Diving in Thailand: King Cruiser wreck

Thailand, 12^th November, 2013

I just recently got back from a marveillous dive trip to Ao Nang in Thailand. This is the first account of the dives that I did on that trip. It is about an awsome wreck dive at what may be the most famous wreck in Thailand.

King cruiser was a catamaran ferry that sank in 1997 near the Phi Phi islands after she hit rocks at Anemone Reef, another great dive site. There were more than 500 passengers on board the 85 meter ferry. Luckily, all of them survived and there were no casualties in the accident.

Today, King Cruiser is a very popular dive site, one of the must-see dive sites near Phi Phi Islands. It is probably the biggest and most well known wreck in Thailand. It really is a lovely divesite, and a nice wreck!

Spotted a scorpionfish hiding on top of the wreck. Kind of hard to spot, but an awsome fish! And very venomous.

Can you spot the scorpionfish?

Clearly many of the wildlife at the wreck had gotten quite used to human presence. This huge pufferfish was really camera-friendly. It came right towards me and swam side-by-side with me for some time.

This huge pufferfish was really camera-friendly.

Visibility at the time was not the best possible, there was quite a bit of debris in the water. There was also some current on our dive day, but not enough to really be a bother. We did a nice deep dive, about 30 meters at the sandy bottom. We went through some holes in the hull of the wreck. Not really penetrating the wreck, just so that it felt like a wreck dive and not just a dive next to a wreck.

There were huge chunks of the ship lying on the seabed

King Cruiser wreck is a really popular dive site. There were loads of divers at the location. Loads!Almost everywhere you looked, there was a group of divers finning around. It was actually getting crowded on the descend/ascend line when we made our way up at the end of the dive. There were divers going up and down all over the place. Every diver in Krabi seemed to be using the line at the same time. And this wasn't even the hight of the season yet! Of course, it was all very civilized and well controlled, no problems. Just crowded.

The wreck is well on its way to turning into an artificial reef. There are lots of beautiful soft corals all over the site. I was really hoping to see sharks, but had no luck with them. There was no sign of sharks at the wreck that day. I suppose the noisy crowds of scuba divers kept them away.

King cruiser is well on its way to turning into an artificial reef.

Hope you liked this little blog post. Here's another blog post you might want to check out. I'll be writing again soon, so remember to keep following me and my Bubbly Underwater- dive blog! And as always, any comments or suggestions will be greatly appreciated!