Anita's Reef is on the west coast of this small island, just off Similan Island No.4. The reef is made up of table corals and staghorn corals. On the gentle slopes you can see lionfish and the reclusive and beautiful clown triggerfish and colourful Oriental sweetlips. There's a tall soft coral bommie smothered in purple soft tree corals and sea fans, a good place to rest and watch the underwater sea life go about its daily cycles.

Make your way slowly south across the sandy bottom and you're bound to see the fields of resident spotted garden eels. Often buried in the sand you can see blue-spotted Kuhl's stingrays. Look out into the blue and maybe you'll catch sight of an impressive two metre fantail stingray swooping past.

Boulders dominate the Similans landscape to the south where you'll find giant trevally hunting for easy lunch.

Anita's Reef has large sandy patches and easy currents, that make it an ideal site for an early check-out dive on a Similan scuba liveaboard cruise.

On the north east corner of this island, Batfish Bend has fantastic diversity but is somehow overlooked by most Similan liveaboard trips and therefore is one of the more pleasurable experiences here.

Batfish Bend gets its name from the schools of 50 or so longfin batfish that seem to hang out here. These fish are inquisitive so, as long as you approach them slowly, you are likely to be able to get a close up encounter.

Schooling batfish, Similan liveaboards

There are expansive reef flats and gently sloping beds of healthy hard corals. There are some of the largest table corals you are ever likely to see, staghorn corals, hibiscus corals, branching and encrusting fire corals, and massive lobed leather corals, as well as white wire corals.

Sometimes swimming high above the reef in open water and at other times resting in slots in the pore corals, you'll find red-toothed triggerfish, surprisingly named after their front teeth colouration and not their splendid blue bodies. Watch for blackbelt hogfish hiding out under the table corals. Adults have red heads and yellow tails, their rather shy juveniles have dark brown bodies with splendid bright yellow spots.

Other fish common to this Similan dive site are raccoon butterflyfish, meyer's butterflyfish, humphead unicornfish, Oriental sweetlips and bigeye. Big fish that you may see here include brown marbled grouper and impressive-sized blue yellowtail emporers. Thailand's last few Napoleon wrasse can sometimes be found here too. These magnificent creatures have been shamefully hunted into near total obscurity in the Similan Islands for Chinese fish market demands, just like in most places in the world.

Breaking the splendour of the reef are several large boulders at the deepest section of the dive. Here are often resting leopard sharks, some huge greenish sea cucumbers (stichopus variegatus), up to ½ m long, and nesting green triggerfish.

The boulders are decorated by gorgonian and knotted sea fans and these in turn host cleaner and multibar pipefish - strange red and white striped creatures. Many nudibranchs including chromodoris geminus (magnificent sea slug) also make this Similan liveaboard site their home.

As if that were not enough even for the most hard-to-please divers, this site happens to have more than its fair share of cleaning stations too. Often you'll see fish such as dogtooth tuna and chevron barracuda with mouths agape, posing in the most compromising of positions.

This dive site has always had some nice reef, perfect for a check dive, but has recently became a local favourite due the sinking of Atlantis X, a local charter boat, in August 2002.

Wreck diving with Dive The World Thailand

The Similian Islands have always lacked wrecks to dive, so when the captain of Atlantis X noticed the boat was taking on excessive amounts of water and decided to try to ram the boat onto the safety of the beach, divers found they had a new option to choose for the PADI Advanced Open Water Course - wreck diving in Thailand! The boat breached on the hard coral, and gradually sank backwards so that the bow lies in 16m of water, and the stern 30m.

Atlantis X was a 27m twin-engine mono hull cruiser, offering a wide range meals and beverages. Unfortunately, all the beers have now been removed from the wreckage. Although the wreck has had little time for coral growth, you'll still have the pleasure of seeing batfish, lionfish, hundreds of juvenile fishes, and a black-blotched stingray.

Beacon Beach is located just to the north of Beacon Reef on the east coast of Island 8 (Koh Similan), the largest of the Similan (often incorrectly spelled as "Similian") Islands.

Beacon Reef features a steep drop-off with a striking diversity of hard corals from 35m almost to the surface. This site has the greatest variety of healthy hard corals in the Similan Islands, exceeding 300 species. There are countless nudibranchs, scorpionfish and devil firefish, one of the most beautiful fish in the sea.

