Similan liveaboard trips provide scuba divers with fantastic diving around the 9 Granite islands in the Andaman sea. The Similan Islands are one of the most popular dive destinations in the world.
The Similan island national park provides scuba divers with over 500 species of corals and amazing marine life. The variation of dive sites with reefs, massive boulders, caverns in the Andaman Sea’s clear blue water makes this a perfect liveaboard getaway.
Thailand liveaboards offer 4-6 night trips to the Similan Islands, Koh Bon, Koh Tachai, and Richelieu Rock. Premier dive liveaboard boats also have selected trips at the Similan and continue to the Surin Islands and Myanmar. Another option for Similan Islands diving trips is the South Andaman.
Mergui Archipelago
The clear blue waters of the Similan islands are abundant with marine life and striking corals.
During your liveaboard tour around the national park, there are two types of dive spots on the east coast: gently sloping reefs in the shallows full of small anthias, lionfish, and clown triggerfish snappers, emperor fish, moray eels, and scorpionfish, to name a view.
In the deeper parts, you can often see leopard sharks, Khul stingrays, garden eels in the sand, and on the bommies full of colorful soft corals, the well-trained eye can find ghost pipefish, nudibranchs, cleaners shrimps, and little porcelain crabs.
The West Coast of the Similan provides you with a whole different kind of diving. The shallow starts with a hard coral garden where you can see turtles, scorpionfish, and schools of snappers. The deeper parts of the dive sites here are made from huge granite boulders where strong currents can blaze. You can see reef sharks, napoleon wrasse, manta rays, and whale sharks pass by looking for the smaller critters such as ribbon eels, pygmy pipehorses, and fire gobies.
Elephant head Rock
located between Similan islands 7 and 8 is Elephant head rock, consisting of enormous granite boulders where you can have some great swim-troughs and channels. You have a fun photographic moment at one channel where there is a small porthole size opening in the Rock where you can get your photo taken by your dive buddy.
The early morning dives provide you with the best chance to see white tip reef sharks and leopard sharks that hang out around the dive site’s deeper areas. For other larges marine life, you can see turtles, napoleon wrasse, and barracuda. Those who prefer the smaller critters can closely look at the rocks where many nudibranchs and shrimps are often found. Another macro life that you can find here is pygmy pipehorse, ribbon eels, and ghost pipefish.
Anita’s Reef
The Check dive for many dive safaris in the Similan is at Anita’s Reef. This lovely dive site starts in the shallows with a sloping hard coral reef where you can see schools of snappers, lionfish, scorpionfish, and moray eels. At 20 meters, the reef ends, and the sandy seafloor appears. This is where partner shrimps, blue-spotted stingrays, and lots of garden eels like to stay.
There are limestone bommies covered with beautiful purple and pink soft corals and large gorgonian sea fans in the dive site’s deeper areas. For the majority of your dive, you can hang around here with large schools of glassfish that hang around and get hunted by rainbow runners and trevallies. Look closely at the bommie, and plenty of macro life will appear, such as cleaner shrimps, nudibranchs, ghost pipefish, longnose hawkfish, and frogfishes.
Christmas Point
Another dive site that consists of massive boulders is Christmas Point and is located on the island nr. 9. The Granite boulder makes some fun swim troughs and channels where you can see plenty of marine life, such as nudibranchs, clown triggerfish, angelfish, and cowries.
On the other side, in the sandy areas, look for leopard sharks and reef sharks common to see here. Under the overhangs and sandy patches near the boulders, look for ribbon eels, pygmy pipehorses, and fire gobies. Also, keep an eye out for manta rays and whale sharks are seen here on occasion.
Christmas point can be a challenging dive when the currents are strong.
Donald Duck Bay
Donald duck bay is an excellent dive site for night diving with a shallow hard coral reef and protected from strong currents; you can explore all corals for small shrimps and crabs. While scuba diving at night, many critters appear from the hiding place, making it a fascinating dive. Look for hunting moray eels and lionfish, and barracuda that might follow you to look over your shoulder for a tasty meal that will swim away from their hiding place.
Shark fin Reef
The top of the dive site submerges out of the water and looks like a shark fin that disappears into the depth of 40 meters. The granite boulders form a gigantic ridge with some fun swim-throughs, and parts of the ridge are covered in hard corals. You can see here humb head parrotfish, leopard sharks, reef sharks, and on occasion, manta rays will appear out of the blue.
The Similan diving season is from half October until April/May. The reason is that the Monsoon in the other months of the year gives the reefs a chance to recover during these months. Whenever you find agents or liveaboard operators trying to sell you trips to the Similan from June to September, do not book with them because the park is not open during this period.
A Similan diving safari leaves from either Chalong in Phuket or Tab Lamu near Khoa lak. Including in the price is the transfer from your hotel to the liveaboard and back. A transfer from and to the airport also consists of the cost as long as it is the same schedule as the liveaboard. Just keep in mind that you can not fly within 24 hours of your last dive.
An unforgettable diving live aboard in Thailand. Everything was perfect on the boat, friendly crew, nice food ,and really competent dive guide. I’m looking forward to doing my next dive trip to Indonesia with Asia Liveaboard
Did a 5D/6N liveaboard on Diva Andaman to Similan & Richelieu Rock, Thailand. Even though the weather conditions were not the best, we still had very good visibility and some great diving. Manta Rays at Koh Bon & Koh Tachai!
The boat is fabulous! Very well looked after, nice cabins & excellent food!
If you are looking for a different experience from busy diving holidays I can strongly recommend this trip.
A big thank you to the professional crew and the rest of the guests as well.