Scuba Diving, Living Onboard!
For all you divers out there I want to share with you a wonderful way to have a diving holiday with your friends and family.
Over December the Marsh family, Morris family from Brisbane and the Anderson family from S.A all got together and had a wonderful 5 days diving at the Similan Islands and living on a boat.
We chartered the boat for the 10 of us and we had kids from age 8 up to some of us approaching our 50's. All very young and sprightly of course!
The boat was called Kingfisher and slept 10-12 people. There were two double bed rooms and two rooms with two double bunks in each of these rooms. There were 2 bathrooms which had basins, loos and showers. Everything was very basic and small but clean and comfortable. You spend very little time in the rooms anyway so it does not matter too much. For those who feel claustrophobic you can sleep under the stars on the deck.
On the top deck there was a large dining room table to seat 12 and the front of this deck had deck chairs and seats along the sides (with shade and full sun). We were served 3 meals a day plus fresh fruit, tea, coffee and water. The food was really tasty and was Western and Thai. There was also a supply of cool drinks and beer which one could buy. We took along our own wine.
As we had chartered the boat we could decide when to dive, where we wanted to go and when to stop to let the kids do a bit of exploring on one of the beautiful beaches. The snorkelling was wonderful so for the non divers it was still lots of fun. We could do up to 5 dives a day if we wanted but we found the early morning dive, afternoon and night dives the most exciting.
The cost for a 5 day, 5 night charter with food, tanks, weights and a qualified dive master/instructor was 265,000 baht, plus an additional small fee to hire BCD, regulator, and any other equipment needed, plus National Park fees.
We all flew to Phuket and Kingfisher Diving Co fetched us from the airport. We drove about 40 minutes to the dive shop in Patong to collect our hire equipment and then were driven to the boat. There were a few minor hiccups and we left for the seas a bit later than planned, but it was no problem once we hit the peace of the ocean, a few beers and a good night's sleep to arrive at our first dive site at 6am.
It was one of the best holidays we have had as a family and the diving was spectacular. The water is crystal clear, warm and full of so many fish, corals etc. We missed out on the sharks but were lucky enough to see a Manta Ray. Wow what a sighting and one I will not forget in a hurry. If you need any more info please give us a call (See Green BWG directory for details)