West of Eden
SIMILAN ISLANDS DIVE SITE
West of Eden is a new favourite dive site on the west side of Koh Pabu, aka Similan Island number 7 (East of Eden is the old favourite on the east side of Koh Pabu).
As this is a west coast dive site it consists of huge granite boulders that create stunning underwater seascapes, canyons, crevices and walls. The boulders are covered with sea fans and colourful soft corals plus sea whips and clams.
In the deeper areas reef sharks can be seen, usually black tips but if you are lucky white tip reefs as well. In the blue look for barracuda, dogtooth tuna and trevally. Whale sharks and mantas are sometimes spotted here but not on every dive.
In the shallower areas the fringing reef is made up of both hard and soft corals and is home to all the usual schools of tropical reef fish. The rubble patches are great places to hunt for critters including fire gobies, ribbon eels, pipefish, frogfish and even Pegasus seamoth.
If we had to recommend a lens for your camera we would probably favour the macro because the critters are so good.
The visibility is almost always excellent at West of Eden. It’s a dive site suitable for most levels of diver with a depth range of 10-30+ metres, although sometimes strong currents can be a challenge. It is often dived as a drift dive.