4am and our alarm goes off, it’s time to get up, check we’re all packed with nothing forgotten before we head off to Heathrow for our flight to Phuket, we can’t wait, 6 nights on board Colona VI diving the Similan & Surin Islands, followed by a week landbased touring the beautiful southern Thai island of Phuket.
A little after 11am we were on our way, flying with Thai Airways. The flight was pretty comfortable, Thai Air’s economy class on the 737-400’s offer a much larger seat pitch of 34 inches, so dozing off between your 4 movies, 2 meals, sandwiches and complimentary drinks is pretty easy. At 6.30am local time we arrived in Bangkok, we were grateful of the hour we had to stretch our legs around the airport before boarding our connecting flight to Phuket, and being a checked flight direct from Heathrow we had no luggage to collect or queue to join, we already had our boarding cards, by 8am we’d set off again.
As we stepped out of Phuket international the humidity hit me, it was a little before 10am, very bright and very still. Having spent the last 7 years travelling predominantly to southern Egypt I was used to the arid heat of the desert, I was glad that I’d packed my hair straightners.
Transfer time to Colona Diving’ office in Karon is about an hour, as we loaded the minibus I had a pang of apprehension of what Phuket was going to be like, I just didn’t know what to expect, as we had approached the airport we had flown over what I now know to be Phang-Nga Bay, it was beautiful, but what if the rest of the island resembled Faliraki, we had been one of the first to exit the airport, and other than our new Swedish friends that we were sharing our transfer and week on board Colona VI with we had been the only dive bags.
The drive to Karon was great, the main road were was travelling on was most entertaining, did you know that you could get your entire family (mum, dad, 2 kids and granny) as well as your dog on a moped! , As we passed through the more rural parts of Phuket I soon realised that although Phuket has its hot spots (Patong springs to mind) for the most part it’s pretty slow and laid back.
When we arrived at Colona we were greeted with a warm smile from Christina and a glass of cold water. We were to leave our bags at the centre and spend the rest of the day at leisure but not before we were offered fresh clean towels and the opportunity to have a long awaited shower.
After a 15 minute stroll we found ourselves at Karon beach, a long stretch of golden beach dotted with sun loungers and massage beds with older Thai women offering foot and body massage. The bright blue water was wonderfully warm and shallow, although the surf was enough to knock you off your feet at times. After a great lunch, a couple of hours relaxing, and a couple of singa’s (local beer) we headed back to Colona Dive centre for our transfer to Colona VI, by 8pm we were on board, by 9pm we were sailing to Similan.
Colona VI is a very comfortable boat indeed, and clean and tidy. Her layout is simple and social, and with a maximum capacity of 14 guests she makes for an intimate trip. The crew on board include Captain Hoo, Bob and Kay, 2 fantastic and fun boat boys, Deange the playful engineer, Jun, our charming stewardess & Mummy the cook (you’ll hear more about mummy shortly).
For our tour our two dive guides where Mark (the regular Cruise Director) and the lovely Michaela, both Mark and Michaela have been guiding for many years, and Marks extensive knowledge of the area ensured us some fantastic dives.
Now Colona VI isn’t the cheapest of liveaboards available for the Similans & Surins, but you really do get what you pay for, whilst diving Koh Bon two other boats arrived, each dropping around 35 divers on top of us (it only happened once, we never saw them again), we were later told that these particular liveaboards rarely return to port, they have their liveaboard guests that arrive by speed boats, but they also have daily divers dropped off by speed boat and collected at the end of the day, I was really enjoying Koh Bon, then suddenly it was like diving in lemonade, and I couldn’t see the fan corals for fins, that really isn’t my idea of a holiday, it made us all feel that the little extra that we had paid for the exclusivity had been worth every penny and much more.
Colona VI is a very well run operation, as soon as you board you are handed a DSMB per buddy pair, you are offered torches and batteries for night and sunset dives at no additional cost. Mark has been guiding for Colona VI for 4 years, yet he still talks about each dive site with the enthusiasm of someone diving it for the second time, Marks knowledge of currents, topography and critters of each site is exceptional, as is his planning that avoids crowded sites. All drop off and pick ups are made by Colona VI, the RIB is rarely used (only in poor conditions) and you are never left bobbing on the surface waiting to be spotted, as your delay goes up you can hear the engines start.
