Month: November 2025

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Eat, Sleep, Dive, Repeat – MV Bavaria Liveaboard

This post isn’t about the dives, that’s in four other posts (one per day). Instead, I want to muse about the liveaboard experience itself.

I’ll from the top: booking. I was already to be in Thailand from the 4th – 18th, and finishing a group trip in Khao Lak, where all the liveaboards leave from, so the plan was to ditch out during the third segment of the group trip and go dive. I looked at several boats, at liveaboard.com, and at padi.com. Because I was primarily focused on something that fit between my arrival into Khao Lak on the 13th and not extend my vacation very far, I landed on a four day, thirteen dive northern Similan trip on the MV Bavaria, from the 15th-18th, meaning I just extended my trip by one day for the flight buffer.

The boat actually runs a week, and its possible to leave or join midway, so we travelled out to the liveaboard on a speedboat since we were just in the back half of the trip. Eighty minutes later, our gear was on deck, we were getting a briefing from the diving lead, and we were just about twenty minutes from our first dive.

Getting Ready to Dive

Equipment prep is one of the most stark differences between this liveaboard and charter diving. I’m used to “setup your gear, dive, swap your gear to a new tank in the surface interval, dive again.” In this case, once I setup my gear, I never changed it. Between dives, we just removed our regulators and they filled the tanks in place. It made each dive just that much more enjoyable.

From dive briefing to getting on the dinghy was maybe five minutes. More if I was in a wetsuit. The boat was organized into four dive groups, and we were spaced every other tank on one side of the deck or the other, and deployed in two stages, so while it was a bit congested, it was spaced out reasonably well.

The dive locations seemed pretty flexible; weather, goals, visibility. What was originally planned could change to get the best out of the dives. A couple of our dives, they chose to forego quality for a chance to see a whale shark or other large fish (which was unsuccessful). Richelieu Rock, we left early because viz was bad and currents were high. I appreciate the flexibility, and I recognize that the dive masters want to see this stuff, too!

Boredom and Buddies

I was afraid that, being stuck on a boat for four days would lead to boredom, or a crazy rush. It was neither. Food, an hour or two of downtime, then another dive. About half the boat was spending the downtime going through fish books, writing in their logs, doing a debrief with their DM, some were taking a nap, some were reading or sunning on the top deck. But honestly, that time just flew by. I felt neither rushed, nor bored, but just dove from sunup to sundown, and each day felt complete when it was over.

A few of the people on the boat were doing their Nitrox course material. Everyone dove nitrox, and those that weren’t certified, did it on the boat. It was necessary, even if they didn’t say so. The bulk of the dives were at 20-30m, and on at least one of them, I was pushing NDL. Diving on air would not have been possible, or at least, I would have been the one pulling us up out of the water early for reasons other than an empty tank.

The boat was filled with people from all over: Poland, Germany, France, Australia, Finland, the UK… 12 countries across 20 travelers. Several were couples, Josh and I friends, several were solo travelers. English was the common language used, even though it was a German boat with German and Thai dive pros. The one thing that was common is that we were all divers, and that made for pretty compatible personalities.

And from one of the boat buddies, Phillipe, an overview video of the trip (though with a few extra days included)

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Day 4: Koh Tachai and Koh Bon

Operator Site Dive Depth Bottom Time
Loma Diving - MV Bavaria Koh Tachai Pinnacle 77 76.1 40 minutes
Koh Bon, The Wall 78 82.9 45 minutes

We did a morning dive at Koh Tachai before our boat trip to Koh Bon and back to Khao Lak. Koh Bon’s dive was the most “bland” of them all, with large sand banks, and everything spread out and fairly lifeless (for Similan at least). But it was also probably the most clear and relaxing dive, and not a bad way to finish the trip. Thirteen dives in four days was an amazing experience. Having a friend able to travel with me and enjoy it made it even better.

I’ll happily go on another liveaboard. Next time, I bring neoprene socks, I’m more careful with my equipment, maybe I actually take a nap or a dive off, and definitely I bring a buddy again. The boat ride back was much longer than here, as it was the liveaboard and not a speed boat taking us from the islands to the shore, but they have to restock some time, and get their one day off before heading out again!

