Scuba Diving in Thailand

Last year for Christmas, Brian, Karen, Drew and I went to the Philippines and learned to scuba dive. This year we decided to take it up a notch by going on a liveaboard scuba diving boat for 4 days, 4 nights. We chose the Deep Andaman Queen, based upon lots of good reviews, price, location etc. The boat was large enough for about 21 divers, 5 dive masters, and 8 crew. We left from Koh Lak, north of Phuket, and went out into the Andaman Sea, to dive sites like the Similan Islands, Richeleu Rock, and more. The diving was amazing. Perhaps not quite as vivid of coral colors as what we saw in the Philippines, but still loads of fish, cuttle fish, eels, and more. We did 14 dives in 4 days, so it was a ton of diving! 

This was our cabin, where all four of us stayed. It was actually way larger than I imagined. Honestly, we were so tired at the end of every day, the beds could have been carved from rock, and we still would have slept soundly. But, they were actually very comfy. The cabin was located in the front of the ship, so we did get the brunt of the tossing and turning. Luckily, I had a super strength motion sickness patch that worked really well, for the most part. Let's just say, without it, I wouldn't have been doing any diving, just feeding fishes.

There was an eating area filled with picnic tables that was at the back of the boat. This area below was the only place indoors that was out of the wind other than our cabin. So, if we ever needed to warm up, or we wanted to play cards, we'd go here. We'd also get briefed for every dive here.

This was a lovely sun deck where we'd warm up in the sun, or take an afternoon snooze, of which there were plenty.

This was the diving area. Apparently it is one of the best designed diving platforms on a liveaboard boat. Lots of space to bumble about and lots of room to line up and jump in. The best part was the Thai crew. While they didn't really speak English, they could always anticipate what you needed. They would help you in and out of your gear, help you climb out of the water, catch you if you were about to topple over, anything and everything.

This was our first evening on the boat. Overnight we'd drive 4 hours to the Similans, and then we'd wake up at 6pm to start our 4 dives a day routine. Wake up. Dive. Breakfast. Dive. Lunch. Nap. Dive. Afternoon snack. Nap. Dive. Dinner. Bed. It was amazing how exhausted you were after so much diving. Scuba diving isn't necessarily challenging athletically, but apparently breathing compressed air wears you out. 

This was some of our crew, in the blue shirts. This was the only time I ever saw the cook on the entire trip. 

This is after all of the fun on our drive back to the pier. This trip was great in a lot of ways. Not only did we get to do some amazing diving and got to bond alot as a family in all of the downtime, but I conquered a few fears as well. We got to do a night dive, which I was pretty nervous about in the beginning. But, once we were down there, everything seemed easy. Due to good visibility, we could see each other's flashlights in the water really well, so you weren't totally disoriented as I was expecting.  There was even some current, causing you to have to look ahead constantly to make sure you didn't bump into anything, and even that was ok. Drew, or course, wasn't allowed to wander far from my side, but I felt way more comfortable than I was expecting. 

Brian bought a GoPro camera specifically for this trip, so we got some cool footage of some of our dives. I put the best stuff together into a 7-min video. Click on the link to watch!

Scuba Diving in Thailand