One of the more mysterious residents of this reef are the bigeye fish that slowly cruise the reef flats or hang out under the coral ledges. These fish have an amazing ability to change colour from a deep red to vivid silver. It almost appears as if they are changing their colour to fit their mood.

Beacon Reef is located just to the south of Beacon Beach.

Boulder city is a submerged site about one kilometre off the east coast of island no. 3 and about 400 m south east of Sharkfin Reef. Due to its exposed location it is possible to see almost anything on this Similan dive including whale sharks and manta rays. It is always an exceptional dive.

Diving with schools of barracuda - Dive The World Thailand

As its name suggests, Boulder City is made up of a jumble of very large boulders lying on a flat sandy bottom. There is very little coral growth here except for green branching cup corals and orange sea fans, but the algae growth here is substantial, meaning a prolific amount of nudibranchs, including the twin maginificent sea slug and Spanish dancers.

Leopard sharks are frequently seen as well as white-tip and black-tip reef sharks. You can see Napoleon wrasse, chevron barracudas, black snappers, one-spot snappers, slender unicornfish as well as some of the smaller species such as jawfish (endemic species to the Similan Islands), purple and red fire gobies and neon fusiliers.

Breakfast Bend derives its name from the beautiful early morning light here, and the coral is still in great shape despite damage to the southern areas of Island 9 due to the Asian tsunami in 2004. There are larger but less frequent corals on the steep reef slope where plate corals dominate.

Orange jewel fairy basslets in staghorn coral at Breakfast Bend

The easy paced nature of this dive means it's an obvious dive site for a check-out dive at the beginning of your Similans dive trip, and there are lots of sergeant majors darting around making it an ideal site for snorkellers.

The reef slope drops to 18 metres then steep banks descend further to 34 metres where you can see black-spot garden eels. In the shallows, leopard sharks are seen resting in the sand and often octopus may be found lurking in the vicinity.

At the southern most point of the dive the reef gives way to large boulder formations lying in deeper water. There are few corals here, but due to the stronger currents in this more exposed area, there is a good chance to see cobia and larger tuna species that frequent the Similan Islands in search of food. The rocks form several small swim-throughs and channels where you may be lucky to find resting white-tip reef sharks.

Chinese Wall is named after the jumble of granite boulders stretching out from the southern point of Similan Island No. 4. The boulders drop down to 27m and their crevices are home to large giant moray eels and refuges for bumphead unicornfish. The eels are often being groomed by cleaner shrimps. The shrimps' claws pick off bits of algae, loose flesh and parasites; an act as much like doctoring as grooming.

To the west of the wall are coral gardens rising to 12m. In the shallows further to the west are more boulders forming crazy overhangs, swim-throughs, tunnels and caves. If you're lucky, you'll get to see the two metres long resident group of white tip reef sharks lurking in their hideouts. Also known as Bird Rock, Chinese Wall is one of Similan diving's best kept secrets.

One of the most colouful, scenic and often exciting dives in the Similan Islands, a dive at Christmas Point begins by heading down a mooring to a sand-rubble bottom at a depth of about twenty metres, then heading deeper to the southwest where one finds several giant arches and some of the best swim-throughs in the Similans. Some great underwater scenery.

The rock walls are highlighted by radiant soft corals and the sea fans can be very large here. Cruising all around the site you may find schools of trevally constantly darting in and out of the blankets of small fry that cover the boulders.

Look in the rubble areas for things like ribbon eels and fire gobies, and check the sand plains beyond the arches for white tip or leopard sharks.

A "must see" dive site on your Similan liveaboard dive trip.

Coral Reef is located on the north side of this small Similan island, and lies in an east - west direction. Your dive will start at a point furthest north, away from the island in deeper water. Descend to the bottom at 29 metres and you're sure to disturb a particularly well camouflaged Kuhl's stingray or two, resting and half buried in the sandy flats.

Giant moray eel - photo courtesy of Marcel Widmer - www.Seasidepix.com

Winding your way slowly south via several coral patches and white whip coral beds, you've a great chance to see black-tip sharks that frequent the Similans and the reef's outer edges. Also here are small schools of ever-inquisitive longfin batfish.

