After two trips off it felt great to be back aboard Manta Queen 6 to head out with a new group of guests for another 3day/3night adventure in Similan & Surin Marine National Park. We got off to a flying start with sightings of Mantas on both dives at Koh Bon.
Tachai Pinnacle lived up to it's alter ego, the "Dome of Doom" with a green monster engulfing the dive site. Despite the chill, ghost pipe fish, giant barracuda, schools of bat fish, giant morays, juvenile oriental sweetlips and juv. angel fish kept our divers entertained. The following morning, conditions had improved drastically and the dive ended with an encounter with schooling chevron barracuda.
We cruised over to Richelieu for three lovely dives on the rock...Sedrick the Seahorse was posing happily for photos, along with peacock mantis shrimp, zebra moray, pipe fish, cuttle fish, harlequin shrimp, bent stick pipe fish and schools of snapper and trevally in the shallows. After the infamous nipple rub before our Sunset dive, Richelieu didn't failed to disappoint when a 3-4m Whale Shark popped by for a visit.
The trip ended with two wreck dives, the first on HTMS Pra Thong originally the USS Dodge County, a navy freight ship used in WWII, recently sunk off the mainland shores. Fish life is beginning to appear, but it will take a few years before the 98m long ship will reach it's full potential as an artificial reef. The second and last dive of our trip was at Boon Sung, teaming with marine life as always.
Congratulations to the 5 new Advanced Open Water divers: Adam, Anders, Tinus, Kim and Vladimir who completed their course successfully on the boat. A big thank you to all our guests on board Manta Queen 6 .
Happy Diving!
