Dive Review of West Coast Divers in
Thailand/Similan Islands

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West Coast Divers: "Enjoyed the dives but viz was poor", Feb, 2020, by Mark Magers, CA, US ( Sr. Contributor 20 reports with 28 Helpful votes). Report 11438 has 1 Helpful vote.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	We spent 4 days diving, 3 nights on the Sawasdee Fasai. We booked through [similandivingtours.com link] they were by far the most responsive of the operators / resellers we talked to, they actually go out on the boats from time to time, and we highly recommend them. Overall, the liveaboard operation (West Coast Divers) seems well run. The staff works very hard, is polite and helpful. The boat is clean and well set up. That said, the camera area is a rinse tank only, no room or tables if you care about that. The dive deck is also very crowded, more about that below. They offer 14 dives over 4 days. We did 10 of them. The diving overall was, alas, disappointing. Maybe we set our expectations too high, but the visibility on most dives was poor, usually 20 to 40 feet, lots of green water. This being our first time in Thailand, and in fact Asia (Australia excluded), the colors of species we know from the Caribbean, for instance angelfish, were amazing, down right psychedelic. But viz was a big bummer. Based on all the pictures one sees of this Top 10 destination, and even the video the crew shot during our trip, we wondered why it looked so different from what we experienced on the dives. Filters and b-roll? Richilieu Rock was really something, quantity and diversity of fish-wise, but poor viz was again too bad, and decent current made it challenging. Boongsang wreck was also low vis but the enormous clouds of fish of many varieties, blocking out the sun when they swam over by the thousands, was impressive. We saw a few mantas at Richelieu, swimming overhead, poor viz meant vague silhouettes. On one of the dives we skipped, they saw a whale shark, again vague silhouettes from the pictures brought back. Having seen mantas off the Kona Coast in great viz from about 2 feet, and whale sharks in La Paz up close, this did not rise to wow. Our biggest issue was that the boat was very crowded. There were 27 divers, plus 7 or 8 DMs, due to language, experience, and maintaining group size. Add the deck hands and the dive deck was organized chaos. Every tank holder was filled, and there was no place to sit except stairs to put on booties, etc. Given that the DMs slept in the salon, we expect they sold every seat the could (as they should, but...). This was magnified on dive sites, especially when 3-4 other boats showed up. There was such mayhem on some of the dives that an experienced instructor in our group, who used to work for West Coast, got separated from us for 5 minutes or so, and we almost cancelled the dive. Tank fills were consistently below 3000 psi, though they are on bar so maybe that was just a setting on the compressor thing? Nitrox was included, and ranged (and varied between dives) between 28 and 29%. The mix of divers - Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, and a (very) few of us from the US. Some of the divers were very bad about touching coral and also shoving their GoPro sticks in front of you and right on top of fish. It was really unpleasant. We were watching a stingray at a cleaning station and someone from another group shoved the old GoPro right on top of him. Guess what? He swam away. End of pleasant moment. With the crew in the salon, their back packs all over, it was more like a dorm room, and usually they hung out in the salon when not working. All this made it not a place, really, for the divers to use. Everyone has to be somewhere and we don't begrudge them their space, but it was just another reflection of too many people on the boat. Food was good. Room was fine, only a couple of what-is-that-smell moments. Convenient long cord surge protector to make charging in-room easy. We appreciated the teak floors and wooden walls. Upper deck was nice but the small (1/3 of area) shaded portion became the exclusive domain of the smokers, so it was not that conducive to hanging out. Dive briefings were way too detailed, taking over 10 minutes without adding much value (we were to follow our DM anyway, right?), leaving about 5 minutes to get geared up if you were in wave 1 (there were 2 waves for entry). We kept thinking of the value of a bullet point list. Small point. Last thing, most of the dives ended up a decent way from the boat, and the 6-7 groups were scattered. This meant using the RIB to tow you in (running backwards for safety reasons) while you hung onto a rope on the side, breathing gas fumes from the outboard. Maybe this is standard practice, we have not been on a liveaboard in Thailand. But we did not enjoy it. We are glad we did the trip, and this is not intended to put down the operation, only to reflect our experience on this short liveaboard. Also note that they do pick you u on Phuket (Island) and take you to Khao Lok whre the boat is, that trip can last 2+ hours. Just be aware.
Websites	West Coast Divers
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	GBR, Thailand, Saba, Montserrat, Dominica, Barbados, Cuba, USVI, Belize, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Ecuador, HI, WA, CA, RI
Closest Airport	HKT	Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, dry	Seas	surge
Water Temp	79-82°F / 26-28°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	10-50 Ft/ 3-15 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	no
Enforced diving restrictions	Follow DM, 60 minute max dives.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	1 or 2
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	1 or 2
Turtles	1 or 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish	N/A
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter	N/A	Boat Facilities	N/A
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	[None]

Report currently has 1 Helpful vote

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Dive Review of West Coast Divers in Thailand/Similan Islands

West Coast Divers: "Enjoyed the dives but viz was poor", Feb, 2020,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of West Coast Divers in
Thailand/Similan Islands