As you work shallower the reef becomes more established with fine examples of solid table corals, lobed pore corals and yellow pore corals, covered in hundreds of blue and orange christmas tree worms. Fish common here include black and white snapper, yellowhead snapper, longnose emporer and occasionally a stalking and sleek great barracuda.

Safety stops at Coral Reef can be eventful too, as the reef is shallow enough for you to pass the time searching under ledges for the numerous and sometimes very large giant moray eels. These mean-looking but mainly harmless creatures, often yellow or green and brown at the Similans, can grow up to almost three metres long. Altogether, Coral Reef is a welcome contribution to any Similan diving safari.

This is another deep dive following a ridge on the north side of the island that features finger table corals, featherstars and large knotted fans in its deeper sections.

Blue fin trevally at Deep Six, Koh Similan

Green turtles and white tip reef sharks can be found and leopard sharks on the sand. Fish life to be seen here are tuna, rainbow runners, yellowtail barracuda, bluefin trevally and yellowspot and Java rabbitfish, with lots of blue-spotted sting rays. There are several impressive swim-throughs too, quite common when diving in the Similan Islands.

Deep Six was badly damaged during the Indian Ocean tsunami on 26 December 2004, particularly on the east side. There are many examples of the tsunami's devastating effects with snapped and upturned table corals, uprooted fans, and smaller fragments of fire corals lying around.

Easily the most recognisable and photographed landmark in the Similans, Donald Duck Bay is named after a rock on the north side of the bay that resembles the cartoon character - not the most prominent large boulder that balances precariously at a seemingly impossible angle, but another rock in front and slightly further out of the bay.

Crab eating jellyfish - Photo courtesy of Marcel Widmer, www.seasidepix.com

Similan Island No. 8 has a national park camping area and Donald Duck Bay on the north west corner is the most popular mooring spot for day trippers and Similan Islands liveaboards alike. Consequently, a lot of food makes its way into the bay and so the molluscs, gastropods, crustaceans, and cephalopods are particularly well fed and large-sized here. This makes for fascinating night diving.

Scurrying across the rubble bottom are huge bull crabs, red octopus and cuttlefish, all hunting for scraps and tasty morsels. The most interesting section of the dive site are the boulders running out of the bay on the northern edge. These form several swim-throughs, and house emporer shrimps, red round crabs, decorator crabs, triton shells and cone shells.

Donald Duck Bay also has several friendly, large green turtles and you are more than likely to come across them even on a night dive. Unfortunately, they have developed a taste for bananas and one wonders how long it will be before they swallow something else that will not sit so well on their stomachs. Please, when you are on a dive trip in the Similan Islands, do not throw anything overboard or try to feed the fish with leftover food.

Located on the east coast of the island, this dive site has the most incredible bommie in the Similan Islands. Just to the south of the main reef and from a depth of 21m up to 12m, the concentration of marine life is unequalled in the Similans. You'll find a breathtaking array of blue and purple soft corals, lobophyton soft corals, and red bulb tentacle anemones.

Red soft coral trees at East of Eden, Similan Islands

Elsewhere on the reef you'll drift gently along the lower reaches, spellbound by the magnificent maroon and golden gorgonian sea fans - some larger than yourself! Starting your ascent, you'll move over huge bankings of brown and sky blue fringed sheet corals (echinopora lamellosa) with masses of violet jewel fairy basslets. As you come shallower still, the dominant life forms change to table corals and stubbly finger corals with their resident brown and cream spiny-tailed puller damselfish.

The abundant fish life here includes regal angelfish, yellow masked angelfish, large schools of blue-triped snappers, and groupers. East of Eden is always a popular choice for Similan liveaboards.

The site is named after an unusually shaped rock that juts out of the water just southwest of Koh Similan. The huge boulders that form Elephant Head Rock create daring swim-throughs, arches, caverns, gullies and tunnels.

Elephant Head Rock, Similans - photo courtesy of Marcel Widmer - www.Seasidepix.com

Yellow goatfish and snappers always hang around at the deepest levels, as well as several species of lionfish, grouper, and the occasional olive ridleys turtle or hawksbill turtle.

Back towards the centre boulder pinnacle, giant trevally dive past, performing their daring mating manoeuvres. Mating couples sport different colours, one being typically silver, the other jet black.

The southern most point of the site has a tiny group of submerged pinnacles in very deep water. A great place to observe small reef sharks. There is a possibility of strong surge and current. This makes it one of the more challenging Similan Islands diving sites.

