on a balmy morning on the back of a dive-outfitted yacht, about to take a plunge into the deep blue. I'm sharing the experience with a dozen other like-minded scuba divers who have come from around the world to the Similan Islands. Our floating home for this four-day outing is the Mermaid II, a luxurious liveaboard dive boat like Panunee, Aqua One or Dive Master I. But we're not here for the spectacular corals or the variety of reef fish — with more than 3,000 species, it has the highest diversity anywhere on the planet. No, we're here in search of the graceful giant mantas and the elusive whale sharks that roam these waters. We're here for the big stuff from the open seas, known to divers as "pelagics".
The Similans Marine Park is an archipelago of nine uninhabited islands out in the Andaman Sea, some 100 kilometres northwest of Phuket. These jade-green flecks are skirted by pale-yellow beaches, hemmed in by the clear, light-blue, warm waters above the shallow reefs, and finally engulfed by the unfathomable deep-blue sea. This is natural beauty that pulls no punches. Over the last 20 years or so, the Similans have earned a reputation for being an underwater paradise — a place divers return to frequently for what Jacques Cousteau extolled as one of the world's most important marine ecosystems. As Thailand's premier dive destination, this underwater spectacle has become a centre for visitors with adventure on their minds. Divers have been coming to the nine Similan Islands —whose name in Malay, sembilan, simply means nine — since the early days of dive-tourism in Southeast Asia. Of the 35 dive sites around the Similans, only three were badly damaged by last year's tsunami. These have joined four other sites previously set aside by the marine park for a multi-year regeneration plan. leaving 28 immaculate dive sites open to divers, and virtually untouched.
The attraction for divers is as clear as the water. Between November and May, the oceanic currents that well up from the depths of the Indian Ocean bring in one of the largest concentrations of ocean-going marine life in the world. And thanks to the relatively shallow, calm waters around the Similans, divers have a pretty good chance of encountering a behemoth of the deep. Over the years, stories of awesome underwater encounters with pelagics like giant mantas, nurse sharks, leopard
sharks, massive schools of barracudas — even the occasional whale shark — had filtered out of the Similans through divers' anecdotes and dive magazines. It was time to find out for myself.
WITH BUDDY-CHECKS COMPLETED, WE PLUNGED INTO THE GLASS-clear water and sank beneath the ripples, floating like a dozen astronauts to drink in the sights: stingrays, turtles, a galaxy of bright fish and corals, sea fans, feather stars, and more. But we didn't linger. We were heading deep on our first of four daily dives — to a maximum of 40 metres — in search of the giant marine life we'd all come to see. •
A dive boat we'd passed the day before had reported seeing mantas here, at a site called Elephant's Head Rock. As these creatures tend to stay in one area for a few days at a time to feed on these plankton-rich waters, we hoped that luck would be on our side. We descended slowly, soaring just off the underwater cliff — the side of the rock — like eagles, passing a shimmering world of steep coral canyons and razor-edged defiles, fabulously colourful and teeming with fish of incredible variety and size.
With visibility at 30 metres, I could see divers below me watching blue-spotted stingrays skimming the sandy bottom. Further down ---' at 40 metres, the water darkened to a dark-blue cast — the sunlight struggled to penetrate these depths. Our divemaster, Kay, led us
away from the wall into the open ocean, where we floated, suspended in space. Here, the water was cool and dark, an ideal spot for the big stuff but the minutes ticked by too quickly, accompanied by the rapid depletion of our air. Just as we were ready to give up and head towards shallower reefs, I saw pale grey shadows moving out of the blue mists with slow,.confident elegance —three giant mantas. They came straight at us. Ten metres away, they slowly banked, revealing a snow-white underside. With "wingspans" in excess of three metres, the trio soared in a majestic, slow motion circle, like
The Similans Marine Park is an archipelago of nine uninhabited islands out in the Andaman Sea, some 100 kilometres northwest of Phuket. These jade-green flecks are skirted by pale-yellow beaches, hemmed in by the clear, light-blue, warm waters above the shallow reefs, and finally engulfed by the unfathomable deep-blue sea. This is natural beauty that pulls no punches. Over the last 20 years or so, the Similans have earned a reputation for being an underwater paradise — a place divers return to frequently for what Jacques Cousteau extolled as one of the world's most important marine ecosystems. As Thailand's premier dive destination, this underwater spectacle has become a centre for visitors with adventure on their minds. Divers have been coming to the nine Similan Islands —whose name in Malay, sembilan, simply means nine — since the early days of dive-tourism in Southeast Asia. Of the 35 dive sites around the Similans, only three were badly damaged by last year's tsunami. These have joined four other sites previously set aside by the marine park for a multi-year regeneration plan. leaving 28 immaculate dive sites open to divers, and virtually untouched.
The attraction for divers is as clear as the water. Between November and May, the oceanic currents that well up from the depths of the Indian Ocean bring in one of the largest concentrations of ocean-going marine life in the world. And thanks to the relatively shallow, calm waters around the Similans, divers have a pretty good chance of encountering a behemoth of the deep. Over the years, stories of awesome underwater encounters with pelagics like giant mantas, nurse sharks, leopard
sharks, massive schools of barracudas — even the occasional whale shark — had filtered out of the Similans through divers' anecdotes and dive magazines. It was time to find out for myself.
WITH BUDDY-CHECKS COMPLETED, WE PLUNGED INTO THE GLASS-clear water and sank beneath the ripples, floating like a dozen astronauts to drink in the sights: stingrays, turtles, a galaxy of bright fish and corals, sea fans, feather stars, and more. But we didn't linger. We were heading deep on our first of four daily dives — to a maximum of 40 metres — in search of the giant marine life we'd all come to see. •
A dive boat we'd passed the day before had reported seeing mantas here, at a site called Elephant's Head Rock. As these creatures tend to stay in one area for a few days at a time to feed on these plankton-rich waters, we hoped that luck would be on our side. We descended slowly, soaring just off the underwater cliff — the side of the rock — like eagles, passing a shimmering world of steep coral canyons and razor-edged defiles, fabulously colourful and teeming with fish of incredible variety and size.
With visibility at 30 metres, I could see divers below me watching blue-spotted stingrays skimming the sandy bottom. Further down ---' at 40 metres, the water darkened to a dark-blue cast — the sunlight struggled to penetrate these depths. Our divemaster, Kay, led us
away from the wall into the open ocean, where we floated, suspended in space. Here, the water was cool and dark, an ideal spot for the big stuff but the minutes ticked by too quickly, accompanied by the rapid depletion of our air. Just as we were ready to give up and head towards shallower reefs, I saw pale grey shadows moving out of the blue mists with slow,.confident elegance —three giant mantas. They came straight at us. Ten metres away, they slowly banked, revealing a snow-white underside. With "wingspans" in excess of three metres, the trio soared in a majestic, slow motion circle, like
prehistoric birds. Then, with a quick flick of their wings, they merged back into the dark void, leaving us in awe.
The encounter was over. We exchanged slo-mo, high-fives all around and lots of excited grunting. I'm a divemaster myself, and have seen plenty of amazing things in the deep blue, but little rivals that sensation, all too rare these days, when you feel yourself to be a small, insignificant part of the great tapestry of nature.
A leisurely 30 minutes later we surfaced. Emerging from the luminous water into the warm Thai sunshine was like being born again. Back on board, refreshing mugs of tea and cold drinks in hand, everyone was happy.