The Similan Islands can be found about one hundred kilometres northwest of Phuket, Thailand. They comprise nine granite islands covered in tropical jungle. The word Similan is said to be given by Malay fisherman who named it “The Nine Islands” (Sembilan is “nine” in Malay) and now the islands are identified by a Thai name and a number, for example, Ko Huyong (Island #1), located at the southern end of the chain or Ko Miang (Island #4) located in the middle. The Similan Islands are national parks and there is limited accommodation on them.

The Beetle has always been attracted to the idea of diving in the Similan Islands, and they are reckoned to be the second best dive site in SE Asia, after Sipadan. It is not possible to stay on the Similans and dive, so the usual arrangement is to stay on a liveaboard. These are not cheap and range from US $300 and upwards for 3 nights stay. Generally speaking with liveaboards, you get what you pay for, so the more you pay, generally, the better living accommodation you have, nicer food and so on.

This was not to be my case as I soon discovered. First, I was told that I would not be sharing my cabin with a male, and that the cabins had bunk beds on top of each other. What actually happened is that I shared my cabin with a young Canadian guy who was very nice, and the beds were about two feet apart and not bunk beds at all. Next I discovered that the boat was in fact over booked and that there was one dive passenger too many on board. There was a jumble around with the mostly male group and someone slept with the three dive masters in what can best be described as a hole under the bow, though in the end, there was a fight to sleep on top of the boat because it was so hot and damned uncomfortable. Except it rained and then there was a fight to get back down again. The food was okay, but we started to run out of food, especially items such as milk after two days. I started to feel a little bit ripped off, I’d paid a lot of money – US $600 which I couldn’t really afford, but did so because I felt it was a once in a lifetime chance, and that I was in Thailand, why not, but I came away feeling that it was extremely poor value for money and the diving wasn’t actually that good, and I would not repeat the experience.

There were 15 of us and three dive guides. Usually, you are put into groups according to experience, but this did not happen here, so we had mixed ability groups, and then I discovered that of the 15 people, 5 people were novices and had only just completed their PADI open water course, which seemed incredibly mean for them – the Similans is not easy diving, strong currents and deep. The problem with being in mixed groups is that in these conditions, you usually have to surface when the first person is low on air and needs to come up to the surface, and in this case, this was sometimes after 20 minutes. Not ideal. Having said this, the beginner divers coped extremely well with the difficult conditions, far better than I would have at their level. It wasn’t their fault, they’d just been ill advised to go to the Similan Islands. There was one couple who didn’t mix much with the rest of the group, who between them had a couple of hundred dives. It seemed to be their mission to destroy as much sea life as possible on each and every dive. Between them, they seemed to flatten and break any hard corals that came in their way. Night dives were the worst times to witness this mass destruction. The dive guides said and did nothing about this blatant lack of consideration, and bad dive manners. None of us wanted to dive with them, and after a while they were allowed to go off and do their own thing as they were also avid photographers and were usually far behind the rest of the group anyway.

Night dives were a complete fiasco. The first two sets of night dives were taken by just two of the dive masters, so picture this, 15 divers and 2 dive masters and a whole bunch of inadequate torches. They bumped, jostled, elbowed, finned each other in the face, the back, leg, you name it. It was horrible and unpleasant and if someone saw, as happened, a turtle, then everyone swooped on it and shone their feeble torches in its eyes. On the last night dive, there was only one dive master for the group as the other was ill. Each of the dive masters was very nice and interesting to talk to, and I should say that they were all safe, but it became increasingly clear that they did not get on and that this was the first time they’d all worked together. The crew were pretty lazy. They would help you if they were being watched, but if there was no-one around, they’d just sit and watch you.

What was it like? Disappointing, in a word. Very quiet, not huge amounts of aquatic life, certainly no leopard sharks which are supposed to be common there (the picture is of a leopard shark at Sipadan, about 3m long but totally harmless). Strong currents in places, a lot of surge in others, and in one case, 3m visibility. I’d done a couple of dives around the Phi Phi islands on a cattle boat (i.e. 45 divers), which whilst the visibility was not that great, the diving was far superior to all but two of the dives I did on the Similan Islands. Something was wrong, seriously wrong, it should not have been like this.

At first, I thought it was me, that maybe I had hyped the Similans up too much in my mind, especially having dived in Sipadan just two weeks earlier which was in every way far, far better than the Similans. No, I am an experienced diver, I don’t think it was a case of expecting too much, but it just didn’t hang together.

When I got back to Bangkok, I put a message on the dive board of the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree (an excellent resource) about my experience asking if other people had had a similar time. Slowly, slowly, the replies came in: who did I go with? Which sites did we dive and so on. Eventually, with input from dive instructors based in Phuket and other dissatisfied customers I pieced together what had really happened. It seems to be like this: the owner of the boat is greedy, he pays the crew including the dive masters very little, but is good at marketing. The three dive masters had never worked together before and were relatively new to the Similans and one is well known for not looking after their charges. Theï¿Â½dive sites we visited were largely not the best for diving, but more convenient for the sailing schedule. I am not pleased that given the money I paid that we didn’t even tick off some of the best sites, we just didn’t. A classic flog it and ignore the complaints scenario.

So what did I learn, and what is the motto of the story? It wasn’t all a disaster. Getting wet, i.e. any kind of diving is usually good, and there were two excellent dive sites we visited, but the rest, the remaining 12 were distinctly lack lustre, considering the Similan Island’s reputation – and the night dives were appalling. I went right at the start of the season, and this was the boat’s first trip of the season (old boat, new season). Maybe I should have waited until later in the season when operations became smoother. I’d recommend asking around, getting personal recommendations by people who have made the trip. Ask the right questions, like how many divers per dive guide? Are the groups segregated by experience? Which sites do you go to?

If anyone has had any good experiences of the Similans, I’d love to hear from them.