The Diving Season Begins: Back to Burma with Ban’s Dive Center
We are very happy to announce the start of our diving season! We had a fantastic first trip to Burma, returning to the Mergui Archipelago with a whole bunch of instructors from Ban’s Dive Center in Koh Tao, together with a few of their students.
Starting a new diving season always feels special, but heading back to Burma makes it even more exciting. After months away, the first trip of the season is a chance to get back into the rhythm of life at sea, rediscover familiar dive sites and see what the underwater world has been up to while we were away.
Back to the Mergui Archipelago
Our first trip of the season was everything we could have hoped for. The diving conditions were exceptional, with mild currents, amazing visibility and a perfect water temperature. In other words, the conditions were just ideal for getting back underwater.
And the wildlife certainly seemed happy to see us back. Nurse sharks, barracudas and frogfish were all there, as if they had simply been waiting for the divers to return. After six months without seeing a diver, they looked as though they were still waiting for us in exactly the same places where we had left them the previous year.
That is one of the wonderful things about returning to the Mergui Archipelago. Every cruise brings something new, yet there is also the comforting feeling of coming back to familiar underwater landscapes and knowing that some of the creatures you discovered on previous expeditions may still be there.
For experienced divers, the region offers an extraordinary combination of big marine life, dramatic underwater scenery and quieter encounters with smaller creatures. Nurse sharks resting around rocky areas, barracudas cruising through the blue and well-camouflaged frogfish are just some of the encounters that can make a Burma liveaboard cruise so memorable.
A Perfect Start to the Season
Of course, a liveaboard trip is about much more than the diving. After a day spent exploring the reefs, there is time to relax, enjoy the beaches and watch the changing colours of the sky as another day comes to an end.
And then there was the team of crazy divers we had embarked with on that first trip. With a group made up largely of instructors from Ban’s Dive Center in Koh Tao and some of their students, we knew we were going to have plenty of passionate divers on board. I think it is safe to say that they enjoyed their holiday as much as we enjoyed having them on board!
After the long break between seasons, there is no better feeling than welcoming divers back on board, getting everyone into the water and starting another chapter of exploration in Myanmar.
