Day 5 of the liveaboard, 06:15, close to sunrise

Today’s schedule

Heeey! A Bluespotted Ribbontail Ray (we just called them blue spotted stingray), haven’t seen one of those in ages

They’re so elegant

Since they are so underrepresented in my photos, this one deserves a second photo

And even a third

Close up of some coral

I think this is the best dive site so far here in the Similan Islands. Visibility is awesome. It’s teeming with life and all very colourful

I mean, look at that!

Stunning here at ‘3 Tree’

Beautiful fish this one, an Orangespined Unicornfish, and boy are there many surgeonfishes!

I just love the dark blue, red, green, purple and white combination

I think it’s the Common Bluestripe Snapper (or is it a Bluestriped Grunt?)

Nah, it’s got to be the snapper

These fish often swim in big (loooong) schools

Another octopus

They’re very smart animals

I don’t remember now what kind of fish this is but what I wanted to point out was the two cleaner fish, one of them is actually cleaning in the big fish’s gills

Oh come on, what are these called again?

Blue Surgeonfish, they’re called surgeonfish because of the (allegedly very sharp) ‘scalpels’ they have where the body becomes the tail (bright yellow within blue in the photo)

Surface interval at Koh Bon, we’re not the only boat there

I’m practising my ‘coral foreground blue background’ photos

Moray Eel with Cleaner Fish

Puffer

Parrotfish

Ginormous Clam

Emperor Angelfish

Approaching Tachai Island

The staits leading to the sun deck

Blue Surgeonfish again

Batfish

Lovely undamaged corals here

Like this one; closer to Phuket (eg at the Phi Phi Islands) there are a lot more inexperienced divers who at some point will accidentally damage the coral, it’s much more pristine here. Also because if I’m not mistaken the national park here is always closed for half of the year (to limit the exposure to humans). Not sure if just for diving or even just to visit the islands

What is this? It looks like someone took a Spiny Cushion Star and told it to act up and put some effort into looking like an actual star, I mean it has the colouring of some of the cushion stars I have seen but also some arms (legs?)

Another Crinoid

Ooh, I love the shape and colour of this coral!

Close up, it looks like some upside down purple broccoli

Mr Titan is triggered again

Big fan coral

Crinoid, still haven’t seen one swim

Batfish getting a proper clean

Soaking up the last rays of sunshine

Isn’t it funny how we still say ‘The Sun goes down’ when it’s really more a matter of Earth turning it’s back on the poor Sun?