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Liveaboard day 3: Richelieu Rock and Koh Tachai

Operator Site Dive Depth Bottom Time
Loma Diving - MV Bavaria Richelieu Rock 73 94.4 40 minutes
Richelieu Rock 74 76.2 40 minutes
Koh Tachai, North Reef 75 60.0 52 minutes
Koh Tachai Reef 76 59.5 40 minutes

Richelieu Rock is considered one of the top dive sites in the world. When we arrived, it was entirely underwater: it’s a pinnacle that at high tide is under the water surface. The pinnacles extend down about 100 feet below the surface, and has more life than I’ve ever seen at any dive site in my life. Our plan on arriving was to dive three dives at Richelieu Rock, before heading elsewhere for the night dive.

Josh was feeling a bit under-rested, so skipped the first dive of the day. There were a few other boats moored there in the morning, so I expected quite a busy dive site, and I was right. Our plan on dive one was to extend down, then head towards the southwestern pinnacles for a chance to spot some large pelagic life.

These were the deepest dives we did, the only time I was getting close to NDL limits, and having to check my computer often. Diving Nitrox absolutely made NDL much less of an issue, even with our previous dives starting deep, but we spent most of our time here in the 60 to 80 foot range, especially since the surface currents were so rough. I was greatful for my Shearwater, as it’s quite the amazing piece of dive tech. I know I barely scratch the surface of what it’s capable of, but it is fantastic.

Visibility was not good in a lot of areas, the currents were moderately hard. Add in the multiple large groups of divers, and it was a fairly tough pair of dives. I’m very glad we stopped here, but we called it quits after two dives and moved back to Tachai Reef, and that was a great call.

One of the coolest things I did see was an octopus squeezing around within its hole. But the sheer overabundance of life was what made this site an amazing pair of dives. Josh did come join the second dive, so I’m glad he got to see it before we left the area. The low point of this dive was flooding my lights. I was in a hurry to get going this morning and forgot to put the water caps over the charging ports. Even after two days of trying to clean and dry them, they were toast, and my biggest concern was safety with the wet large batteries.

Tachai Reef and Night Dive

This was the second time we went out to Tachai for a night dive, so I’ll skip the third dive, and just talk about what we saw at night. While I can’t give you an exact number, while the first night had tons of hunting morays, both visits to this site had tons of hunting black tip reef sharks. Five, six, ten? No way to know for sure, as they loop around and come back to you. But I do know it was more than four, because that’s the amount I saw at the same time.

You didn’t really need to swim around looking for the sharks, nor chase after them. They’d eventually come up to the lights, do a circle around you, then take off. This lasted the entire time we were down. Sometimes twenty or thirty feet from you, sometimes swimming right underneath you. It was the most active shark experience I’ve had since the aquarium dive.

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Liveaboard Day 2: Koh Bon and Koh Tachai

Operator Site Dive Depth Bottom Time
Loma Diving - MV Bavaria Koh Bon, The Waterfall 69 94.0 45 minutes
Koh Bon, The Waterfall 70 75.2 55 minutes
Koh Bon, The Waterfall 71 84.8 48 minutes
Koh Tachai Reef 72 37.4 40 minutes

Three dives at one site was not quite what I expected, but the boat team decided to hope for some large fish sightings, and this was a good location for it. Spoiler alert: we saw nothing, but I don’t mind the opportunity to see a whale shark, or something similar. The dives ranged from 75 to 94 feet down, but had no current, and a very clear “swim to depth, then meander slowly upwards for 45-55 minutes” profile. I was usually the first one out of air, and always felt guilty, but in retrospect, a 45 minute dive that hit a depth of 94 feet is not “horrible air consumption,” we just had someone in our group still at a half a tank when I’d be nearly empty.

Koh Bon Bay is a fairly large area with multiple different regions to dive through. One group did see a manta ray, but generally we had a pretty “normal” reef dive with plenty of life and areas to view. The life was quite reminiscent of my first dives in Thailand, but this time with great visibility. Anemones and clown fish, colorful reefs, parrotfish, huge reef shelfs, and a great amount of life. What was nice was getting into a rhythm: dive, eat, relax, dive again. Since we did Koh Tachai for our next two night dives, I’ll talk about that in the post for day 3.