Fantasy Reef is a great spot to enjoy the grandeur of underwater boulder formations that cover this huge area. Located on the west coast, the friendliest fish in the Similan Islands hang out here, including clown triggerfish, normally a difficult fish to approach, and cowtail rays in the sand.

Please note that Fantasy Reef has been closed to all Similan diving liveaboard charters since 1999.

Located off the southern point of island no. 5, Hideaway is sometimes known as Barracuda Point. The complete Similan diving site which shows, at a glance, the different topographies that dominate the local seascape.

Red grouper at Hideaway - Similan Islands

Starting out in the deeper water to the south of the dive site, you'll find some very spartan, isolated sunken boulders on the sandy sea bed. Not much breaks the feeling of isolation here save for a few dark green branching cup corals, clinging grimly to the boulder surfaces, and the occassional burst of action as a blue-spot stingray sparks into life or a blacktip shark is disturbed and darts away. Most of the colour available here is provided by the solitary clown triggerfish, exploring the rocks.

To the north is a section of shallower reef dominated by mozaic and star brain corals and lobed pore corals. These dome colonies provide secluded homes to small families of common lionfish. Orangespine unicornfish and powderblue surgeonfish graze on the coral surfaces. Red fire gobies can often be seen hovering just above the sand.

Knobbly wart corals are obscured by reticulated damselfish swarming around its fingers, black pyramid butterflyfish flit elongantly through the shallows.

th Point has large granite boulder pinnacles situated off its north coast. These boulders are lying on thirty five metres and rise to ten metres, forming swim-throughs and gullies between the rocks.

As you dive down the rocks you've a good chance of encountering leopard sharks at the bottom.

In the shallows closer to the island, between eight and fourteen metres, there are enormous flat plains of cauliflower leaf corals and stubbly finger corals. Covering as much area as you can here, you're bound to run into green turtles and black and white banded sea snakes.

The northeast features a sloping reef, the southeast a more dramatic drop-off. A series of parallel rocks resembling fallen logs are the setting for this Similan diving site.

To the southeast is a large swim-through that provides an opening to the other side of this dive site. The marine life is more diverse there with clown triggerfish, half-moon triggerfish and schools of batfish, pallette surgeonfish, blue-faced angelfish and bannerfish. It's also a good place to spot passing sharks and larger rays.

A great place for a night dive on your dive Similan liveaboard cruise, Snapper Alley is the south bay of this most northerly Similan island.

Snapper Alley's shallows hold some great examples of large, healthy and hard table corals and sheet corals. The cracks are home to painted spiny lobsters, whilst the underledges provide sleeping accommodation for ember parrotfish.

Nocturnal creatures you can come across are cuttlefish and the secretive and quite rare osculated dwarf lionfish. This firefish has spectacular markings on its pectoral fins and "eyes" on its dorsal fin.

This site on the northern side of the island features large towering rocks at depths greater than 25 m. The large alleys the rocks form, host gorgonian sea fans, barrel sponges, common lionfish and bearded scorpionfish.

The area is frequented by barracuda, tuna, trevally as well as home to long-nose butterflyfish, yellowtail wrasse, angelfish and yellow or black and red ornate ghost pipefish, swaying motionless in the branches of the orange sea fans. Clownfish and anemonefish busy themselves restlessly in the tentacles of their host anemones.

Koh Bon is one of the best places in Thailand to see manta rays, especially from April to May, though the last couple of years have seen Mantas almost year round.

Koh Bon Island lies an hour or so north of the Similan Islands. It has a 33 metre wall on its south side, facing a small cove, with a stepped ridge pointing west and down to over 40m. It is at the edge of this ridge that divers are drawn as they peer into the blue looking for that first sight of a black and white fin that signals an approaching manta ray.

Diving at Koh Bon with manta rays - Dive The World Thailand

Manta rays are not the only reason that Thailand dive liveaboard cruises visit Koh Bon though. Leopard sharks are common at the ridge on the sandy flats below the wall, and white tip sharks can be seen roaming the depths off the edge of the reef. Soft corals the colours of turquoise, yellow and green dominate. Listen carefully and you'll hear the warning clicks of hundreds of nervous damselfish, and the coral crunching of hungry titan triggerfish, but don't neglect the wall itself which has plenty of critters to keep you interested including various types of moray eels.

