Photo: Kon Tiki Khao Lak  The wreck remains intact, and with the addition of all the marine-life, is a great place to dive; in fact as far as the marine-life goes, its right up there with the best of them. A short drive from Phuket reaches Khao Lak in Phangnga province, where surprisingly enough, there's a fantastic variety of diving services offered, which have somehow managed to elude publicity, until now that is! Khao Lak has no fewer than ten operators set up either in the beachfront resorts or dotted along the main thoroughfare. Diver education is prominently flaunted on large billboards and shop fronts, along with a number of rather unique services, but they will be featured in the October edition of 'Thai Diver'
 It is plain fully obvious that this is rapidly developing as 'the place to be' not only on the back-packer route but also on the scuba diving map, particularly as the park features long pristine beaches punctuated by small islets, rocky coves, coral reefs and a even a couple of wrecks. The wrecks are or rather were, both tin dredgers but now instead of desiccating everything in their path, they act as a place of refuge to it. Quite the opposite from their once dredging capacity of 200 cubic metres of bottom composite every hour.
 The nearest and largest of the two dredgers, christened the Bang Sak, was constructed in Sydney, Australia during 1927 came to rest courtesy of the Royal Thai Navy in 1984, when they relieved it from its duty of resident marine hazard off the shores of Laem Pakarang to the north of the Park.
The fifty metre long wreck is now retired under twelve metres of water with its bottom in twenty. Quite why it was left there in the first place remains a mystery, perhaps they misplaced it!
The wreck remains intact, and with the addition of all the marine-life, is a great place to dive; in fact as far as the marine-life goes, its right up there with the best of them. For starters it's the only place in Thailand where the rarely encountered Halgera sp. nudibranch is found, and on a regular basis.  If you look very carefully there's a number of proper stonefish lurking in the sand around the hulls exterior; none of those reef-type models that are in no way ugly enough to miss! Even harder to see is a resident anglerfish, in fact its so hard its best to get one of the Divemaster's familiar with the wreck to point it out to you.
Its also worth taking some time to explore the sand further-a-field as its heavily pitted by the lairs of gobies and mantis shrimps, their elliptical eyes peering out of their tubular holes in the hope of spotting a quick meal. Close inspection will also reveal small flatheads and juvenile scorpionfish, so be careful where you put your hands.
Back on the dredger itself, are morays, harlequin ghost pipefish, lionfish and snappers and the surrounding waters are generally busy with schooling fusiliers, barracudas, cuttlefish and squid. And on a larger note leopard, nurse and even the odd whale shark.
All in all this site guarantees encounters with all manners of creatures, and it doesn't really matter that the visibility can be somewhat limited it's a winning site for always spotting something unusual, no matter what its size.
A big thank you to Ian Oakshett of Sea Dragon Dive Center for providing the diagram and background information on the Bang Sak Wreck. |
