The Similan Islands - Hideaway Reef
Hideaway reef is on the east side of islands 5 and 6 and is great place for check out dives or night dives. With depths along the reef at 20 meters this site has some spectacular coral bommies in the shallow which then goes into a hard coral reef as you go deeper. Covered in soft corals the colors are superb and a great dive for macro photographers with harlequin and ornate ghost pipefish.
Also in the Shallow area are memorials for the Tsunami in 2004, there are many ‘medals” on stands and even a mermaid, they are starting to become an artificial reef in their own right.
In 2003 the Similan National Park sank a 12 x 30m fiberglass fishing boat at the south west corner of island 5 which is marked by a mooring buoy. The wrecks depth ranges form 40m at the deepest point to around 28m at the top, it is lying on its side.
Down in the sandy bottoms are fields of spotted garden eels poking their heads out to catch a passing feed and khule’s stingrays half buried. On the reef there are plenty of surgeons, butterfly and angelfish with blue fin trevally on the hunt for small bait fish. Here look for octopus, sea snakes and mantis shrimps. At night the reef is alive with morays, lobsters, crabs and shrimps.
