SW Thailand - Trip report - July 2009

I arrived in Bangkok and spent the weekend there, enjoying the great food, the gorgeous temples....and the Thai massages! After a few days there I was ready to escape, and took a short flight to Krabi, landing on the SW coast of Thailand 45mins later. This area has a beautiful landscape and topography, combining karsts (cool odd-shaped steep "mountains"), soft, white sandy beaches, tropical jungles, exotic waterfalls and ancient temples.

I was met by Charlie at the airport, who was very helpful and knows the area very well...pretty cool guy too! Our first dive day was on his dingy, which we took 18 miles out to a nice sunken reef with an amazing coral bottom. We were lucky to get good viz (it´s the rainy season now) - about 30 feet (15m). Charlie got a decent grouper, I missed one. We then moved to another offshore island, where the current was faster. Here, we nailed several trevally and banana squid, and I shot a nice mackerel for this area, about 5 kilos (11 pounds). Personal best, actually. =) The next day we took the ferry to the islands of Phi-Phi (where the movie "The Beach" was filmed). Of course, absolutely gorgeous...and still great viz! We headed to a spot outside the National Park, and hit another nice, much larger coral reef, with nice drop-offs and open blue water around. Here we shot nice octopus, batfish, and "almost" some really nice snappers, that were too smart for us. We moved spots and ended the day with a few more misc. fish for the dinner pot....and 4 spiny lobster. Yumy!!! Day 3 gave us 60 feet (30m) vis again.. We saw sea turtles, blacktip sharks and some amazing coral heads that housed some really nice grouper. But really smart ones, and with a lot of deep holes to hide in. We did manage one grouper, a 4kg Spangled Emporer (a 4 star eating fish), a 3kg sweetlips, and 2 trevallies. To summarize the diving in this area, I can say that one will be amazed by the beauty and richness of the coral reefs, as well as by the smarts of the fish towards hunters! There are many fish to hunt, albeit not huge, but you really have to work for them. Which is a great challenge, in my opinion, as you really get to stretch your skills. A decent spearo will get plenty for his dinner, and an occasional trophy fish is also possible. I want to thank Charlie again for hosting me on a great trip. He was super helpful, friendly, knows the area & good fishing spots very well, and has a great sense of humor! Here is his page on the site, so email us if you´d like to contact him: http://www.spearfishingtravel.com/andaman.htm