Similan Islands...diving

Jai and I have just got back from a fabulous four day, 14 dive trip in the Surin/Similan Islands on a dive liveaboard vessel the MV Phoenix.

I was the only European onboard with the divers coming from Singapore, Japan and Thailand. The whole crew (skipper, chef, 3 deck lads, 2 dive masters) were all Thai.....it's a real big turn around from when I started going to the Similans 10 years ago when the divers and Dive Masters were all either European or American. As my new Asian friends announced on a number of occasions 'Our Time has Come!'. And it certainly has.....the cinematic equipment and laptops that everyone carried put my miserable little camera (cutting edge 10 years ago!!) to shame! It was an absolute pleasure diving with these guys (Jai was the only lady diver, apart from Da Da one of the Thai Dive Masters)...they were extremely polite, modest and very good fun....especially when we started hitting the Thai whiskey at night!

Anyhow, here's a few photo's with Jai being featured quite a bit....she IS a pretty impressive scuba diver....and enjoys posing underwater. I dunno, whenever you point a camera at a Thai Lady, they just GOT to strike a pose!!!

Here is one of these crazy Boxer Shrimps...angry little tarts. Apparantly, if they get miffed, they have been known to smash through a diver's mask...so better not to confront them head on for a photo.

It's rare to find seahorses...but The Similan Islands offer these opportunities as it is such a brilliant place to dive...and full of marine life.

Here's a moray sticking its head out...we saw plenty of these eels...some were pretty big. I saw 6 sharks on this trip...I was the lucky one....right place, right time.

Plenty of puffer fish all over the place.

Typical of Jai to find a gurt grouper...shoot it and then bring it back for us all for several meals onboard. We were well outside the National Park (no take area) when we found this critter.....
so, all legal!!

Fantastic clarity allows for some real nice photo shots. Here is Jai dropping down against the sunlight...me taking photo from beneath her.

See...Jai is always mucking about and posing.

Quite a few of our guests are now getting into the diving....courteousy of my pre-dive PADI course....and some have gone on to take the PADI Open Water Course. If you can do your course (much cheaper to do it here in Phuket than UK) then you too could experience one of these fabulous dive liveaboard trips......you'd be mad not to!!