Thailand: Islands - February 2009
Dear English-speaking readers, this page is an automatic translation made from a post originally written in French. My apologies for any strange sentences and funny mistakes that may have been generated during the process. If you are reading French, click on the French flag below to access the original and correct text:
Français I have just returned from a four-day dive cruise to the fabulous Similan Islands in the Andaman Sea, Thailand. Here are some pictures, above and underwater.
Similan Islands
To begin, a few pictures of this fabulous beach of the island called "number 8" of the Similan, where we stopped between two dives.
Nothing has changed since my passage from three years ago.
The same white sand, as fine as flour, the same translucent waves, the same azure bay that can be admired from above, from the big round rocks on which one climbs by clinging to ropes, with wooden footbridges between two blocks of granite.
Atmosphere on board the Sea of Fantasy
For the rest, comfortable boat and great atmosphere! I'm aboard the Sea of Fantasyof the company Eden Divers. I have my single cabin and my diving companions are nice people, easy to live with. No contingent of Germans, but on the contrary a completely international clientele.
We are thirteen divers clients, there are three guides, a videographer, six crew members and an Eden Divers manager on board. In all thirteen nationalities: three French including me, one Canadian, two Japanese, two Australians, one American, two Slovaks, two Swedes, one Turkish, one German, one Israeli, one South African, one Swiss and the Thai, of course.
Update : The story you read here goes back several years... So don't try to book the same cruise at Eden Divers today, the company doesn't exist anymore! It went bankrupt, in the hands of a German who was prosecuted in Austria for fraud, and who was arrested in Thailand in May 2014, according to the articles I read on Thai websites. ThePhuketNews and ChiangRaiTimes.
No cannonballs on board, only nice people!
But for everything to be perfect, the mantas and whale sharks would have had to be there. We hoped for them. Very much so. But none of the big beasts appeared in the blue... So I'll have to come back, on a future trip, to see them! 😉
I realize how lucky I was, three years ago, to meet both underwater ...
Photos under the water
Whatever. The dives were excellent anyway, and I consoled myself with a bunch of other critters, including the inevitable nudibranchs (sea slugs) that I love so much...
Unfortunately, my small Canon (Powershot A95)who had been quaking for some time, let me go for good on the second day. I tried everything to revive him: hot, cold, pats, prayers to Buddha, disassembly with a rusty screwdriver ... In vain.
But I was lucky in my misfortune. The Turkish dive-master kindly lent me her small Powershot S30 with its housing so that I could continue to make pictures.
I admit, the aircraft was not very good, less efficient than my A95. But it was better than nothing. And I still managed to take some nice pictures.
I come back enchanted from these four days of diving, sea and sun.
Tomorrow Sunday, I have to get up very early again. The pickup for the ferry to Koh Lipe is between 6:15-6:45 a.m..
Ah, the joys of Thai pick-up trucks with uncertain schedules! Until the last minute, you can never be too sure that the expected taxi/bus/minivan will arrive... Usually, it always ends up showing up. Never quite at the announced time.
Go. Tomorrow, go to Koh Lipe! And I will find the way to take photos anyway. Promised!
😉
Added on 13/04/2009: below, two links to complete this post.
→ My pictures of the Similan
→ Video of the crossed turtle in East of Eden
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