Similan Diving Safaris - Liveaboard!

Walker's Inn, the orange building, in Khao Lak

Six days ago we arrived in Khao Lak, a small beach town in Thailand that is the starting point for many liveaboard trips to the famous Similan Islands. The Similans are a chain of nine islands that form a National Marine Reserve area. To the north is another famous chain, the Surin Islands.

We'd negotiated a cheap-er taxi ride (200 baht, instead of 300-400, or $6 instead of $8-10) after walking a little ways from Phuket Airport. Compared to our visits to Cambodia, and somewhat to Vietnam, the local taxis, minibuses, and other point a to point b transports are a rip-off scam. Many drivers will pretend that there are no government buses that run to other towns, such as Khao Lak, and will try to convince you that it is best to go with them instead (often for 5-6 times more the cost). A minibus from the airport would have cost us about 600 baht per person, or $18; the government bus was 200 baht total ($6!).

Dive locations in the Similan Islands

After that, the bus ride was pretty uneventful. We almost jumped off too early, when we thought our GPS said we were further along - but thankfully, we stayed on until the actual town. (Sometimes you need to be sure your equipment is functioning properly.) :)

Khao Lak sits at the edge of a National Park, the Khao Lak / Lam Ru National Park. Imagine this: two to three-story guest houses off the Main Road (e.g. Hwy 402), and above that, masses of jungle and trees climbing steep hills. The air was moist and damp, and we had frequent rain showers when we arrived, adding more mist and cooling things off somewhat. In between, the sun would break through, and suddenly it was swelteringly hot. And this is a pretty cool time compared to the hot season, from February through April.

We bunked up at Walker's Inn, a very cheap but pleasant guest house right off the main road. It's a big orange three-story building, and we had a nice squeaky but comfy king-size bed with a private shower/toilet. The room was 500 baht/night total, or about $12. It's sometimes hard to find beds that aren't rock-solid hard - we always ask to see the room, and the softness of the bed is a big deciding factor. The other main factor is good wifi signals in the room.

Similan Diving Safaris main office in Khao Lak

Walker's also had pretty good and inexpensive Thai food, served in the bottom floor restaurant. Other foreigners at the restaurant told us they often went to Walker's for meals as they had one of the best wifi spots in town.

After our first lunch at Walker's (pad thai and tom kha soup - both pretty good), we headed into town to talk to the scuba shops about a liveaboard trip. We talked to three shops: Khao Lak Explorers, Khao Lak Scuba Adventures, and Similan Diving Safaris (in that order). We skipped Wicked Diving entirely, although they were top-rated in my guide book - their prices started at almost $1,000 - more than other shops.

The M/V Dolphin Queen, one of Similan Diving Safari's 2 liveaboard boats

We decided on Similan Diving Safaris because of a number of criteria:

1) Experience: they are the oldest shop in Khao Lak, 18 years old

2) They owned their own boat and ran the whole operation. Many other shops (both 

Khao Lak Explorers and KL Scuba Adventures, and many others) are basically "booking agents" - they don't own the boat you go out on, or manage the crew operating it. You book a bunk, and maybe get a dive guide from the shop. It's a bit nebulous. You can tell because the ships all have the same names: Manta Queen 1, 2, 3, and 7.

By contrast, Similan Diving Safaris (SDF), owns two boats: the Dolphin Queen and Similan Explorer. They pay their Thai crews well and have excellent dive master guides. They generally try to have smaller groups per guide - usually 4 divers per guide. Other shops put 5 divers per guide typically.

Boarding the Dolphin Queen! No the wreck is not it ;)

3) A Good Deal: when we talked to SDF, the owner of the shop happened to be there. Joe (coincidentally, the same name as our friend Joe in Japan!), told us all about the boat we'd be on, and then offered us a sweet deal: if we got on the next day's trip, a 4 day 4 night trip, he would give us the last Private Double bed for the same price as the general bunk bed cabins. We also got a discount for having our own gear (except tanks & weight).

4) Guest feedback: As we were leaving to think things over, the guests from the first season's boat trip returned to the shop. We got some great feedback from a lady named Lynn from Colorado. They'd had a great time with SDF and recommended them highly.

There she is, the Dolphin Queen

After considering Devlin's work schedule and the above criteria, we went with SDF on their next day's trip: a 4-day, 4-night trip to the Similans on the M/V Dolphin Queen. The next day at 11 am, we dropped off our scuba gear to be loaded on the boat. At 3:30 pm, we were loaded onto minibuses and headed to a main port about 10 minutes from Khao Lak. The boat sailed all the rest of the evening and part of the night to reach the Similans.

More in the next post about our first day of diving, and what we saw!

Our double bed room on the Dolphin Queen - cozy!

The main eating and hang-out space on the ship