Diving in Thailand Richeliue Rock, if you haven't done it yet, put it on the list, it is a great dive.

Agree, very, very nice diving at Richelieu Rock. IMO on par with Richelieu Rock are Koh Tachai, albeit a completely different divesite, and in the south Hin Daeng and Hin Muang. The latter 2 are a bit like Richelieu Rock with many soft corals.

Traditionally Richelieu Rock is the best place for a whaleshark encounter, the last years though Hin Daeng and Hin Muang have been at least equally good for that.

bazmlb - you should have seen what I have seen at Richelieu some 22 years ago and you would be sitting there, crying while watching your video. Back then there were guitar sharks, a flock of huge stingrays with up to 3m diameter, whale sharks on almost any dive, white tip reef sharks, leopard sharks, blacktip reef sharks, and even a bow mouth guitar fish... The small stuff like frogfish you would not even look at because the big guys were all over the place. What you see on your video is what is left after the fishing industry in Thailand has been off the leash for decades and with park rangers either sleeping or counting the park fee money that to 1% went into the installation of mooring lines and to 99% to their mia nois... We are talking hundreds of millions here!

bazmlb - you should have seen what I have seen at Richelieu some 22 years ago and you would be sitting there, crying while watching your video. Back then there were guitar sharks, a flock of huge stingrays with up to 3m diameter, whale sharks on almost any dive, white tip reef sharks, leopard sharks, blacktip reef sharks, and even a bow mouth guitar fish... The small stuff like frogfish you would not even look at because the big guys were all over the place. What you see on your video is what is left after the fishing industry in Thailand has been off the leash for decades and with park rangers either sleeping or counting the park fee money that to 1% went into the installation of mooring lines and to 99% to their mia nois... We are talking hundreds of millions here!

Such a pity!

Do you know of anywhere in SE Asia at the moment where such dives can be had? (like the one you had 22 years ago).

I dove at Bunaken in Sulawesi 5 years ago. It certainly beat Thailand, but i met a chap who had been there 15 years ago and said it was unbelieveably different.

I didnt see anything "special" in that video at all. And you want to know a better place....Okinawa Japan.

Sorry mistaken on tablet. Only want post once.

Cant delete the post sorry

I'm 100% agree with PhuketDashScuba. I've visited Phuket's divesites in the late 80s twice, three times in the early 90s and stranded here dince 2004 ... the people, the service, the five places ... just outstanding.

What you're able to see today is just about 30% of what we did novadays. I personally don't like long boat trips. So I often as possible went to Nai Thon or Nai Harn ... even from or to the beatch or by longtail ... I tell you people, you wouldn't belive it.

And now ... gone. I mean not only the great dive places, the corals and fish. Just look arround ... I gone miss, what I met. The REAL Thailand.

Cheers to tge good old one. I never liked this sentence when I was young. Just now I understand more and more, how true it is. We have to grow up to realize what we had, miss and never got back again.

I didnt see anything "special" in that video at all. And you want to know a better place....Okinawa Japan.

Nice tip. Surprising, i would have tought the Japanases would have eaten all the fish, or maybe that was your joke. lol

No, Okinawa Japan and its surrounding islands is one of the most overlooked diving places in the world. From hammerhead and whale migrations to huge schools of trevallys and dogtooth tuna its a divers paradise. Its an absolutely fantastic place to dive.