divesites

Thailand Liveaboard Dive Sites

Thailand Liveaboard Dive Sites:

Similan Islands

Thailand is famous around the world for it's culture, people and scenery. Only in the last 20 years have the underwater attractions gained attention. Now they are ranked among the best in the world. With great access, high standards and incredible life above the water - this is THE place to dive.

IIn Thailand there are several places to dive. The Gulf of Thailand, The Eastern Seaboard, Pattaya, Phuket. None of them come close to the diversity, magnitude and sheer complexity of dive sites that are at the Similan Islands. With sites like Elephant Head Rock, East of Eden, Deep Six, Christmas Point, Sharkfin reef, Koh Bon, Koh Tachai and Richelieu Rock this is incomparable to any place else in SE Asia. All of it can be done on one liveaboard trip! Of course there are daytrips based out of Khao Lak that can take you to all the sites and allowing you to sleep on land. but it will take you longer to see all the sites and hey - this is about liveaboards right?

The gulf of Thailand also has many dive sites and some of them are excellent, most notably Chumphon Pinnacle. Other dive areas include Pattaya, Koh Chang, Koh Samui, Koh Phang Ngan and Koh Tao. Don’t let anyone tell you that these dive sites are as good as the Andaman Sea because they just aren’t. However they do have their plus points. Koh Tao has very cheap diving and very cheap certification courses for those who don’t mind diving in big groups. Once you are done with your courses - then come visit the Similan Islands for the best diving!

Their reputation is due to their richest variety of marine life in Thai waters. More than 500 species of hard and soft corals. With Reef Fish, Benthic Species, and of course the pelagics rolling in - this is truly diverse.
The Similan Islands are also home to the biggest fish in the world, the whale shark, which together with Manta Rays, Leopard and Whitetip sharks are regularly encountered during the peak season. Aside from the aquatic realm, the bottom topography is just fantastic: huge granite boulders covered with coral lie together all the way from the surface to 40 meters and beyond, providing lots of exciting swimthroughs, canyons, archways and caves, some perfect spots for U/W pictures and video effects.



North Point					Three rock arches. Giant boulder formation, embedded on sand or gravel bottom, between them you find coral gardens with mainly soft corals.

Christmas Point					Boulder formation, swimthroughs in the deeper sections of the divesite. mainly soft corals on the walls. Variety of parrotfish, surgeonfish, in the deeper part colourful starfish, giant sea cucumbers.

Breakfast Bend					For this site you have the best sunlight in the morning. The shallow level has a sandbottom, scatterd with coral boulders, further out you have a 45 degree drop off to the sandbottom at about 30 meters. The drop off - thats what its all about. Beautiful soft and hard corals and a very abundant marine life on it.

Snapper Alley					Beautiful reef drop off, followed by rock boulders scattered on the sand floor. Rich marine life.

Donald Duck Bay					Scattered coral heads spread widely on a shallow sand bottom. The rocks on the west side of the bay are a bit more interesting. They offer nice boulder landscape and a good variety of reef fish.

Turtle Rock					Boulders offer a nice under water landscape, dive with a lot of swimthroughs. Fairly good marine life, surgeon- and parrotfish, featherstars. Sadly you still can find some scars of anchors and dynamite fishing. Still a good site and worth visiting.

Fantasy Reef					Desccending on a rocky plateau to about 15 meters, you will find a magnificant garden of hard and soft corals with an adequate variety of reef fish. Going North you come to a big boulder swimthrough which leads you down to the sandbottom at about 30 meters. From there you turn West to pass enormous boulders, pass a valley and continue from there. Very rich marine and coral life. sweetlips of all kind, schools of jacks, surgeon- and parrotfish, lion- and scorpion fish.

Beacon Beach					Starts very shallow with coral boulders, than slopes down to about 34 meter. On the slope there is a real beautiful coral garden. Hard- and soft corals, anemones with their inhabitants, all sorts of shellfish, and a very rich variety of other reef fish. Down on the sand, you can find blue spotted stingrays, gardeneels, sand dwelling goatfish.

Beacon Point					Large boulders on a sandy bottom. Be careful, here you can reach your depth limit of 40 meter easily. Down there, are only a few hardcorals on the boulders. On the sand bottom there are always blue spotted stingrays, garden eels, goat fish, surgeonfish and if you are lucky you will find reef sharks. At the end of the dive, you come back to the coral garden where Beacon Beach starts.

Beacon Point					Massive boulder formations and swimthroughs, arches and caverns. Thats why we dive here, it's a breathtaking underwater scenery with all those giant boulders laying there as if a giant dropped a handful of pebbles. Good marine life, mainly hardcorals. A vast variety of reef fish and in the most southern part of the site is a group of pinacles where you often can see reefsharks.

