Similan

Thailand's most beautiful and diverse group of islands, liveaboards to the Similan Islands are some of the most popular diving cruises in the world, and certainly the best diving in Thailand. They comprise nine granite islands covered in tropical jungle, washed by a clear blue tropical ocean and blessed with fine beaches. They lie in a 25 km long north-south chain, 65 km offshore from Phang Nga Province in the Andaman Sea. The Similan Islands National Marine Park, which also includes Koh Bon Island to the north west, was opened in 1982 and it is now fully protected.

The eastern side of the islands features hard coral gardens which slope dramatically from the surface down to thirty metres. At several of the sites large coral bommies rise from the bottom and are covered with soft corals, sea fans, and an enormous amount of unusual fish. Here Similan diving is easy and navigation simple, allowing you to explore at your leisure.

The western side, north and south points of the Similan Islands can offer faster paced, more exhilarating diving as currents swirl around the huge granite boulders. These smooth, rounded boulders make dramatic formations, overhangs and swim-throughs. The drama of just looking up through the clear water at these majestic rocks is satisfaction enough for some scuba divers, as there are few places on earth like this. Growing on these boulders are some of the most colourful soft corals imaginable. In the larger passages or channels between the boulders, the fans can grow to three metres, and are often so tightly packed that it makes it impossible to swim through.

If you enjoy watching and photographing small fish, then Similan Islands diving is hard to beat for the sheer numbers and varieties of tropical fish. Leopard sharks make appearances on a regular basis and we also see white tip and black tip reef sharks.

At a few of the sites, gorgonian fans and hard corals were broken and over-turned by the tsunami of December 2005, but there are many sites that survived without any significant damage. The Similans remain the premiere destination for diving in Thailand.

Scuba divers will be pleased to find good dive sites where they can dive up to the recreational limit of 40m, with some plunging much lower. There is an assortment of marine life, ranging from mantas, to ghostpipefish, to sharks. Whalesharks are sometimes seen in the Similans as well, although much less than in the past.

The Similan Islands have a bit of an exclusive character to them. If you can manage to find your way there you’ll find an unspoilt island inhabited by few, but there aren’t popular packages that attract hordes of people. A bit of forward planning and roughing it might be necessary to enjoy these islands, unless you are prepared to sign up for a live-aboard excursion.