The meeting, held at the Chulabhorn Marine Park Project inside the Royal Thai Navy base, focused on two main issues: mooring buoys and garbage, with the private sector urging park officials to do more about both. The response from the officials was, basically, “We don’t have enough money.”
Dive companies complained that buoys are a perennial problem, with the growing number of speed boats carrying tourists occupying all the moorings and leaving just one for dive boats
Guy “Charlie” Lidureau of Seafarer Divers told the meeting, “The buoys for dive boats and speedboats should be separated. Otherwise, there will be a problems, and possibly accidents.”
Ackrapol “Ko” Changkol, Managing Director of Barracuda Diving Co, demanded to know, “Why do we pay B200 a day when there are no buoys for us to moor at? Every time we have a meeting we discuss buoys, but nothing changes.
Nath Konggaysorn, Chief of the SNP responded, “We are not ignoring the problem. But before the next season when the Similans open, I would like to ask for cooperation from every business: Send us all the documents for registration well in advance, including the total number of boats [you will be using]. Please be precise about this because it will have a bearing on whether there are enough buoys or not.
“Also, when it comes to complaints from dive companies, you should know that the buoys for dive boats are the most expensive – they are deep sea buoys, so we have only buoys for the speedboats.
He said it is difficult to separate the buoys because the dive boats are few in number compared with the speedboats and other passenger boats.
Jaruwath Ngamtubtim, from another dive company (he declined to give its name) cut to the chase: “If the government doesn’t provide the budget [for the park to install more buoys] then why don’t we do it ourselves?
He said they could get together to share the money and buy the buoys themselves. Another option might be to buy the buoys and the mooring lines that meet the standards of the DNP [Department of National Parks] “instead of talking about this again and again”.
This suggestion seemed to meet with general approval, with DNP officials saying they were willing to help the private sector to install the buoys.
Another major irritant was garbage, with business owners unanimous in believing that SNP staff should put more effort into cleaning up the increasing amounts of junk in the park.
Once again, it came down to money, said Mr Nath. “We have a boat that is used to carry the garbage back to the mainland but our budget allows us to do this only once every two days.
“What we would like is for the crews of tour boats to help us carry the garbage back to the mainland,” he said.
Mr Nath also raised a red flag over the abuse of drugs by boat crews. DNP officers had come across a number of tour guides and boat captains in possession of drugs. “We have sent letter to the owners of the companies involved because we are concerned about the safety of the passengers.
“In the next open season, the DNP and the police will be checking more carefully so we have to ask for cooperation from business people to help us keep an eye on this.”
The Similan Islands are currently closed to visitors until October 31.