20.01.2004 - 07.02.2004
Thailand: Phuket, Khao Lak, Similan islands, Phi Phi island, Hat Yai
Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur
It's time for quarterly retirement or at lest we will give it a shot and see how it goes. We started our first long trip by flying to Phuket where we took a taxi to Patong beach for a good night's sleep and to do some shopping for dive gear that we needed for the rest of the trip. As it turned out it was a bad choice, girlie bars with loud thumping music until the early hour was not what we needed after a very long fight, so in the morning we picked up the equipment we needed and took the bus north to Khao Lak.
In Khao Lak we were booked on a liveaboard with Sea Dragon, they also booked a room for us at a nice place with tall coconut trees, a good restaurant and not far from the centre of town. After a good sleep we started our diving at a shallow local reef with loads of nudibranch (small colourful snails) and lot's of other wonderful creatures. The next evening we were off for the liveaboard that was in a harbour an hours drive up the coast, the first night was at sea so we woke up to our first dive at 06:00 at Richelieu Rock where sadly the visibility was poor (plus the fact that with several other boats things got pretty crowded). After breakfast off we went again through the various dive sites in the Similan Islands, where every day was dive, breakfast, dive, lunch, dive, dinner, night dive, sleep and you it again for four days then back to shore to sleep. We also saw Manta for the first time, Jorunn jumped in the water for the dive, took a look under water, and shouted Manta!!! Everybody got into the water very quickly. Some of the places we stopped were: Richelieu Rock Koh Bon, Turtle ledge (Surin), Batfish rock, Gorgonian Valley, Three trees and many more.
We needed a few day rest after all the diving so we spent the days in the sun on the long white sandy beaches and evenings strolling around and eating good food very cheaply. Rest time was over and it was time to move along so we hopped into a minivan to Krabi pier where we took a fast ferry out to the beautiful Island of Phi Phi. We had been here before but there was a couple of dives we really wanted to do now that we had more experience under our belts and Phi Phi is really a great to chill out and get some diving in. This time we tried Island Diver (not recommended at all), where we first dived Bida Nia and Palong wall (south) where the diving was good and we saw two moray eels have a nasty fight and one was losing badly. A few days later we took off on a speed boat for a bumpy ride to Hin Daeng and Hin Muang (purple rock). After many equipment problems we finally hit the water. What an amazing site as this is two very large pinnacles a hundred meters from each other covered in purple soft coral that drops off to 45 plus meters to the sea floor. We went through a gap in Hin Muang to about 30 meters to look at a sleeping leopard shark when I looked behind me I saw a large number of fish (Cobia) swimming at me, along with our first WHALE SHARK, 3 to 5 meters long with a large mouth and lot's of spots. Whale sharks only eat plankton so are pretty harmless. The rest of the dive was pretty much a blur as there was so much to see and I was still getting over my first whale shark siting. Hin Daeng was just as spectacular as Hin Muang with breathtaking colours and creatures at every turn. All the fish, moary eels, nudibranch etc looked bigger here than at other dive sites. We wished we could stay longer, but it was time to head back to Phi Phi as we were off again the next day.
Back on land we took a minivan to Hat Yai where we spent the night before we took the overnight train to Kuala Lumpur. We arrived in KL early in the morning so started off a bit groggy but it did not take long to get sorted out and get to our hotel in the middle of the city. We spent the evening roaming the city and enjoying all the sites, smells and sounds of this beautiful city. At night we walked the city streets looking for good food and entertainment, all this was close at hand as we stayed close to Petaling street where there are places to eat and lot's of entertainment as this was the main street for shopping (knockoffs) and it was packed with people. We were looking forward to Sipadan, the "Mecca of diving".
Pictures from the Similans
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