Since getting open water certified last year, we’ve been trying to dive in more and more places around the world. After diving the crystal clue tropical waters of Cancun in the fall, we decided to give Thailand a try. This trip, we did a liveaboard for the very first time. Now I only want to do dive trip where you eat, sleep, dive, and repeat all from a boat — all day, every day.

The team at Super Divers Phuket helped us coordinate everything for our dives during this trip to Thailand. I highly recommend checking them out if you’re interested in any type of diving around the Phuket area, whether it be a fun exploratory dive (no certification needed), open water certification, or guided dives for those who are already certified. They made sure everything was set for us months in advance. Once we arrived, there were absolutely no hiccups and coordinating our dives couldn’t have gone smoother!

Across the span of three days and three nights aboard the Manta Queen V, we completed 11 dives and got our advanced open water certifications, meaning we can dive up to 100 ft now!

Thailand is known as one of the best diving destinations in the world, and I would definitely come back to explore more of the sea life around this area! Our liveaboard took us to the Similan Islands, a small cluster of islands just to the west of Phuket.

Gorgoues blue sea stars were ubiquitous throughout all of our dives. The coral structures around the Similans was so full of life, supporting families of Nemos, Dories, and plenty of other tropical fish. We came across giant triggerfish over 2 ft in length (like the one below), blue spotted stingrays, needlefish, and a school of giant barracuda!

Sadly, we did not encounter any big guys like sharks or manta rays, even though December is a great time of year to start seeing them at cleaning stations.

It’s hard to stray from tropical dives after experiencing the Similans in Thailand. Maybe next time we will be more lucky and encounter one of the larger creatures of the sea.