www.andamandivers.com 3-Day (turned 4-Day) Liveaboard to Similan Islands & Richeleu Rock
All dives w/ buddies:
Suzuki (DM)
Harman & Anne
Lisa
28-28C -- 100'+ Vis w/ minor exceptions...
This would be the 4th dive trip that I would be booked on before I got on a boat. The boat can take up to 20 and something at least 10 is needed for a trip. Six people cancelled and so there is just 4 of us. W/ 5 crew members.

Dive #1/70 -- 70/43'/60min -- "Anita #5" -- Similan
Checkout dive -- incredible visibility -- Lion Fish, box fish, table-fan coral(?) -- very garden like, similiar to some of the best dives on Fiji -- Lisa blew o-ring and had to get a new tank -- looked up and saw waves breaking on rocks, waves/foam/bubbles; thought we were very close but watch said we were 50' down -- incredible vis -- but mask fogging some

Dive #2/71 -- 84/42'/42min -- "Sharkfin Reef" -- Similan large schools of little blue striped fish -- bump-headed parrot fish -- lion fish -- anenomes -- large granite formations underwater -- very fun to swim around. Sting ray. Lots of reds & yellows at 75' which is usally just blue-green; have never seen this before -- incredible vis -- mask fogging worse after toothpaste treatment Looks like we will be able to add a day of diving on to our trip ad-hoc!

Dive #3/73 -- 85/53'/51min -- "Reef on the Rock" -- Similan All I remember is a lot of damn fish -- lots of "blue dash fusilier" or as I would call them "the blue-striped-fish-that-like-to-school-in-large-numbers" (as opposed to the yellow-and-blue-larger-fish that like to do the same). Fish fish fish, lots of fish and not that much coral...

(Night) Dive #4/74 -- 55/32'/41min -- "Andaman Reef #6" -- Similan Basic night dive but really not that many critters -- Lisa / Suzuki say that it seemed like there was a lot of broken coral d2 the wave -- probably washed away a lot of the life. Lisa (who dives here a *lot*) says that she's never seen a place so sterile. This was the first place that seemed like it may have been significantly affected by the wave. But who knows...

All in all a relaxing day on the boat. We spend the nights in these little bays. 5-6 boats. The crew says that it wouldn't be uncommon to have 20 boats here for an evening. I've heard other stories that the diving is great here if you don't mind a lot of other bubbles from divers. Not a problem now so it's probably a great time to be here. The small amount of whiskey I brought was more popular than I thought it would be (note to self: Bring more whiskey next time) but at least it's a sign that I'm with the right people. Did I mention that they actually speak English? Played cards on the top deck. Learned how to play "Farmer's bridge" and another Thai gambling game (we used toothpicks)

Dive #5/75-- 88/54 42min -- "Elephant Rock" -- Similan More of those blue fish and also a huge cloud of gold-fish-like yellow fish. A lot more soft coral here, but all very small (12-18"). A really great thing about diving here is all of the underwater granite formations. Nice little swim through and lots of huge boulders to swim over/around/etc -- a couple of very large but well-behaved trigger fish. Both Lisa and I seem to share the same fear of them and desire to try to get "over it."

Dive #6/76-- 93/60' 41min -- "Fantarea Reef" -- Similan A really great dive with seemed to blend the garden-like qualities of Fiji w/ some of the dramatic elements of Sipidan -- lots of granite -- larger formations this time. Swim through. Large schools of Banner fish and some decent sized reef sharks deeper down. Ridiculously clear. We stayed really deep and ended up just inside decompression limits, although at 18' the thing seemed to give me a small decompression ceiling anyway. Should probably figure out how this works (again) sooner or later.

Dive #7/77-- 95/52' 49min -- "North Point" -- Similan Similar to the previous dive -- lots of granite / fish / little coral. Three Leopard sharks -- 5-6' -- one very close, just sitting there. Lisa went right down to it, just a few feet away, which seemed odd, but it just sat there, so I did too (but just behind her, though :-) After a couple of minutes it had had enough of us and swam off

(sunset) Dive #8/78-- 93/55' 46min -- "Bon West Ridge" -- Similan Different Island -- all the way south I think -- because it was limestone and not granite. Parked the boat in a nice little bay, swam over to another boat and unsuccessfully solicited to buy a bottle of whiskey off of them. Swam in the kiddie-ring. -- pretty good sized surf

More cards at night although this time everyone was a lot more tired. Everyone went to bed pretty early -- I stayed up a bit and worked on the stupid website...

