Khao Lak, Thailand – November 17th – 24th, 2016

Khao Lak, a beach town on the west coast of southern Thailand, is the hub for many liveaboard SCUBA trips going to the protected Similan Islands, Richelieu Rock, and surrounding areas. We were lucky enough to secure a discounted last minute booking on a 4 day / 4 night trip and even more lucky to actually make it to Khao Lak, since we were almost stranded on Koh Bulon Lae (refer to last blog post). We had one full day before boarding the boat which we spent eating touristy Thai food (yum and so easy to read the menu!), walking the town, dealing with Andy’s missing debit card (likely eaten by the ATM as an evening snack and lost forever), and relaxing in our nice air conditioned hotel room. The town is very touristy and as such, had a ridiculous amount of handmade Thai gifts which would have made perfect Christmas presents/souvenirs. We found this very irritating since we had shipped gifts the week before and some of the gifts were… let’s just say… less than ideal. Hat Yai did not have the mecca of perfect gifts that Khao Lak did.

Prior to this trip, Andy and I had logged a total of five scuba dives, four of which were part of our open water training, and all of which were in the frigid water of the Puget Sound in Seattle. Based on our inexperience (and fear of drowning / killer marine life), we were more than a little nervous the next evening, when we boarded the Manta Queen 6 (aka Excalibur) along with nine other divers: two Frenchmen, a Dutch couple (currently living in Switzerland), a German couple, a Swiss couple, and a Russian. Along with our fellow scubateers were three dive masters. The group clicked right away and our fears were soon set at ease. We were paired up with the two Frenchmen, Tiboh and Frederic, for the 15 planned dives and PADI advanced open water diver course. Our instructor, Marina, was amazing! She was a myofascial surgeon in Russia before quitting her all-consuming job and becoming a full time scuba instructor.

After a very rocky night of sailing, during which I heavily dosed myself with Dramamine to avoid yet another fun night alongside the porcelain throne, we arrived at the location of our first dive site in the Similan Islands. Our wake-up call came to the tune of the head dive master screaming down the cramped room corridor, “Wakey wakey, eggs and bace-y! Dive briefing 30 minutes.” (quick note on the wake-up call: Every morning the second half of the “wakey wakey” changed. I found this hilarious, while non-morning passengers, like Andy, could only laugh about it in the afternoon.)  After gearing up, we jumped into the warm, 84 °F (29 °C) water and instantly fell in love. Diving is like entering an alien planet. Although you can’t breathe the atmosphere, the scenery is stunning, and the inhabitants are strange and exciting. There was colorful coral and marine life everywhere!

On-board our first liveaboard scuba trip!

The motto of Khao Lak Scuba Adventures is “Dive, Eat, Sleep, Repeat.” This motto came to be more of a way of life. Each day, we woke up at 6 am, were in the water by 6:45 am, and completed four, approximately one hour dives, by sundown. Between each dive, we ate and studied for our advanced open water certification. We completed a total of 15 dives, including a night and wreck dive, in the span of 3 ½ days. It was absolutely incredible (not to mention exhausting). The dive highlights included clown fish families that act exactly like they do in Finding Nemo, two octopus, all kinds of moray eels, cuddlefish, giant jellifish, scorpion fish, lion fish, huge grouper and napoleon fish, and swimming with the ever-curious bat fish. We also really enjoyed the night dive, where different resident alien species were active and feeding. As I reflect now, there was actually way too many trip highlights to mention. The real take away is that we loved it and the four days went by way too fast.

The scenery from the boat and photos showing us as model students (even studying during our beach time!)

On board the Manta Queen 6. The cabins were small to say the least, we'd estimate about 6 sq. ft. of standing room. 

The only part of the scuba adventure that we didn’t love was the ear infections we got after the trip.  This problem was easily remedied since it turns out that the US may be the only place in the world where an ear infection is an inconvenience at all. Back in Khao Lak, we strolled down to the nearest pharmacy, told them our ears hurt after diving, and received wide spectrum antibiotic drops for the bargain price of $5. Within two days, the ear pain was gone. 

For even more details on this portion of Dandy's Grand Adventure, our scuba company is also writing a blog about our scuba liveaboard trip. You will be able to check it out on their website: http://www.khaolakscubaadventures.com/blogs. As of today, it has not been posted yet, but we will update this blog post when it does. Thanks to Andreas, our fellow scubateer, for providing some absolutely incredible underwater photography!

Photos taken by scubateer extraordinaire Andreas and Khao Lak Scuba Adventures.

Underwater photographs by Andreas showing clown fish, moray eel, scorpion fish, and Dandy! 

More underwater photographs by Andreas.