Dive Review of
Sunrise Diving & South Siam 3/Deevana Resort in
Thailand/Similan

 Asia, Carribean 

Dive Conditions

[Unspecified]500 LBS or 50 Minutes, stay on the same profile as the DM.    

Freshwater camera tank onboard the South Siam 3 Restricted to Lights and
Cameras. Enforced  

Overall Rating

Sunrise Divers in Patong beach put together an outstanding 6 day package of
diving.  We had a great liveaboard experience put together by Damian on the
South Siam 3.  Chris did an excellent job getting my buddy AOW certified
during the trip.  Chris was very professional instructor and very attentive
to make sure the course was a positive experience. Free rental gear in the
price of the liveaboard was a plus.  Rental gear and the shop are all new
since they were all destroyed by the Tsumani.  Finally when a problem
developed with our planned dives, Damian made it right when many dive
operations would have just shrugged their shoulders.  A professional
operation with quality people and equipment.  
  The South Siam 3 is a new boat with space for 16 overnight guests in
comfortable cabins.  The boat is geared around day trips by speed boat from
Tap Lamu and is limited to the Similan Islands and Koh Bon. Having the
speedboat arrive everyday allows you to dive as many days as you want and
start and stop whenever.  This was important to us since our air
connections limited us to a Saturday arrival and departure.  The boat
schedules five dives daily with those staying on board able to pick any
four of the five dives.  On arival day four dives are available and 3 dives
are done on departure day. We were picked up and delivered back to our
hotel in Patong and taken 1.5 hours north to the speedboat.  A 1.5 hour
trip by boat brought us to the liveaboard. Be prepared for anything based
on weather conditions on the ride across.  On rainy days or rough seas the
ride can take up to 2 hours or more. Once on board you are given a briefing
in English on the boat, time to set up gear and then a dive briefing. 
Diving starts within 45 minutes of arrival.  Briefings by John the boat
manager were professional and gave a good idea of what to expect.  DM were
very competent and the boat was adept at adjusting profiles and groups
based upon ability level. I never saw a group bigger than 6.  Since I was
diving with a new diver, numerous times I was able to extend my dive when
the group need to ascend by the dive master coordinating my joining another
group underwater.  With no Nitrox available, and the usual dive profile
starting at 95', the 50 minute limit on diving was good advice and it was
putting us into the caution zone on the computers by dive three of the day.
 Food was plentiful and good, always Thai and usually something Western. 
The boat is on a three day rotation through the Similans and Koh Bon though
dive sites were mixed.  The most famous dive sites were done for the
speedboat day trippers.  The boat has the capacity for 50 divers during the
daytrip though we never saw more than about 18 total divers since this was
shoulder season. That might be a problem though in the high season. When
the speed boat left the remaing 6-12 people dove once more.  Some dives
were as good as I've seen anyplace in the world.  Night dives were offered
but generally were not very good. We skipped them after the first day. The
boat is on the cheap end of the liveaboard scale but was new, clean and
well organized. Richelieu Rock is not visited by this boat.  I would have
no hesitiation to go back. I would certainly use Sunrise Divers again to
set up a return trip.   

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