Boong Sung and Beyond!

One of the day trips we offer is the Boong Sung Wreck. (there is daily debate on how to actually spell this divesite name, but I am sticking with this one!!!) This is a classic Thailand diving experience and one not to be missed for sure. Your day begins with a taxi pick up and drop off on the beach to a longtail boat, where you are greeted by CAPTIAN JACK or one of his many men. Standard uniform for longtail captain.... small cotton pants and a big hat!



From there all of the equipment is loaded into the boat and you set off into the waves for 45 minutes to Boong Sung. Once you arrive, you gear up and roll off - James Bond style- into the blue.

This site is the home to an old Tin Dredger that sunk, and then was tossed around when the Tsunami came through. The actual wreck is in pieces and has become the home to a crazy amount of marine life and especially juvenile fish! From lobsters and nudi's, to frogfish and cuddle fish, whether you like mooray eels and scorpion fish, or giant puffers and tiny boxfish....you can find it all here.....in abundance. One of my favorite things about diving here is that you can just hover calmly and let the schools of baby barracuda, completely surround you. You literally become part of the aquarium!

We set out yesterday under the lead of DMT Adam with guests Louise, Cat, Jeremy, Pia, Poy, and Bernita on a mission to explore Boong Sung and possible find a new reef or wreck to check out. It's a big ocean out there...

After a morning of Cuddle fish, baby yellow boxfish, a huge lobster, a few nudi brach, a ton of honeycomb and white eyed mooray eels, and much more we settled in for some lunch and set our course for discovery.



Our second dive started with Adam and Poy deploying the weighted line attached to the surface marker to mark our spot. We then set out in 4 buddy teams each with a compass and search pattern to follow. As it turns out, all of us saw a lot of sand and had some fun looking around in the blue - with a lonely star fish to see....but not a bad day in the water at all!! =) robyn Wicked Diving

happy snapper

Keith in his pink shirt, pink wrist bands and his pink headband.

Pride week here is when ever you feel like it

Khao Lak Diving

Similan Island Information

Similan Island Clean Up Efforts

On Saturday March 8th, Wicked Diving teamed up with the National Park to help clean the reefs and beaches around Island number 4 (Koh Miang), and Island 1 (Koh Huyong) in the Similan Islands! Wicked Diving, Liquid Adventure, Big Blue Diving, The National Park Service, Green Fins, ETC - Eco Tourism Training Center, and some divers from Singapore and Bangkok headed out to the Similans to get to work.




The day started in the shop with a quick tea and some light reading! (Nice one Sarah and Adam!)





We landed in Princess Bay on Island 4 and were met by Manah and his staff from the National Park team as well as as Justine and the crew from Green Fins, and the rest of the volunteers. A quick briefing of what was ahead of us for the next 2 days, and we geared up to hit the beach.





1st task - line up along the beach, spread out...and hit the water with clippers and mesh trash bags for collection! The goal was to pick up any trash, tangled fishing lines, old tires...and whatever else didn't belong on this great snorkeling reef!




After collecting all that we could we dumped the trash into proper bins for removal and headed back to the beach for lunch provided by the national park... and then hit the beach in Princess Bay once again with trash bags in hand to clean up the area on the beach, around the bungalows and tents, and some of the trails before heading over to the other side - Honeymoon bay.



In full gear we trekked over to Honeymoon Bay, got our tanks and mesh bags and plunged once again to clean all the debris and trash from the reefs!












DAY 2 - The forbidden fruit!













We all got up for breakfast and then transfered onto our ride over to ISLAND 1. Island 1 has been closed to the public for some time and is the home to a turtle hatching assistance and research group. No diving, snorkeling or fishing is allowed around the island, and no visitors.





What that leaves is pristine beach - aside from the washed up rubble and trash that we were there to pick up! From old fishing cages to general trash, plastic and glass bottles, and anything else that had washed up, we gathered it all in trash bags, sorted it, and then loaded it onto our boat for removal.







Back to Island 4 for one last sweep on the reef at Honeymoon Bay, and then back on the Liquid Speedboat home!!



