The Similians. 9 islands each covered with tropical jungle and surrounded by snow white beaches and crystal clear water. A diver’s paradise. This is the main reason why people come to Khao Lak.700 hp speedboats whip you across a 60km stretch of the Andaman Sea and just 90 minutes later you’re there. The east coast (land facing) dive sites are hard coral reef dives, with some soft corals interspersed. Whilst the west coast (sea facing) sites have incredible rock formations, with huge granite boulders and giant fan corals.
This place is definitely in my top 5 dive sites. Our average vis was about 25 meters, which, for those who don’t dive, is pretty damn amazing. And I’m told it averages around 30 meters, so it wasn’t even at its best. It’s like swimming in a pool with loads of fish. At one stage we had a school of barracudas circling above us, with moray eels looking for lunch below us, and if that wasn’t enough we saw 2 turtles on the same dive!
As you’d expect with such an awesome dive site just off the coast, there are heaps of dive shops on the mainland. And the thing with diving is you don’t just want to dive with a professional shop, but a place that is fun. And not that try hard sort of fun, but real fun. So it’s like looking for that special diamond ring in Hatton Garden, London. As it’s the stories, beers and friendship that make the dive experience after all.
We visited over 10 dive shops, and eventually settled on Khao Lak SCUBA Adventures (KSA), not because they are the only locally owned dive shop in the area, but because of the people. Kate completed her Open Water Course in just 4 days thanks to her awesome Swedish instructor, Maria. (No she didn’t pay us to write this. And yes, she is probably going to read this post.)
In the words of Maria, Kate is now not just a qualified diver, but a good diver. Because she was taught by a f’ing good dive instructor (also in the words of Maria). She even fended an agro Trigger fish in attack mode off of Kate on her first dive. But it’s not because she saved my fiancee from death by Trigger fish that I count her and her crazy boyfriend John as good friends, it’s because they are great people.
The diving mixed with the people is making it hard for us to venture on to our next destination, but we’ll be back to share another Tiger or 7 outside the dive shop next year.
K&M
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