MANTA QUEEN 7 Trip 02.11.2015
On the 2. of November, Manta Queen 7, set out on trip number 37 towards the tropical Similan Islands.
After a good night’s sleep we woke surrounded by beautiful blue waters, white sandy beaches and the famous nine Similan Islands. We dove "Anita's Reef", "West of Eden", "Deep Six" and to top it all off we plunged into the mysterious darkness of "Hide Away Bay" for a lovely night dive. We saw a huge list of things, ranging from garden eels, giant morays, ribbon ells, loads of shrimps, blue spotted sting rays, sparring mantis shrip and loads more. At the end of the day, after a lovely dinner, everyone fell into their beds tired and happy, looking forwards to the next day.
Day two started with two more dives in the Similan Islands, "Elephant Head Rock " twice, and "Christmas Point", where most groups were lucky enough to see some white tip reef sharks, a turtle, napoleon wrasse and one group even saw a Jenkins whip ray. With a stunning sunset dive at Turtle Rock exploring the maze of swim throughs, and I quite "the best dive of the trip"
Excited to see what was next on the agenda we headed towards Koh Bon Island diving the famous "West Ridge" some groups saw Manta Queens 7 first Manta Ray of the season and at Koh Tachai Island we saw a lot of the bigger schooling fish such as trevallies and barracudas, that we even got to witness hunting during the sunset dive. After yet, another great day of diving, great food and a few beers, everyone headed to bed. After one more dive on "The Dome" we headed to "Richelieu Rock", where we spent three dives of day four and as always we weren't disappointed. We got to see pipefish, frog fish, harlequin shrimps, morays, tiger egg cowries and loads of schooling fish again.
Early on the last day we dove into the depths of "Hin Luang " a perfect dive to wake up too. After that we dove "Westridge" one more time, where we were joined by some lovely sea snakes. With a heavy heart we started heading back towards Khao Lak, but not without stopping at the local "Boonsung Wreck", also known as fish soup because of the amount of fish that swim around. We saw loads of nudibranches, puffer fish, scorpion fish, lionfish and then headed back happy, but tired.
What a great way to enjoy the diving at the Similan and Surin Islands on a liveaboard. Enjoy 5 fantastic days on a Similan Liveaboard... Manta Queen 7 is a must do while on your holidays in Thailand.
