. Many other pictures to follow:
We were fortunate to be traveling and diving on a new moon, which meant that the tides were not excessive, and the currents were none to just moderate. Weather was clear, winds were low, and seas were calm. All of that made for some very easy conditions, which made doing 4 dives a day for several days much easier. Water was a balmy 81 degrees, and though Max and I were in 3mm wetsuits, several divers chose to go commando.
I'm not going to go blow by blow and sight by sight - just hit the highlights here - although the highlight we had at Koh Tachai made everything else into a b-movie. I will say that the start of the trip was a challenge. Max had some head congestion, and was having a hard time equalizing his ears. After two dives on the first "check-out" site, Anita's Reef, it was questionable as to whether Max was going to get to dive this trip. I asked him to sit out the last two dives of the first day, and fair to say, Max was not a happy diver.
The next day, we moved to Koh Bon which is not a shallow or particularly easy dive. We had two dives here, and the first one Max spent snorkeling while the rest of us were down at 100 ft exploring the site and looking for mantas which are sometimes found here (some saw mantas, but not me :(). On the 2nd dive, I told Max that I'd just stay on the surface with him, and we'd go down just as little or as much as he could and just snorkel if need be. To my surprise (and his too I'm sure), he dropped down to the bottom with no issues. Back in the game!
Whether you believe in divine intervention or not, the next dive on Koh Tachai proved to be the Dive of My Life, and having Max down in the deep blue with me after his issues was nothing short of a miracle.
Before every dive, we have a briefing from Chris, the British lead dive master who tells us about the site, what to do and what to look out for, and details the dive profile including depths, currents, and how to get down safely and without getting swept out to sea. On Koh Tachai (north of the Similans in the Surin Islands), the currents were "moderate" and we were to follow a mooring line down to the dive site.
As we got into the Zodiacs and made our way to the start of the dive, there were several other boats around us. Someone was shouting repeatedly, and I asked out dive master what they were saying. "Whale Shark!!!!!" With that, all plans were abandoned, and we went over the side into the deep blue.
I have never ever ever had such and experience. We dove into the open ocean, surrounded by huge schools of barracuda and jacks. Even the dive master who had dived this site hundreds of times said he had never seen so many jack schooling. I swam close to the schooling barracuda to take some photos, then headed down to a ridge where several people were parked looking at something. Hoping to see the whale shark that someone seemed to have spotted, everyone was transfixed on a ~ 6 foot barracuda (a different species I'm told than the schooling ones) with big long teeth and a mean disposition.
Breaking off from that sight, we moved back into the blue. When all sorts of scuba noise makers (horns, rattles, tank bangers) started going off, I looked down, and saw a whale shark - 15-20 foot long (so a juvenile) swim through an enormous school of jacks straight underneath me. I knew that my GoPro that I had been using religiously on all of my dives was not set right due to our hasty departure from the Zodiac, so I had my hand-held camera in video mode. After he passed below me, I quickly switched to photo mode and handed the camera to Max who caught a most iconic shot.
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