Thailand – 3 Day Live-aboard Simulan Islands

Live-aboard Similan Islands, Thailand Day 57, 58, 59 (March 27, 28, 29)

Its an early morning transport to the harbor, and we enjoy breakfast onboard, heading towards the Similan Islands National Park. Similan means nine, as there are nine islands. The boat is small but comfortable. All 16 guests chill out in the upstairs eating area, small sun deck, or the shared sleeping cabin. There isn’t much else on the boat besides two shared bathrooms, a small kitchen, rear deck, and captain’s cockpit.

the islands are few hours boat ride from Khao Lak

our boat

shared sleeping cabin

Over the next several days, we work our way from Island 9 to Island 4 (1-3 are closed for turtle nesting), stopping in sheltered bays for the evening. Over these days we see; tons of fish, jellyfish, flying fish, glowing-in-the-dark fish, dolphin, turtle, octopus, sea snake, moral eel, and ray shark.

We see more variety of fish on this trip than any other diving we’ve experienced. I was really happy to see clown fish, sea snake, and lion fish. Octopus is always fun to watch, and I shot a video with an octopus rapidly changing colors.

In most places, the coral is not very impressive, but there are a few places with very colorful soft and hard corals. There are several places with heavily damaged reef. No good, because reefs produce the majority of the earth’s oxygen.

The live-aboard is really sweet because there is tons of time in the water, and you can see different fish in the early mornings and late evenings. The food was really good.

turtle 1

octopus changing color

sea snake swimming

dolphin 1

turtle surfacing

dolphin 2

groupers

flying fish

Big Jellyfish. This kind doesn’t sting.

Spotted Shovelnose Ray – largest guitarfish. Usually swim in pairs at the bottom. Male smaller than female. The two small fish next to them are Cobia. They protect the Ray. I think the Rays are making babies right now…shhhh…

I swam into a wall of jellyfish. Ouch!

the water is clear, you can see the turtle swim around the boat. we quickly jump into the water

we saw 4 different turtles at 3 locations. This one is a Hawksbill turtle. We also saw Green turtle. I love turtle. Besides they are cute and graceful. they love to eat jellyfish!

Squid

Orangespine Unicornfish

Yellow Trumpet fish

Black Lion Fish – they come out in the evening

Giant Moray

Titan Triggerfish

Emeror Angelfish

Feather Star or Crinoid

Oriental Sweetlips

Black Unicorn

Longnose File fish

sunset at the bay

watching sunset

red amemone fish

Yellow-lipped sea krait – They are venomous but are not aggressive to divers

Storm in the distance

Water tornado, one took out a brand new dive boat last year

Milk Fish

eating on the surface

blackspotted puffer fish

silver white unicorn fish

we spotted few octopus at different locations

octopus changing color

False Clown Fish – they defend their host anemone against anything & anyone regardless of size with their gaping ‘jaws’. The mother always comes out first and the biggest. When the female dies, the largest male changes sex.
They try to look mean, but they are so cute!

Schooling butterfly fish

Graeffe’s Sea Cucumber

on our way back, a group of wild dolphin were showing off how fast they can swimming next to our boat.

They were playing with us for about half an hour. We are so luck!

Swimming next to our boat, show off!

We got Swedish, Danish, American, any German on this boat. One thing we definitely have in common besides snorkeling – UNO game!

Good times!

The boat returns in the evening, and we stay another night in Poseidon Bungalows. It was a great trip. Next time we hope to be diving and see manta rays and whale sharks.

CLICK HERE to see more underwater pictures and videos.