Burma Banks Exploration Dive Cruise: Tiger Sharks, Nurse Sharks, and Uncharted Waters

Oh… what a cruise! For our latest exploration trip to the Burma Banks, we have been very, very blessed, meeting so many fantastic creatures!

Welcome and a huge thank you to our lucky group on board: Christophe, Chloé, Stéphane, Laure, Sandra, and Gregory from Switzerland; Fabian and Michaela from Germany; Sylvie, Ghislaine, and Patrick from France; Ivy from Australia; Andre from England; Areena from Thailand; and Gils from the Netherlands.

We enjoyed fantastic visibility and plenty of fish everywhere. As soon as you jumped into the water, you could come face-to-face with one of these big nurse sharks!

And as if that wasn’t enough, while you were watching the sharks on one side, huge marbled rays would cruise past on the other! 🙂

An Unexpected Tiger Shark Encounter

It was already just amazing… but that was only the beginning! We experienced a breathtaking and completely unexpected encounter, getting close to a tiger shark—our first time in 7 years!

And to top it off, we encountered another rare creature: a stunning porcupine ray!

The underwater topography also featured huge, pristine corals…

Not only in the Burma Banks but everywhere we went, the dive sites were teeming with fish, including lovely schools of jacks, surgeonfish, and snappers.

Incredible Macro Diversity

Beyond the big pelagics, there was an incredible diversity of small marine life, featuring all kinds of shrimp!

We even spotted harlequin shrimp! Can you see the cute little one on the left?

There were lovely nudibranchs…

…graceful Spanish dancers…

Seahorses, ghost pipefish, and so much more!

On-Board Festivities and Sunsets

Back on the boat, we hosted a fantastic belly dance night that brought everyone onto the dance floor!

And as always, we were treated to stunning sunsets and sunrises!

Diving the Remote Burma Banks: A Shark Enthusiast’s Paradise

Would you like to explore the unexplored? Join one of our exploratory cruises and dive the Burma Banks!

Located 125 km offshore from the southern town of Kawthaung, the secrets of the Burma Banks are waiting to be discovered. Situated on the edge of the central Myanmar continental shelf and hidden in the depths of international waters (in an economic zone claimed by Myanmar), they consist of a collection of undersea mountains little known to humans. Starting at depths of over 300 metres, these massive underwater formations rise all the way up to a diveable zone 15 to 30 metres below the surface of the open ocean.

There are six documented peaks—Big, Coral, Heckford, Rainbow, Roe, and Silvertip banks—alongside countless unnamed peaks that start even deeper than 300 metres. Thankfully, the visibility is usually so good that you can still make them out from above, even when they reach depths beyond recreational limits. Because they are so tricky to access, they remain veritable uncharted territory, yours to discover.