Meet the New MV Smiling Seahorse: Our Brand-New Liveaboard for Myanmar Diving
The MV Smiling Seahorse, our brand-new steel liveaboard, had been taking shape in the mangrove forest near Ranong for the last six months or so. It was coming together nicely and was nearly ready for the coming diving season!
While she was not quite finished yet, we wanted to give you a little update and let you discover our new boat before she headed out on her first adventures in the waters of Myanmar and the Andaman Sea.
Meet the MV Smiling Seahorse
Let’s introduce her to you…
From the front, you can already see the two massive windows on the main deck. These are the Master Cabins, designed so that guests can enjoy a great sea view while cruising through the Andaman Sea 🙂
Spacious cabins with ocean views
From the side, you can see the wooden cabin doors. On the main deck there are four Deluxe Cabins and two Master Cabins, while upstairs are the Standard Cabins and Dive Master Cabins.
All our cabins would be air-conditioned and designed with large windows and doors opening towards the ocean. The Deluxe and Master Cabins would also have their own ensuite bathrooms 🙂
A huge sundeck for relaxing
The shaded area on the rooftop, which would become our sundeck, was still under construction at this stage.
Once finished, it would be a huge sundeck with plenty of shade (and sun), hammocks and mattresses. What a spot to enjoy the view!
A comfortable dining and chill-out area
We also wanted the common areas to be spacious and comfortable, so the new boat has a large dining and chilling area with power sockets all around, fans, a sound system and a lovely couch area at the back.
There are also two bars, although the bar stools had not been installed yet when these pictures were taken!
Seen from the other side, you can see the buffet area and the stairs leading up to the rooftop sundeck. On both sides are corridors leading to the Standard Cabins.
Flexible cabin layouts
The Deluxe and Standard Cabins have a smart convertible bed system. Depending on your needs, the beds can be arranged either as a queen-size double bed or as single bunk beds.
You can also see the bathroom tiles in the bottom right corner of the picture. These are the ensuite bathrooms in the Deluxe Cabins.
The bathrooms were not finished yet, so no pictures of those for the moment…
A dive deck designed for divers
Because diving is what we do, we put a lot of thought into the diving area. The new boat was designed with a large and functional dive deck and a spacious dive platform, giving everyone plenty of room to prepare for dives and organise their equipment.
Everyone would have storage space for their personal gear, big or small, with an additional room specially dedicated to underwater photographers!
A big improvement: this room specially dedicated to photographers! My favourite 😉
There was still a little tidying up to do, but it was mostly done 🙂
What’s under the main deck?
Now let’s see what’s under the main deck…
We would have 16,000 litres of fresh water, which was four times more than on our beloved MV Thai Sea. That meant we would be able to extend our trips by a few days! 🙂
And in the engine room: two powerful engines and two generators. Together, they would give us a cruising speed of 10 knots and enough power to run two compressors and all the air-conditioning units at the same time.
Comfortable crew areas
Of course, we also had to make sure that our staff had comfortable and practical spaces on board.
Let’s have a look at the staff side of the boat!
The Captain’s cabin
The Captain’s cabin is modern and spacious, with two berths for our dear Captain and Mechanic.
I’m sure you can recognise May! 😉
Dive Master and staff accommodation
The Dive Masters’ cabin was more spacious and comfortable than our legendary “chicken cabins”… lol!
And downstairs, there was a large staff quarter with three cabins for the rest of our dream team.
Ready for new underwater adventures
Building a new liveaboard from scratch was a big project, but seeing the MV Smiling Seahorse take shape made all the hard work worthwhile.
From the spacious cabins and huge sundeck to the large dive area, dedicated photographer room and improved freshwater capacity, every part of the boat was being designed with long days at sea and great diving in mind.
We were looking forward to having you back on board for some new underwater adventures diving in Myanmar!
A little slideshow from the latest photos
Ready to come back on board?
Wanna come back soon?
At the time of this boat update, we were offering a 10% discount on the first cruise of the season: be one of the first guests on the MV Smiling Seahorse, with Trip 3 scheduled from 26 to 31 October!
For current trips, dates and availability, please check our liveaboard schedules and itineraries or get in touch with us.