Dive #9/79 -- 86/54' / 38 min (27C) -- "Richelieu Rock" -- Andaman Sea

Richelieu Rock itself, asside from being hard to spell, is a bit of a let-down, being just a small bump sitcking out of the Andaman Sea in the middle of nowhere. Underwater on the otherhand is pretty nice. This dive we ended up w/ a lot of current and bad visibility -- reminded me of Fiji when I was there -- a coral head to dive around (in this case, a rock), a lot of soft coral, sea anenomes and diversity -- and clouds of teeny-tiny fish -- schools of jacks -- some barracuda -- stonefish -- trumpet fish near the surface -- no seahorses, no whalesharks -- a soft coral that I haven't seen before that reminded me of those dandelion thistles that you blow on. Note: apparantely we're luck as the guide says that this place can end up with a zillion boats and as many as 60 divers down at a time. Also: This was a little colder than normal -- 27 vs 28-29 (< 81F vs 84F). I think 25 might be the coldest I could go w/o a wetsuit.

Dive #10/80 -- 95/59' / 45 min -- "Richelieu Rock" -- Andaman Sea

Dive #11/81 -- 97/52' / 50 min -- "Richelieu Rock" -- Andaman Sea
Same same, but different. On dive 10 we saw several cuttle-fish, about 10" long, very up close and personal. As Lisa put it, she was playing with the "husband" while I was watching the missus and a boyfriend. Suddenly the "husband" came over and got in a tassle w/ the "boyfriend" and chased him away (which all happened in my face, which was startling) and then proceeded to mate w/ the missues. Also saw several octopus out and about which was a first for me.
Lots of soft coral, some rather large and healthy -- very pretty. Large sea-fans. Even more fish than previous dives, which was a lot (clouds of them) and at times even affected visability.

I'll just note that this seems like a great dive company, however I think that I don't really like the policy of everyone having to come up at the same time. These divers are all pretty good, but I'd rather have a buddy where we decide when to end the dive rather than having the guide do it for us..... I guess it's just a matter of the dive company and you have to pick the one that works for you.

(Night) Dive #12/82 -- 46/33' / 50 min -- "Ko Bon" -- Similan
Definitely not the greatest night dive -- pretty dead actually and I'm not sure if we really went to the best place -- just around the boat really. -- Did seen some cool eels --- LARGE zebra morrey eel -- and a couple of others -- large crabs -- another cuttle fish (going backwards & forwards w/ the same ease) but otherwise, not many shrimp, the coral wasn't really out. Lots of fish near the boat though -- bioluminescense in the coral -- it's nice to turn the lights off every once in a while (even though you're not supposed to)

Dive #13/83 -- 116/62' / 33 min (27C) -- "Ko Bon Point" -- Similan

This was pretty interesting: It was a small unmarked underwater point, so the boat had to locate it w/ gps. We all jumped off and went straight down to the tiptop of the point 18M w/ the possibility that we'd miss and have to repeat the entire process. The bottom was deep -- at 116' I was sitting about 12' feet above a couple of large (ok -- decent sized - 9') Leopard sharks. There was some current and it was some tough swimming. Here was an example of a dive that I thought ended way way way too soon. After about 20min the guide gave the up signal and then we spent over 10 min at the safety stop, not sure why. I came up w/ 60 B (900psi) and actually manged to say something after this one. It's a long way to come for short dives.

Dive #14/84 -- 81/43' / 55 min -- "Ko Bon" -- Andaman Sea

A very nice last dive in and amongst a lot of great coral. Super clear water -- I was checking out another large leopard shark, and was surprised to see my watch said 80'. There were so many reds and yellows, I never would have guess I was this deep. Tried the cleaner shrimp trick and it didn't work, only to find that there was a large morrey eel (green) just below me which I didn't notice due to the clouds of little fish. Note to self: be more careful about this. Also saw a bamded snake eel for the first time.