It was a great trip all around, and we are hoping to be a part of many more efforts like this to preserve the islands that we use for recreational diving and tourism. Many thanks to the National Park Service for organizing everything, Green Fins and the other diver groups from Bangkok and Singapore as well as all that participated from Wicked Diving : Klaus, Marcel, DMT's Adam and Darcy, Sarah, Rich, Poy and Robyn. From Big Blue: Sonia and Simon. And Liquid Adventure and Keith for the transfers and support! --robyn WICKED DIVING

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Farewell NetNaWee

We ran our last overnight trip with NetNaWee last week and went out with a bang! And that is how we have started nearly every trip aboard her this season. It’s tradition on larger vessels to have fresh flowers as an offering to the Buddha on the tip at the front of the boat, and as we leave the pier and head off, firecrackers are lit to send off all evil spirits. It’s loud, and a great introduction to the journey ahead.



Many thanks to Claus and Rikke, Lena (Mum – as it read on her equipment crate), Anna from Liquid Adventure, Johann, Annica, Susanne, Doug, Paula, Helmut, Max, and Adam our new DMT, for joining us and making this trip everything you would expect from a journey to the Similan Islands to dive, snorkel, and play on the white sandy beaches!


The visibility was amazing, the currents kind, and the sun shining! Great snorkeling and diving all around. The snorkel crew saw more turtles than the divers, and the divers could see for what felt like miles into the blue, as well as into the cracks and corals for all the little amazing details the Similan reefs and boulder sites are famous for.



Congratulations to Annica for completing her first dive without her husband…=), and to mum (Lena) for finally stopping the leak in her mask so she could actually see things under the water! Doug successfully navigated his way through his first night dive, and Marcel led some of the boys on a deep adventure to Koh Bon Pinnacle… successful in their search for some sharks!




But, this blog entry would not be complete without the most entertaining achievement of the trip award going to Anna and Lena’s quest for a clean bungalow after spending their first night in what we now know was one of the rooms under renovation! Apparently, the fact that the key did not work, having to climb in through the window to get in, and the dirty surroundings, were not enough of a clue that they may be in the wrong place! But they did manage to find the correct bungalow the second night and got a great night’s sleep for the last day of diving!

It was great geeking out over fish books, stuffing our faces, napping in the sun, playing on the beach, and of course diving with all of you, please come back and join us again next season on a new overnight trip!




Special thanks to the staff on this trip: PeePa for keeping us well fed with plentiful amounts of amazing food, PeeChai for not only getting us to where we wanted to go but for running double duties with the dingy pickups and tank fills, Klaus for making everything run smoothly and selecting the best sites for us to see, Corrado for filling the tanks and being so helpful, Sarah for being a star guide, Paul for being Paul and making this all possible as well as bringing the fun, Marcel for finding the sharks and his never-ending selection of dutch –ism’s, Poy for always helping out and finding all the nudi’s, Anna for her snorkel-master moves with finding the turtles, and Adam for picking it all up so quickly and really helping out. What a team. -robyn WICKED DIVING, Khao Lak

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Not only a gorgeous picture of Klaus, but also a test run of a new service where we can upload pictures directly to the blog as they happen!

Look for more trip pictures and details in the very near future!!!

Khao Lak Diving

Similan last minute special!!!

Tomorrow - Monday March 10th!!!

Only 17,000 Baht for 4 days, 4 nights


What a bargain


Contact us now!


Khao Lak Diving

We just got back from our final Similans Overnight Trip

It was a great success and we had most of our staff on doing a farewell tour.

Conditions were among the best we've seen this season with viz at 30 meters, minimal currents and great fish life.

Elephant head rock had us diving with White-tip sharks and Giant Barracuda's, Breakfast bend found my guys spending the last 10 minutes of the dive with a Hawksbill Turtle and Koh Bon pleases as always.

The weather on the mainland has been rainy in the afternoons, but on the Similans we didn't have a drop of rain! Perfect

We will put up a series of pictures and entries about the last trip later tonight or tomorrow.


Khao Lak Diving

We no longer offer the overnight trips this season

Thanks to everyone that has joined us over the course of this season. It has been great time and some of our best experiences have been running these trips and diving with all of you! (loud crowd cheering noise!!).

However, we have chosen to end the overnight operations for this season. We operated this boat with incredible staff and crew. The diving has been great, the snorkeling has been top-notch and we feel very positive about what has happened. Delicious cooking, great service and of course standards that rate among the best in Thailand. We are proud of everything that has been done.