Now, back to mummy, as I mentioned, mummy is the cook on board, although it would be an insult to refer to what you are presented with as boat food, in fact, I think you could easily refer to it as fine Thai cuisine, and plenty of it too. Every meal time we had options, seafood or fish, a couple of meat dishes (some rather cheeky curries to boot), Thai soups, rice and noodles. Nothing for mummy was too much trouble, on our particular charter we had a guy that didn’t eat red meat, so on evenings when both meats were red he was presented with his own little plate (only not so little portion) of a chicken dish, we all has stuffed squid with pork, his individual portion was stuffed with chicken. You stood no chance of losing weight on this boat, fruit and fruit juice was available all day, as where cakes and biscuits. Our routine was simple, eat-dive-sleep 4 times a day, and if that became too complicated to follow you could rely on Mark as he also gave wake up calls.
Similans offer several types of dive sites, from rocky pinnacles and fringe reef, to the magnificent bolder dives, many of which have shallow swim throughs. Over 6 days 22 dives were made available to us, I’m sure you don’t want a blow by blow account of each site but maybe an overview of each island and some of their highlights are in order.
Sailing through the night we arrived in the Similans around 7am, the shake down dive was on island # 7 – Koh Pa-Yu “East of Eden” a really attractive dive site starting from 5m gradually sloping to a 35m sandy bottom, it was an amazingly colourful dive site, from the bronze of the staghorn corals, to brilliant blue hard corals broken up with an array of soft corals and set against amazing giant fan corals.
Island # 1, 2 & 3 are closed to divers as Coral & Marine Rehabilitation Area’s, although southeast of 3 you can find “Shark Fin Reef”, this is a site made up of huge boulders and is approximately 1km long with a max depth of 35m, Paul had a great opportunity to film a couple of leopard sharks at this site. A little further east you will find “Boulder City”, by the name I’m sure you can guess the type of dive this is.
Island # 4 you will find “Honeymoon Bay”, this is a good place for night diving and mooring for the evening.
Island # 5 & # 6 is “Anita’s Reef”, I really loved this site, the boulders were amazing, and are absolutely huge, there is a big outcrop that reaches a max depth of around 22m and rises to around 10m, its covered with stunning giant sea fans and many varieties of soft corals, I could spend an hour on this rock alone, this is defiantly a site for macro and video.
Island # 7 “East of Eden”, another of my favourites, as well as starting our diving, we also ended our diving on this reef, although this time we stayed a max of 12m drifting from one hard coral formation to another, this site boasts many table corals and superb hard coral patches. #7 also boasts “Deep Six”, again this is another boulder dive that offers a couple pf swim throughs.
“Elephant Head Rock” is located just off of Island #8, Mark, our “cruise director” gave everyone an early start on this one as its one of the most popular sites within the Similans, once again Mark was spot on, as our delays were deployed for our safety stops, two other boats appeared and began to moor onto the site.
Island # 8 “Donald Duck Bay”, really for night dives and a mooring for the night, “Turtle rock” & Waterfall Bay”, 2 easy going and relaxing boulder dive sites, “Beacon Reef” we didn’t get to do this one, but it has a small wreck at around 15m.
Island # 9 “Christmas Point”, this site is the only place where you will see any real evidence left behind by Tsunami, you will find some corals that have been turned back over, they are clearly tagged and their recovery is being monitored. To be honest, take the tags away and 11 months on you just wouldn’t know it had happened.
“Rocky Point”, a cracking boulder dive with a channel at 15m and a swim through at 20m, had some big schools of Trevally on this one, and a leopard shark dosing on the seabed.“Breakfast Bend” great for a good drift. And finally “Snapper Alley”, don’t forget your camera for this one. Also, under the “Similan National Park” umbrella, but not part of the Similan Islands
Koh Bon – A granite island, Koh Bon is located about 20 kilometers north of island #9 and features one of the only vertical walls in Thailand. The dive site is on the southwestern point and consists of a 33 meter wall facing the small cove, and a step-down ridge that carries on to depths of over 45 meters.
Leopard sharks are common on the ridge and on the sandy flats below the wall. Although the soft corals are not as high-profile as they are in the Similans, the colours of the corals are radically different and include shades of turquoise, yellow and blue, besides the more common pinks and purples. Koh Bon is one of the better places to see manta rays, especially towards the end of the season when there is more plankton in the water.
Koh Tachai - Twenty-five kilometers north of Koh Bon, Koh Tachai has an offshore underwater ridge that runs perpendicular to the island. This is considered to be one of the finest dives in the Kingdom and is famous as a place to see not only the more common species of corals, fans and tropical fish, but larger animals such as rays, leopard sharks, nurse sharks and hawks bill turtles. Tachai also boasts a breathtaking sandy beach on its northeastern shore; a great place to hang out and feel like Robinson Crusoe.
