Welcome aboard our first Manta Queen 5 trip for the 2016/17 Similan Island dive season.
We begin our 3 day 3 night south tour of the Similan Islands and Koh Bon with a great group with an international mix of people from all over the world ranging from the United States to India, France and Poland.
Experience levels from PADI Open Water divers to PADI Advanced and PADI Open Water Courses being conducted onboard.
Day one begins on Anita's Reef for our usual check dive to sort out weighting and buoyancy issues, great dive to start on, gently sloping sandy bottom with colourful soft corals and garden eels. Check dive done we move up to Similan Island 7 where we spend the rest of the day.
Dive 2 we descended down onto Deep Six on the north east corner. Great to see trevallies and tuna alike, hard corals and beautiful swim throughs.
Dive 3 brings us to West of Eden and the famous spearing mantis shrimp that's been there for years, great table corals and stag horn coral populated by colourful snappers and goatfish.
Our night dive takes place on West of Eden as we dived there already during the day. Finger corals, bommies and lobsters galore.
Day two also brings us to the well known Elephant Head Rock for dive one with spectacular pinnacles, huge channels and swim through.
For the next dives we concentrate on Similan Island 9 with Christmas Point and North Point on the menu. White tip reef sharks and great barracudas the stars of the show.
Our sunset dive is at Koh Bon, exploring parts of mooring bay and the wall of the Koh Bon West Ridge, giant mushroom shaped bommies and Maldivian sponge snails.
Day three kicks off in Koh Bon again on the West Ridge for a nice slow bimble along the ridge down to 30 metres.
We stay here for dive 2 on the North Ridge with spectacular coral gardens down around 25 metres, and maybe a leopard shark......
Last dive we visit the Boonsung Wreck for our dose of fish soup, great viz no current and loads to see....a great way to finish the trip.
Congratulations to Michal and Marta for completing their PADI Open Water course.
Well done to everyone who completed their Deep Adventure dives....your all one step closer to being PADI Advanced Open Water....keep it up guys.
Hope to see you all again soon on Manta Queen 5!
