Merry Christmas cruise !!!

27/12/2015

All the team of The Smiling Sea Horse wish you a Merry Christmas, we are just back from our Christmas cruise and was really enjoyable for all of us. The guests were delighted, novices and beginner shared the cabins on the MV Thai Sea to spend christmas over the Thailand water.

Half of the guests on boat are swiss, two of them came to learn how to make bubbles and 5 to improve their skills. Congratulations to Luca and Romain for your Open Water Diver Certification, and for Coralie who are now Advanced Open Water !

We had also on board two snorkelers, Laurence and Lea, non-diver but who enjoyed swimming at the surface and relaxing on the boat while we had a busy programme, between the 4 dives a day, eating, sleeping and studying for some, analyzing the pictures for the others already certified.

Thanks to the national park of south thailand to give us such some good dive sites and to our guests for the nice atmosphere and good laughs on the boat.

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Happy holidays from Mergui Archipelago!

24/12/2015

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Hello everyone! First I wanted to wish you a merry Christmas and lots of fun with your family.

Santa passed early here:
We just got a drone and already love playing with it to show you another aspect of Mergui Archipelago:

The Mergui ArchipelagoScattered like pearls on a blue velvet bed sheet are a bunch of 800 islands scattered over the Andaman sea just off the eastern coast of Myanmar. This is Burma's tropical paradise of Mergui Archipelago. The British colonial name of "Mergui" still remains as opposed to the Burmese "Myeik".
Myanmar has got turquoise waters, palm-fringed white sand beaches, amazing dive sites, rich wildlife, mangrove forest, but despite the fact that there are only a few islands in Thailand, comparatively, Mergui Archipelago, is far less famous than its Andaman Sea neighbor, the surin and similan islands.
In fact, Myeik Archipelago is one of the world’s best-kept secrets due to the fact that it was only opened to tourism in 1997 and is still under quite a strict regulation.

Read the full trip's itinerary

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Leopard sharks are dancing in Burma

19/12/2015

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Another 8 days cruise, undiscovered Mergui

Another 8 days cruise, undiscovered Mergui, just ended perfectly in a taste of great bubbles, great food and as always good laughs.

Small team of 7 divers from Germany, Switzerland, France, United States and Philippines for 8 wonderful days going up north to Black Rock. The weather was good and the diving conditions almost perfect.

We had some nice encounters during this trip; one eagle ray in the secret cave, a marbled ray during the safety of a night dive, and specially two leopard sharks playing together around us for few minutes in front of our cameras.

We were lucky to spot a total of 17 different sea horses including a baby one during the whole trip ! 3 well hidden ghost pipe fishes and 11 cute frog fishes. Bunch of all different kind of shrimps, squat, boxing, durban, cleaning, marbled and the tapestry, quite a rare specimen endemic to the region.

And its not all about diving during the cruise, a minke whale was intrigued by the boat and went to welcome us around Western Rocky. But it was too shy to let us approach underwater, only teasing us with its songs during our dive.

Stay connected for our next trip and take a look on our facebook pages for all the underwater pictures.

More pics from the trip on Facebook here!

See the entire cruise itinerary and details here

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30 fun facts about marine life

11/12/2015

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30 fun facts about marine life you won’t even believe!

The vastness of the ocean is still in great part a mystery to us.
Even the species that we know, continue to surprise us with their behavior. Check out these shocking facts about marine critters that you won’t believe...

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Un sejour de plongée 5 étoiles en Thailand

6/12/2015

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Un sejour 5 etoiles, pour la cuisine, les debrief, le bateau, tout fut parfait, au dela de nos attentes... tres grosse envie de renouveler l'aventure.
...
Bluffée par l'excelence du service!!! On peut voir que Franck se donne du mal pour satisfaire ses hotes, rien n'est laisse au hasard...

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Big dinner...

4/12/2015

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8 days cruise, undiscovered Mergui Archipelago

We are back from the first 8 days cruise to Mergui of the season, going up north all the way to Black Rock. Another great trip!

This cruise was under the tag of photography, not less than 7 cameras for 12 divers, and the result was some beautiful shots that you can admire on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/the.smiling.seahorse

In addition of the frenchies photographers, Fred, Flore, Sophie and Nono, we had on board a lovely couple, Maurizio and Gabriella, who decided to come on this 8 days trip without any diving experience except one discover scuba diving few years ago. At the end of the cruise they were delighted by their daring decision, and they are going back home with not only an open water course diploma, they are now advanced open water and enriched air nitrox divers with more than 20 dives each ! Congratulations for your performance ! And to be able to find some time to relax even with this busy program ;-)

Another happy New this week: we spotted the first ghost pipe fish of the season, a baby white one, not more than 2cm long! but also the first Harlequin shrimps of the season (2 pairs!) I love those creatures and so glad they are usually quite territorial so we should find them on the next dive trips! yeah!

You can take a look on the Facebook album and admire the different cute fishes and tiny creatures. We had the chance to assist to a pygmy squid eating a shrimp, morray eel having a feast of glassfishes at night, some cuttlefishes mating, not less than 9 frogfishes, 2 stone fishes sleeping in the top of the sea fan forest pinnacle, turtle, rays and a dozen of smiling seahorses as usual :-)

Stay connected for our next adventures and keep an eye on the Facebook page if you want to see more pictures of the trip.

All the team wish you a wonderful month of December !

More pics from the trip on our facebook album, click here

Black Rock, South Twin, Shark Cave, North Twin, Macleod Island, Western Rocky, Seafan Forrest...
8 days/7 nights, 25 dives

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Merry Christmas cruise !!!

Happy holidays from Mergui Archipelago!

Leopard sharks are dancing in Burma

Another 8 days cruise, undiscovered Mergui

30 fun facts about marine life

30 fun facts about marine life you won’t even believe!

Un sejour de plongée 5 étoiles en Thailand

Big dinner...

8 days cruise, undiscovered Mergui Archipelago

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