And last but by no means least “ Richelieu Rock”. Surin's ace card, a small submerged rock about 18 kilometers east of Surin. Richelieu Rock, just exposed at the lowest of tides, rates as one of the best places in the world for swimming with our gentle giant, the whale shark. Encounters with these fish, the largest of all fish, are rare almost any place in the world. But for some reason, Richelieu attracts more than its fair share. Swimming with such a large animal, known to grow to lengths of 20 meters or more, has to be a high point for any diver. Sightings occur 50-70 percent of the time, depending on the time of year. Generally, February, March and April are the best times for a visit. The visibility is normally excellent, and the soft corals are also amazing, this is a MUST NOT MISS, we took advantage of being the only liveaboard out there and completed 3 amazing dives.
All good things come to an end, after 6 days diving, 22 glorious dives, and some fantastic meals we set about our 7 hour journey back to port, a few beer where opened, email addresses exchanged and memories shared. In 6 days we made some great friends, and at this point I would like to thank the following for making my first Thai diving experience one that I will never forget.
Jun, Captain Hoo, Bob, Kay, Deange and Mummy – our Thai crew.
Mark & Michaela – Our cruise directors
Mark & Jakie – UK, Alison & Anders – Sweden, Mike & James – California , Scott & Matthew – Dallas Texas.
And of course Christina & Lisa at Colona Diving for making all of this possible.
With Colona VI only an hour behind us we were on our way to our land resort “Bann Krating Jungle Beach” based on Ao Sane beach, Nai Harn, southern Phuket where we were to spend the next 8 (which we then extended to 10) days.
Bann Krating is a boutique resort, only 30 bungalows built on stilts inclining into the jungle, good restaurant and bar, private beach & small pool. We had paid the extra 200 Baht (£2.80) a night to have a position close to the beach, at a price of only 2500 Baht (£35) per bungalow per night including breakfast it seemed well worth the extra.
As we were a bit further south than the resort areas of Kata, Karon & Patong we decided to hire ourselves a couple of mopeds for getting around during the day, 2 bikes (both 125cc) cost us around £2.50 per day each and gave us the freedom to come and go as we pleased.
(although be aware that when riding mopeds you are not generally covered by your travel insurance, you are riding at your own risk and you may not be covered should you have an accident, the insurance that comes with the bike is generally just 3rd party).
Thai roads initially appeared to be a bit of a science, I would say that bikes outweigh cars (well, huge 4x4’s)10/1, but I soon realised its just that there’s no discipline. Its not unusual to have someone riding down the wrong side of the road, its not uncommon to see a family of 5 with their dog on one 50cc moped, and red lights (unless in Phuket Town) seem to mean nothing other than shut your eyes and go for it, even for the police. Now, although there is no discipline, there is plenty of courtesy, if a large 4x4 is behind you, and you are happy poodling at 30km enjoying the view he will sit patiently until there is a good bit of clear road before overtaking, using your horn in Thailand is only to let people know you are there, western road rage seems not yet to have appeared, and fingers crossed it wont.
Over the next 10 days we visited several must see’s around Phuket, there are far to many to mention, but a couple of the highlighted included:
Phi Phi Le, and the formally devastated island of Phi Phi Don. Phi Phi Don is still under reconstruction after Tsunami swept straight through her, but the atmosphere is still laid back and relaxed, it still has a wonderful beach, good restaurants, and slow bars, I recommend that you visit Phi Phi Don independently, take the ferry from Chalong, it costs around 500 baht, and avoids the awful beach hoping day trippers, you get time to look around and relax.
Sea Canoeing – Phang Nga Bay, this was a whole day trip, and one not to miss. I would really recommend that you use www.seacanoe.net the most reputable and ecologically minded of all the operators. We opted for the guided tour, the experienced guides are able to take you through the tiniest of caves (they do all the paddling for you) to get you into the best of the island centres, with self paddle you only get to go around the outside. If anyone is particularly interested I have a promotional VCD available.
Wat Chalong, a beautiful Buddhist temple just outside the busy port town of Chalong, its one of the biggest on the island, if you get there early you may even see the monks going about there daily chores. NB. Thai’s love there dogs, but when they can no longer look after them they are taken to the temples and the monks take over, Wat Chalong has many roaming pets, all of which are friendly.
If you did want to extend your stay in Phuket there is so much that you can do, from Gibbon sanctuary’s to Lady Boy shows there is something for everyone. Accommodation ranges from £12 to £150 per room per night. A good meal for 2 including drinks costs about £12, but lunch for 3 in Thai kitchen (local Thai restaurant) with a beer is less than £5 in total.
A must for everyone is the massages, an hour working on your feet and legs, full body oil massage, or the good old fashioned Thai massage will set you back between 350-500baht (£5 - £7), and when you leave you feel like you’re walking on air.
I loved Phuket, I loved the Thai’s, I loved the Similans, and I can’t wait to get back.