Almost everything.

The owner of the boat, an absentee owner, has presented several requests and demands that have severely affected operations in the past few weeks. While we have appreciated the opportunity to work together, the owner - who has still not set foot in Thailand - has presented some serious infractions of our own code of conduct.

In addition to assigning incompetent staff assigned to the boat, they have - without provocation - fired the crew and cook.

Their staff are unable to give dive briefings, name the fishes they have seen or to properly fill out dive logs for our guests. These are all minimum standards that are not being met.

In addition we have caught them smoking marijuana on the boat. That is unacceptable in regards to dive guides who are responsible for other people's safety.

Overall we have found much behavior that in not acceptable from any diving professional, let alone on a boat we are so intimately associated with.


The final straw came when their staff was caught riding a Green Sea Turtle during a dive.


While they actually considered this a small mistake, our tempers flared and we will not work in conjunction with people who behave in such a fashion. In addition we hope that
you thoroughly question your future dive operators regarding not only safety - but concern for the environment. We did not believe that people still behave like this in 2008, let alone discovering such actions on our own boat!

To all those on the last trip, we apologize to you for witnessing such actions. We do not condone such activity and would never allow such horrible actions to take place.

To all those who wanted to join us this season - we hope you understand. We would rather provide a service that we are proud of and meets our stringent standards than to allow such actions to take place. We are happy to assist you in finding other alternatives in the area.

The good news - We will be operating our own boat next season! Please come back to the blog for updates as we get the boat and begin refurbishing! We will have plenty more news on this as it happens.

As always - we strive to the highest of standards, and will be offering some amazing opportunities in the coming seasons. We are taking this opportunity to assess all our standards and those we work with.



And finally - as cheesy as it sounds, I'd like to extend an apology to all the turtles!

Not all humans are like those stupid assholes.


-All the Staff at Wicked Diving

Netnawee Similan overnight trip 29/01/08

We set out again and had a fantastic journey to the Similans, visibility was so good above the surface if the water that you could see the Similans, mainland and Koh Bon all at the same time something which doesn't happen to often! The sea was extremely flat which made the journey out extremely enjoyable.

The visibility was also much better on this trip, the last month or so has seen the water take a greenish color, but it is finally starting to go and everything is looking much more blue...

For this trip I (Becky) was boatmaster as Klaus was taking a small holiday in Koh Tao catching up with old friends. Also joining was Tuk and Italian Corrado. Tuk was upgrading Jan and Regan from Scuba Diver to Open Water Scuba Divers. Regan already had a bit of diving experience so had little difficulty in the water...although she did have to spend some time refreshing her theory knowledge.

Unfortunately the only thing that spoilt on the trip was one persons stupidity and complete lack of respect for the underwater world... (read next story if you are interested in more details) On the boat we had a person fun diving on the boat, during one of the dives we saw a turtle and I was later informed by one of my fun divers that this guy had grabbed the turtle which instantly swam away, he attempted to try and grab the turtle a furthur 2 or 3 times. He was dismissed from the boat that same day, which emphasizes the seriousness of this type of behavior. This sort of behavior towards marine life is not only disrespectful but completely unacceptable by the diving professional or fun diver. Turtles need to come up to the surface to breath and b holding onto a turtle and "riding" it you may be keeping it in the water when it needs to surface for a breath, which is effectively putting that creatures life in danger. But we didn't let this incident spoil the trip....

On the second day we decided to take a trip up to the viewpoint on island 4, it was a bit of a climb but everyone manged it, and Tuk was on hand to keep morale up! Once we got to the top is was an absolutely spectacular view, although after the climb in the hot sun some people were starting to get a little bit smelly!

(pictures Left Bottom - Julia, Jan, Stefano, Becky and Ben, Left Middle - Becky with Jan in background, Left Top - Julia, Right Top - Ben, Right Middle - Jan followed closely by Stefano and Julia, Right Bottom - Becky and Tuk)




























It was quite an energetic climb up rock and paths, but not too difficult, everyone was pretty hot when we got to the top and appreciated a sit down and a cool down with the view of the Similans in front of them.

So a big Thank you to everyone who joined us for this trip and sorry for the delay in writing this post! Thanks for a Wicked trip and hope to see you with us again soon...