King Cruiser
The catamaran-hulled King Cruiser had been safely making a daily run from Phuket to Phi Phi Island 365 days a year for well over a decade, but somehow on 4 May 1997 it managed to run straight in to Anemone Reef, a popular dive site and one of the few navigation hazards in the area.
The port hull was ripped open and the ship started to sink. Drifting clear of the reef it went under slowly by the port bow, taking over and hour to capsize and disappear beneath the sea. Dangerously overloaded ferries sinking with massive loss of life in Southeast Asia are something we have all heard of in the news. With that in mind, you will be pleased to know that the King Cruiser was not overloaded and there was plenty of time for the 600 passengers and crew to escape. The only injury was one broken bone.
Local dive boats and fishing boats soon came to the rescue, piling passengers on board until there was no-one left in the water. I guess some lucky dive guide from one of the boats had the honour of being the first to dive the wreck, maybe not knowing at the time if everyone had survived.
Today the King Cruiser lies on a sandy seabed in 30 to 35 metres, roughly between the nearby dive sites of Anemone Reef and Shark Point. It stands upright on its twin hulls, the top of the wheelhouse being just 12 metres below the surface.
Although beginning fairly shallow, the King Cruiser is not always an easy dive. Situated to the southeast of Phuket the visibility is often lower than that at dive sites further out in the Andaman Sea. Currents can also be quite strong, requiring divers to haul down the permanent mooring lines and duck inside the wreck to avoid being swept off.
Fish have migrated from the nearby reefs and set up home in the many compartments of the wreck. Above the bows an enormous shoal of fish is swirling in the current. Literally thousands and thousands of small silvery snapper swarm in a dense cloud cutting out the sunlight.
Unlike a conventional ship the bow is an open cavern between the two catamaran hulls. The car deck is well above the waterline there are many openings to the outside. Unlike your usual English Channel ferry there are no bow doors to close, just a huge ramp sloping down to the seabed.
The hull is a classic example of colonisation by marine life. Having only been down a few years, there has not been time for slower growing stony corals to become established. Nevertheless the wreck is covered in shellfish and there is a fair amount of soft coral.
At the stern large propellers are still attached to their shafts in each hull. Ascending one level by the starboard side of the stern the car deck is an enormous cavern. Open stairways on either side wind their way up to the passenger decks above. The loading ramp stands proud in the centre.
Back above the bow deck the way back past winches and chains leads to the passenger deck. The glazing from all the windows has gone and entry is easy.
Inside the visibility is drastically reduced, not from silt but from the density of the glassfish. The entire inside of the passenger deck is one stupendous shoal of millions of these tiny fish. Row upon row of PVC and foam seats are slowly rotting away. From the ceiling loops of cable dangle to catch the pillar valves of unwary divers.
On the bridge deck all the instruments and fittings have long gone. Some enterprising Thai probably has the ships wheel fitted to his dive boat. Traces of the King Cruiser's Japanese origins can still be found in the form of occasional markings kept clear of growth by diver's polishing fingers, but you have to look carefully.
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