Deep Six					At the beginning large boulders and arches, good for spectacular swimthroughs. Hard and softcorals and a good variety of reef fish. In the deeper section of the site large fields of whip corals and a number of other soft- and hardcorals. Large sea fans, turtles and leopard sharks.

East of Eden					One of the most beautiful reefs at the Similans. Mainly covered with hardcoral, it's also home for a great variaty of fish. Schools of fusiliers and snappers, single napoleon wrasses and sea turtles. In about the middle of the divesite there is a stunning coral head, coming up from 25 and reaching 10 meters, it is home of an excellent marine life.

Stonehenge					This is a deep dive, towering rocks with large seafans and sponges between them. All the small reef fish are present. Leopardsharks, schools of tuna and travelly are frequently seen here.

Princess Bay					Sandbottom with occasional small coral boulders, nothing really exciting, good for nightdives, special the western part of the bay.

Hideaway Bay					Nice quiet bay. Sandbottom with fairly big coral boulders, rich of marine life. The southtip of the island drops down to about 25 meters. There you often can see some ghostpipe fish. This site also is good for excellent night dives.

Barracuda Point					This divesite is also know as Anita's Reef. The reef is sloping down from 6 to about 28 meters. Coralgardens, soft- and hardcorals are scattered thoughout the sand and are painting a great scenery. You will all kind of reef fish.

Honeymoon Bay					On the westside of island No 4 you find a nice reef, dropping down from about 10 meter to the sandbottom at 30 meters. Mainly hardcoral (staghorns) and coral boulders can be found there. Sadly some areas are destroyed from past tense anchoring. Still a good site, special for night dives.

Bird Rock					Large boulders, reaching down to 40 meters. Not much marine life, but beautiful rock formations and swimthroughs at 16 m (53 ft).

Shark Fin Reef					Three reef outcrops are seen from the surface. The dive takes you along either side of that vast outstretched rockformation. The southwest side is mainly a steep dropoff. At the southeast side of this formation is a large swimthrough where you can change from one side to the other. There you can find big lionfish in sheltered corners, surgeonfish and a variety of other reef fish. The corals there are mainly hardcorals.

Boulder City					Mountainous submerged boulder formations, running from southeast to northwest. Descending on the southeast mooringline you swim over scattered rocks, between them is a enormous seafan garden. Beside it there is a large plateau, rising 2 meters above the seabed. It is dotted with smaller hard and soft corals which is home to a rich variety of reef fish.

Coral Garden					Easy reef dive. Beautiful hard and soft corals, rich on a great number of reef fish.

Rocky Point					Large scattered boulders, intersepted by patches of sand. Healthy fish population. There are mainly hard corals, but you can also find seafans and barrel sponges. Towards the deeper part of the site is a chance to see barracudas and other pelagic fish.

Richelieu Rock - Thailand

Richelieu Rock is widely regarded as Thailands premier dive site and it's the best place in Thailand to see whale sharks.

Located 18 km east of Koh Surin and part of the Surin national marine park it is best dived by liveaboard boat. There are moorings in place but not enough to cope with the number of boats that visit each day (sometimes as many as 10 boats) so entry will often be a live boat entry or from your liveaboards tender. Most liveaboards include at least two dives at Richelieu Rock as part of their itinerary and may add more dives here if guests wish. The most difficult decision for underwater photographers is which lens to dive Richelieu with. Of course a wide angle lens is best for whale sharks but there is so much good macro photography to do here too.

At low tide the rock is just visible above the surface and it goes down to a maximum depth of 35m. The rock is horseshoe shaped and although currents can be strong at times there is always shelter on one side of the dive site. There are also several smaller rocks out from the main rock. An ideal dive starts deep, then divers circle the pinnacle until they reach safety stop depth at the end of the dive. Richelieu is a lime stone rock and visibility is changeable. Some days it's excellent but on other days it can be rather green with a lot of suspended matter. Of course these plankton blooms are a whale sharks favourite food.

Although Richelieu Rock is promoted as one of the world's best places to see whale sharks sightings are by no means guaranteed. Up until 2000 it was a case not of "will I see a whale shark?" but more like "how many whale sharks will I see?" These days whalesharks are less common however some years are better than others. 2006/7 was a very good year with sightings most weeks. The ideal time of year to see them is March- April. If you are lucky enough to see a whale shark the best tactic is not to chase it but to hang in mid water and wait for it to come around again. Whale sharks are gentle giants and a wall of divers chasing them just scares them away. Whatever you do, never touch a whaleshark as you can remove the protective algae coating from their skin which leads to disease.

Even without whale sharks Richelieu is a truly awesome dive. With no other land for miles around all marine life is attracted to this point. Other large visitors are dogtooth tuna, mackeral and schools of chevron barracuda.

