Manta Queen 3 Similan Island Liveaboard set off, the boat filled with excitement it was the begining of the end, the last trip in the season.
A last chance to say good bye to the Similan Islands.
Day one started on Similan Island number 7 with a dive at West of Eden where the giant morays where cuddling together under the massive gorgonian sea fans. Dive two was at the famous Deep Six we visited the resident spearing mantis shrimp and enjoyed the scenic views of the big gorgeous sea fans. Dive three was at a dive site called Elephant Head Rock where we enjoyed seeing the ribbon eel, and in lovely swim through we found a white tip shark chilling in the deeps. To end off a great day of diving we plunged into the darkness for a night dive at Turtle Rock with hunting moray eels, squid and octopus at the end.
Day two started with a stunning dives at North Point where we saw some more kuhls stingrays, morays, white tip reef sharks, the amazing sea fans that look so luscious and heathy on the outer boulders and the cutest seamoth. Dive two and we’re at Christmas Point for our last dive in Similan Island number 9, and we were greeted with sharks in the deep and a monstrous barracuda waiting for us in the swim through.
Dive three we went to Koh Bon where we dived the West Ridge with the nudibranchs and snappers, we had a friendly visit from the napoleon wrasse and his girlfriend, followed by our first MANTA RAY of the trip to wave us goodbye, we had at least two different Mantas as one was quite small, maybe 3m and the second a huge one perhaps 6m! Dive four was at the beautiful Koh Tachai where we dove the Dome and we enjoyed the beautiful coral gardens and the schooling fish above us and not to mention the spectacular Manta Mania show put on by at least 4 Mantas, we had the entire dive with them swooping and looping around us, dancing with each other and with us, this was for many ‘the best dive ever” of their lives!
Day three we are still at The Dome and we see our Manta friends again as soon as we descend they were waiting for us to say Good Morning, but this time they let us look around a bit more so we could appreciate this awesome site, the beautiful corals, the tons of barracudas, giant trevallies, massive rainbow runners and too many more! Next up we spend the rest of our day at the amazing Richelieu Rock where we enjoyed three beautiful dives full a huge variety of marine life including sea horses, pineapple fish, frog fish, moray eels in all shapes and sizes, nudibranchs, ghost pipefish, barracuda, and some friendly batfish during the safety stop.
Day 4 and first dive is on Hin Luang, the little yellow diamond pinnacle 300m from the island of Koh Bon, zero current made this sometimes challenging dive very easy and beautiful, we saw juvenile angelfish and octopus and lots of banner fish waking up and munching little specks of plankton. We stayed in Koh Bon and went to the North Ridge for dive two and as always our resident leopard shark was hanging out waiting for us to take photos of him, he’s quite photogenic it seems! We also saw sea snake, morays, scorpionfish.
With a heavy heart we headed back towards Khao Lak, but not without a final farewell from DOLPHINS! We had these majestic mammals around Manta Queen 3 for a good 20mins or so, they wished us well and let us on our way to do one last dive at the Boonsung Wreck where we enjoyed being surrounded by fish in every direction, loads of scorpion fish, lionfish, morays and nudibranchs.
This was an amazing end to an amazing season, beautiful conditions with warm clear water, little current and best of all- Fantastic guests! Thank you all so much for making our last trip so enjoyable, we hope you had as much fun as we did!
Congratulations to our newly certified PADI Nitrox divers Hector, Sean, Pernille, Malin, Julie, and Adrienne. Also to our new PADI Deep Specialty divers Sean, Jackie, Julie and Kailyn and last but not least our newly certified PADI Advanced Open Water divers Nathan, Antoine, and Edwige. Special shout to Emil who completed his PADI Open Water Diver Course- a whole new world of diving awaits you!
We hope to see you again next season,
The Team of Manta Queen 3 powered by Khao Lak Scuba Adventures - Big Thank You!
