The diving in the Similans was unparalleled to anything I had every experienced before. I got very lucky and was signed up for a boat that could hold 16 divers, but ours only had 11. This means I got a room to myself with a private bathroom (quite a luxury for a liveaboard). I had the added bonus of heated tile flooring in my bathroom, as it was located right above the engine!
Of the 11 divers, 5 left after the second night and we were down to 6. Normally there is one dive master per 4 people, but with such low numbers there were only 3 of us with our divemaster, Abbas. The other two were a lovely Danish couple, who usually ran out of air about 10 to 15 minutes before me - so the last part of my dive was always just with Abbas. It was pretty incredible.
The dive sites were crowded - there are not that many of them and loads of liveaboards - but our leader, Rick, did a great job of trying to orchestrate our dives so that we were ahead of most of the other boats.
We didn't see any whale sharks or manta rays, which was a bit disappointing - but it was still well worth the experience. There were loads of moray eels, trigger fish, parrot fish, angel fish, butterfly fish, scorpion fish, starfish, damsel fish, barracuda, tuna, etc.
Everyone on the boat was very friendly and interesting - my favorite spot was laying out on the front of the boat in between dives.
If you've never been on a liveaboard before, the basic schedule is wake up, small nosh, dive, breakfast, lay out, dive, lunch, layout, dive, small snack, night dive, dinner. It's pretty much divine.
The dive season is November through April, and if it weren't for Rita's wedding I probably would have stayed forever. As it is I am seriously considering going back next year, getting my divemaster certification and spending the season there!
No comments:
Post a Comment