 eggs of the spanish dancer  Ghost pipe fish  Hunting dolphins | We go again to Burma and for the first day of this 6 days/5 nights around the south of Burma archipelago... we dive high rock, steward island, tower rock and Spanish Garden, our secret spot to find Spanish dancers on every dive! This must be a reproduction center because we can see their eggs quite often there and the Spanish dancers come out in the evening for the ball. During the day we also spotted a ghost pipe fish, first one of the season, yeah! In the morning we are also lucky to see a pod of dolphin hunting in the bay, I love them, even if they run away when we dive!!! |
Crabs of Myanmar
Volcano AKA seahorse city and Sting Rays in Mergui Archipelago...
   | November 5th 2012 Myanmar diving expedition report: 4 dives on the way and at Western rocky dive 1: 7h10, 32m, 42 min, New dive site dive 2: 11h14, 33m, 45 min, Western Rocky dive 3: 15h38, 26m, 42 min, Western rocky Dive 4: 19h12, 22m, 40 min, Western Rocky Beside the usual coral reef fishes which we encounter every time we dive in Myanmar. We saw a group of cuttle fish, big file fish and many types of crabs among which sponge crabs and spider crabs also called decorator crabs because of the way they use pieces of colorful coral and sponges to dress up. You can see more pictures about this trip on our Facebook album : First trip to Burma: awesomeness!!! |
 Black tips reef shark  Tiger tail seahorse  Blotched sting ray  Jenkins Sting ray | 6th of November, we jump in very early to have a chance to see the black tips sharks that are living in the crater of a sleeping volcano. On the outside of the crater there a coral wall we like to call seahorse city because we always find seahorses there! Visibility is pretty bad there but it’s still a very good dive site… As expected we saw 2 black tips reef sharks and 2 seahorses... On the 6th of November, we did 4 Dives around Western Rocky and its pinnacles.The major highlight of the day was a massive blotched sting ray about 2 meters large without counting the tail really huge!!! We also saw Jenkins Sting ray easily recognizable by its shape and the long size of its tail. Too bad I scared it away with my scooter before Franck could snap a picture, which is why I didn't use his picture of a running stingray but it is as big as the one above. |
Sharks are at home in Mergui Archipelago...
Diving in Burma's southern islands...
 Nurse shark in Mergui Archipelago  Blotched stingray  Leopard shark  Sea turtle | On the 13th of November, we are still reporting about our dive trip in Mergui Archipelago. Today we visit 4 dive sites around shark cave and it deserves its name today: 2 massive nurse shark are happily sleeping in its bowels! they are between 2 and 3 meters long and we pass next to them to get to the other side of the cave, this is exciting!!! And for those who didn't have enough, 2 big blotched sting rays were also there!!! what a dive! we had to do it again at night and everyone was still there, lazily resting on the sandy bottom. On the 14th of November we continues our expedition in the Mergui Archipelago towards north twin pinnacle. We hope to see some mantas, we will do 2 dives there… Unfortunately, no mantas showed up but we were greeted by 1 leopard shark , a big school of barracuda and a turtle! The last 2 dives of the day were on South twin where we could play with some swim through and it’s the place for nudibranches! On the evening we had a great encounter with dolphins on the surface, awesome! |
 Seafan Forest  Nudibranche | Burma has some incredible dive sites, on the 7th of November 2012, The Smiling Seahorse's team was visiting Seafan forest and North Rock in the south of Burma's Archipelago also known as Mergui. On this beautiful day we spotted many large schools among which barracudas and snappers. We also saw an octopus, blue spotted sting rays, Porcelain crabs, squat shrimps, beautiful nudibranches  Blue spotted sting ray eyes |
Seafan forest - Encounter with an Eagle Ray...
  | 15th of November. We dive Seafan forest South of Myanmar Archipelago. It’s a magnificent coral reef, which goes down to more than 40 meters and up to 5 meters from the surface. This makes it a wonderful dive site with huge seafan coral up to more than 2 meters high, all over it. We start our dive up current to be able to reach the swim through side, covered by some purple soft coral. We find there 2 ghost pipe fishes and a couple of harlequin shrimps. What a great start! On our second dive there, we literally bumped into an eagle ray and it’s the hectic time when all fish are hunting, rainbow runners, Jacks, trevallies and barracuda! Absolutely fantastic!  Harlequin shrimps |
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