To the west of Koh Bon Island lies Koh Bon Pinnacle. This Thailand diving site lies in deep water (18m - 40m) and is exposed, so consequently it is only possible to dive here in favourable conditions with experienced or advanced liveaboard divers. The west wall is steep, covered in small, yellow soft corals, and has a large cavern with a fish trap at its entrance. There is a smaller pinnacle lying to the north. Making your way back up the mountainous terrain, keep your eyes out for passing eagle rays, black tip sharks, and manta rays.

The small cove of Koh Bon provides good grounds for a night dive. The reef is made up of pore corals, with shrimpgobies peering out of the holes, and coral ledges. There are splendid decorator crabs, the intelligent red octopus, and red and white banded boxer shrimps.

Koh Tachai (Tachai Island) lies about halfway between the Surin and Similan Islands and is rated as one of the best sites for Thailand scuba liveaboards as it's normally visited on the way to Richelieu Rock from the Similans.

There are several dive sites around the island but the most famous is Koh Tachai Plateau which lies southeast of the island, about one kilometre offshore. The plateau is a submerged crowned reef of hard sheet corals, and scattered boulders. These boulders provide great swim-throughs and cut-through opportunities. They also provide refuge for tired scuba divers caught unawares by the sometimes hectic currents!

Frogfish at Koh Tachai with Dive The World Thailand

This site is renowned for its currents and a dive briefing on any Thailand liveaboard scuba trip will include advice on where to find shelter. A dive here is not for beginners and not always easy but it is worthwhile because, as any diver knows, where there are currents there are big fish. Chief among these are manta rays who make regular appearances and effortlessly glide over the boulders.

Other big visitors are whale sharks and nurse sharks. Leopard Sharks are common and hawksbill turtles are often seen. Other common fish you'll see here are blue-dash and yellow-backed fusiliers, red-tooth triggerfish, bigeye trevally and unicornfish.

The south side of Koh Tachai is the deeper side, and a logical place to start your dive. The north side features a huge abandoned fish cage which is useful as a navigational aid. At the edge of the coral crown is a cleaning station, popular with tiera batfish which always makes for a pleasant safety stop as you hang on the line at the end of the dive. Koh Tachai is often dived early morning by liveaboard but also makes a nice sunset dive.

Richelieu Rock rates as one of the best places in the world to dive with whale sharks and is easily the best site in Thailand diving for this amazing activity. Encounters with the whale sharks, the largest fish in the ocean, are rare almost everywhere in the world.

It's not the only Thailand dive destination where whale sharks are seen but Richelieu Rock certainly attracts more than its fair share. With nothing else for miles around, the whale sharks are attracted to the rock to feed on the rich planktonic blooms that occur here. A liveaboard charter is your best bet for diving here, as once they arrive, they tend to hang around for days, with an entourage of followers in tow, most notably cobias.

Diving with whale sharks at Richelieu Rock with Dive The World Thailand

Swimming with such a large animal, known to grow to fourteen metres in length, is a never to be forgotten experience for any diver. Sightings occur about 10% of the time. Some dive seasons see more visitors than others and generally February to April is the best time for a visit if your aim is to enjoy the exhilaration of swimming with these massive creatures onboard liveaboards in Thailand.

Richelieu Rock boasts great biodiversity too and is worth several dives, with or without whale sharks. It consists of one main, horse shoe shaped splintered rock pinnacle, with several other smaller rocks around its edges. The limestone rocks are covered with anemones, sea fans, barrel sponges and soft corals of all kinds. From tomato anemone fish, yellow boxfish, white-eyed moray eels and mantis shrimps to nurse sharks, manta rays, one metre Malabar groupers and chevron barracuda, there's always plenty of life to grab your attention on this dive.

The problem for underwater photographers diving Richelieu Rock is which lens should you dive with. On the one hand there's the resident frog fish and seahorses that make such willing macro photo subjects. Mating cuttlefish and octopus are also common sights. Then, on the other hand, there's the chance of something really big swimming by and leaving you wishing that you'd selected your wide angle lens!

Richelieu Rock can be a deep dive but there is also plenty to see at shallow depths all the way to the surface. When the currents are strong there are always places to find shelter.