Dive #1/85 -- 84/42' / 36 min (19C) -- "North Arch" -- Poor Knight's Islands

Dive along a wall about 150' deep. 20' vis. Cold. Dove along the wall & looked at stuff. Large yellow morey, some fish but not that many. Interesting sponges, etc. Went along the wall until we got to an arch above and tried to swim through that but the current was too strong. Lots of pink/blue fish in the arch. Large blue-green nudibranches w/ lots of stringy ornaments. Due to the cold, the current and the depth, everybody ended up sucking their air way to fast. All in all, not a great dive for such a famous spot.

Dive #2/86 -- 42/31' / 58 min -- "??? " -- Poor Knight's Islands

A lot more of what I was hoping for. Much better visibility. Lots of fish. Short kelp-like-plants growing along the bottom, about 3'high. Very personable fish, seemed like they really wanted to interact w/ you but maybe defending their territory? Lots of small blue-silver fish w/ 2 dots. Some larger black angel fish w/ white dot, very interactive. More used to the cold and the wetsuit on this one. In the cave large sting-ray (1.5M across?). More eels. Jacks in the cave that actually reacted to the hand waving trick.

While in Costa Rica, I took a vacation and flew up to Roatan Island in Honduras. It was 4 flights, but only cost $300ish w/ TACA. There are a lot of resorts on this island, the most recommended being CocoView which was full among others. I was lucky enough to meet up w/ Joe & KJ who corraled me into just staying in a cabina in the town of West End.

Before I get to the diving, I'll note that I just love this town. Built along a stretch of road (of coral sand) along the beach, this place has the best mix of primitive-funky-goovy and touristy that I've ever seen. I was booked for 6 days, extended to 10 and still want to go back and hang out for a month. I'm *really* glad that I didn't stay at a resort.

I dove w/ Coconut Tree Divers (also stayed in the Coconut Tree cabinas) and they were a great bunch, mostly Auzzies, but still wonderful people despite that fact. The price was right, so I ended up doing an Advanced Diver course and a Nitrox course with them. A great dive shop, $20/dive including equipment!

As for the diving -- I guess I'm spoiled by the South Pacific. Also, I've heard that the reef on Roatan has changed over the years, but most people seemed to think the diving was good for Carribean diving. But there just seemed to be a definite lack of ... everything, especially fish. Not many eels and not much interesting soft coral.

The water was, most days, *very* clear 80'+ viz. It was a tad cold (79F) and I wore a light wetsuit for the first time ever. A couple of the dives were note-worthy: The west end (black rock) seemed to have the most fish, coming close to what I'd call normal diving. Seems to also have strong currents, though and on one dive, we stayed at 60' the whole time and eventually got blown off into the blue. The two wreck dives were a lot more interesting than I thought they would be. One was a large freighter and you could go inside the engine room (large and dark). On the last day we ended up really exploring some of the canyons in the coral which turned into, in some cases *really* long swim-throughs which finally challenged my level of comfort. But beautiful though. On the last dive, playing w/ a large green morray, out in the open.

This isn't to say that the diving was bad. It just wasn't the South Pacific. But it was cheap, fun and relaxing and I'm looking forward to going back for a month even if the diving is just an excuse to hang out at West End.

total bottom time on my computer so far: 54hrs temp: 79F weight: 8lbs no suit / 10lbs shorty (perfect weight)

The dives:

Date	Dive# day/total	max/ave depth	time
3/17/06	1/87	30/25'	50
	2/88	30/24'	49
3/18/06	1/89	98/51'	48
	2/90	32/19'	55
3/19/06	1/91	105/60'	46 (32%EANx)
	2/92	69/45'	47
	3/93	71/41'	55
3/21/06	1/94	75/36'	47 (31%EANx)
3/22/06	1/95	70/37'	51
	2/96	68/43'	48
	3/97	114/70'	41 (29%EANx)
	4/98	78/43'	56
3/24/06	1/99	83/50'	50
	2/100	70/40'	51