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Liveaboard Day 1: Similan #8 and #9, and Koh Bon

Operator Site Dive Depth Bottom Time
Loma Diving - MV Bavaria Similan #8, Turtle Shaped Rock 66 77.0 43 minutes
Similan #9, Three Trees 67 71.0 56 minutes
Koh Bon, Bay 68 50.8 43 minutes

First Dive off the Boat

I’m going to try and stick to one or two topics per dive. This time, I’ll focus on gear. I’ve never dove without a wetsuit; however, this dive, and most of the following, I chose to dive in just shorts and a 1.5mm rash guard. I picked up an O’Neill rashguard off the clearance rack at REI just a couple weeks prior to the trip, and thought it might be perfect. With 83F water temps (the same as the air!), there wasn’t a particular need for a full wetsuit. The ease of getting the protection gear on in just a few seconds, and 4kg of weights being too much, was wonderfully pleasant.

Three Trees

Dive two of the day was to a fairly wide-open area, with amazing visibility and a moderate amount of life. The 30m+ visibility was refreshing, the water beautiful and nice, and this was a great way to begin my first day of diving.

Not having to setup my gear, but jump right in just a few minutes after hitting the deck was fantastic.

Night Dive at Koh Bon

Our first night dive was fantastic. I’m used to finding interesting fish, larger predators hunting. This dive did not disappoint. The highlight of the dive was ten or more moray eels out hunting. I’ve experienced barracuda taking advantage of highlighted prey from the flashlights, for this dive I got to see many eels do the same: follow the light and catch a meal.

One interesting learning I had was around my camera: I have had “white out” conditions while diving with two large floods. I learned that, using my normal dive flashlight did very little for night photography, but I could turn the two larger floods out to create two lightly overlapping circles of light, creating a nice area of visibility.

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Thailand – Koh Kradan

Operator Site Dive Depth Bottom Time
Trang Pro Dive South Tip 64 48.4 51 minutes
Au Nang Bay 65 35.2 50 minutes

Six days into our Thailand trip, Josh and I had scheduled a single day dive, partially to finish up his AOW cert we started in Cancun, partially for me to check out my gear before the liveaboard, but mostly because we had a free day and our resort, the Sivilai Beach Resort in Koh Muk, has a dive shop on site.

We chatted with them the day before, and I asked about where we were diving, how far the boat ride, etc, as I wanted to bring the right gear (the shop is literally 50 feet from my room). I mentioned wearing my wetsuit out to the boat, and they laughed. Wetsuit? Apparently, the outside temperature is 83F, and the water temperature is also 83F. Fortunately, I had picked up a 1.5mm swim top on the REI clearance rack, so this and shorts became my dive gear.

We went out to Koh Kradan, about a 20 minute ride on a longtail boat, with just one DM (from Mexico!), one instructor, Josh and me. When we got down, visibility was awful, maybe five feet at best. Fortunately, this is a site that our shop goes to almost daily, so we did get to see stuff that they “knew where it was”, generally speaking.

Highlights of the two sites: several clownfish in their own reef, a trio of seahorses pipefish, a trio of cuddlefish, one large and one very small black and white eel, a very interesting and large clam, some coral life quite different than what I’ve seen elsewhere, lionfish, and some nudibranch.

The lowlight of this dive was, distracted by my camera and lacking any visibility, I did slice my palm wide open, and my shin slightly too. As well, the GoPro does not focus well in camera mode in low viz, though the videos do fine. Guess it’s video stills for the liveaboard: glad to know that ahead of time!

Some key learnings for myself: the GoPro does a poor job focusing on camera shots in low visibility, I should stick to video mode and grabbing stills. My mouthpiece may have been a leading cause of my at-depth panic in March, I’ve swapped it now, but found some mini unwarranted freakouts on these dives, and it seemed to be tied to the mouthpiece (weird). And Newskin should be in my travel kit.