Richelieu is covered in soft corals, sponges, anemones and sea fans and the biodiversity of marine life is amazing. Moray eels and lionfish are everywhere. Schools of snapper carpet large areas of the wall. Glass fish fill in the gaps hiding critters like shrimp and pipefish. Harlequin ghost pipefish are often found as are yellow tigertail seahorse. There is a resident seahorse on the south west side of the horseshoe which is well known by all divemasters. The poor fellow is probably blind from all the camera strobes flashing in his face each day. Other seahorses can be found in the small caverns at the bottom of the rock as can harlequin shrimps. Frogfish and leaffish are also to be found and mantis shrimps can be seen scurrying about in the rubble.

Octopus are a common sight although they do their best to hide from view. Couples of cuttlefish are also seen just above the sandy bottom.

Koh Bon - Thailand

Koh Bon is located 40km north of the Similan islands but still considered part the Similan Islands national park. It's a very different dive site to the Similans because it's a limestone rock not granite. You can see different underwater colours here and the seas around are full of different nutrients for the marine life to feed on. The most popular visitor that comes here to feed is the manta ray. Koh Bon is Thailand's best location for spotting manta rays (although Hin Daeng and Hin Muang probably get just as many mantas).

Daytrips to possible to Kon Bon, speedboats depart from Khao Lak, but it's better to dive by liveraboard boat. In peak season Koh Bon can get very busy with dive boats. There are moorings in the bay to the south but dives rarely start from this point. Visibility is generally very good. Currents can be fierce so this is not a dive for inexperienced divers. Often down currents are present and divers must pull themselves along on rocks. Of course the manta rays love the currents to feed in.

A dive on Koh Bon west ridge usually starts on the south wall that drops vertically down to about 35m. Sometimes mantas are in this area at cleaning stations. The wall is covered with encrusting sponges, zigzag clams and seafans. Moray eels and their cleaner shrimps abound. Octopus and cuttlefish are common. Whitetip reef sharks often cruise by in deep water.

As divers move west along the wall the west ridge becomes visible as it sharply drops off to below 40m. Currents will get stronger here and it may be necessary to hang on to something while you peer into the blue looking for mantas. If you do see them do not chase them, you won't even get close. It's much better to hang back and let them swoop over you. It often seems like they enjoy playing with diver bubbles. It may be possible to carry on with the dive around to the west side where there is a staghorn coral garden or currents may make it necessary to return along the southern wall and end the dive in the bay.

The southern wall is an excellent night dive location as coral polyps open up to feed and create beautiful picture. Octopus, lobster and crabs can be seen on the wall along with millions of shrimps.

To the west of Koh Bon island is Koh Bon Pinnacle which is an advanced dive for experienced divers only and can only be dived when conditions allow. The pinnacle starts 18m below the surface and drops down to 40m. The west side of the pinnacle is a steep wall covered in yellow soft corals. This pinnacle is a magnet for large pelagics like manta rays, eagle rays and black tip reef sharks.

Koh Tachai - Thailand

Located 25km north of Koh Bon is Koh Tachai (Tachai island). It's about half way between the Similan Islands and Surin Islands and is often dived on the way to or from Richelieu rock. It is part of Muu Koh Similan National Marine Park.

Koh Tachai is regarded as one of Thailand's best dive sites and is a favourite with dive staff. Very strong currents can make dives in this area challenging. Visibility is usually good, between 20m-30m but can drop to less than 10m.

There are several different places to dive around Koh Tachai and the most popular is Koh Tachai plateau about 1km off the south eastern side of the island. There is a mooring buoy marking the site and it is usually necessary to use the line to prevent being swept away from the dive site by the current. The plateau is a scattering of rocks piled around each other that start at around 13m and drop down to past 35m. The rocks are covered with corals, sea fans, crinoids and anemones. Divers use the rocks as protection from the current as they weave their way around the site.

Marine life on the plateau is exceptional. Divers come here because of the regular manta ray sightings. Whale sharks are also seen here. Leopard sharks are common as are barracuda, trevally and tuna. Hawksbill turtles can be seen and tierra batfish are often hanging out near the mooring line. Smaller stuff can also be found here when the big boys aren't around. Koh Tachai has a myriad of nudibranch species and small frogfish can be fould by the very observant.

Just off the southern point of Tachai island are two submerged pinnacles that also attract manta rays and other large schools of fish. The rocks here create swim-throughs and crevices that are homes for the varied marine life. This is a deep dive with strong currents and is less frequently dived by Thailand liveaboards than the plateau.

Off the eastern coast of Koh Tachai a long coral reef runs parallel to a stunning white sand beach. This is an easy reef that is often dived as a sunset or night dive.