Please see also the scheduled meeting- and departure times regarding pick up at Ranong, and at the islands Koh Chang and Koh Phayam. Within this link, you can also see the scheduled returning times to each location.

Day 1

Meeting at Ranong

As all our trips to Burma start from Ranong, we will meet today at 'The House of Happinez', a cozy lodge next to the Raksawarin Hot Springs in Ranong. From here we will transfger all our guests to our liveaboard MY Merit. We will depart from Thailand as soon as the Thai immigration clears our way.

Departure to Burma

While we are crossing the river on the way to Kawthaung, the border town in Burma, we will have lunch and give you a specified boat briefing for this tour, including introducing our crew, explaining about safety rules, showing you around onboard and so on.

Once we arrive at Kawthaung (which is the harbour in Myanmar) in the early afternoon, we wait for the Burmese authorites to check us in. In the meantime, you can have a little stroll on land to see what's going on in this border town. When we receive clearance, we start to sail up north into the Archipelago.

On the way we will have diner and you will have time to relax and to get to know the other people on the tour. In the meantime, we'll take care of setting up your dive equipment.

Day 2

First dive in the morning will be High Rock! Enjoy the interesting macro life including some sort of pipe fishes, sea horses and quite many different species of nudibranchs.

For the second dive we move on to Rocky 1. An easy dive site for a pleasure dive including the biggest anemone fields in the area. All kinds of different anemone fishes live here.

In the neighborhood we find one of the many white powdered beaches to visit, as well as a Moken village.

Dive 3 and 4 will be at the famous dive site Shark Cave. This is a wonderful spot with a nice colorful coral garden and a special canyon ending up in a cave-like swim through. Grey reef sharks, nurse sharks and marbled sting rays are often seen here. Everybody likes this spot!

Today we have an overnight cruise towards the remotely situated dive site Black Rock, where we will arrive in the early morning.

Day 3

Here we are again, on one of the best dive sites of the whole Mergui Archipelago! This is the spot where you can see magnificent shows of big fish. We have seen schools of manta rays, big grey reef sharks and eagle rays. Also we have seen whale sharks here, but we have the feeling they like to go more in the south.

The underwater terrain falls at some places here quite dramatically down, way under diving limits. There are sheer walls, deep plateaus, sloping reefs, and everywhere there is something to see.

We will stay all day here and we'll make 4 dives over here!

Day 4

After this usually fabulous day, we try to even top it, by sailing further up north to the majestic dive site Tower Rock. The purpose to get into this area, are the common sightings of schools of mobulas. Once we arrive at this place, many times you can see the mobulas already jumping out of the water, again and again!

We will stay at Tower Rock for 2 dives. This spot is the most northern point of the cruise, and following this we will head southwest towards the Little Torres Islands.

A huge ridge here, form our dive spots, which also attracts very often passing manta rays and eagle rays. This place allows for a scenic dive. On the shallow parts of the ridge, look out for nudibranchs.

The last dive of the day will be a night dive either at this spot, or at Black Rock. At the end of the day we will be cruising more south towards the North Twin Islands.

Day 5

At the North Twin Islands, we find two exciting places to dive. We'll start with the North Twin Plateau for the first dive and our second dive will be at North Twin Pinnacle. Both places are pretty widespread and deeper areas. Please pay attention to our upfront dive briefings here, to understand the dive sites. It's a boulder-like area, with many huge sea fans. We can dive quite a distance here, while we can see reef sharks, eagle rays, barracudas, tunas, marbled sting rays, ribbon eels and much more.

For Dive 3 and 4 we move probably closer inshore to the dive spots of Chi Wat and Mercati. Both sides offer a fairly unique underwater landscape with tunnels and steep walls. Be ready to watch out also for the small stuff!

Towards sunset time we are cruising to the Mac Leod Islands, where we will find shelter for another quiet night.

Day 6

We will make the first two dives of the day around the Mac Leod area, at 3 Sisters and at Orange Rock. Here you'll find lots of soft coral garden, hence the name Orange Rock... You'll find tons of them in all colors and variations. That makes up for nice dives with a nice ambience. Also macro-lovers will love this area!

For Dive 3 and 4 we move on to the most southern destination of this trip; the fabulous Western Rocky area. The third dive we will dive at Little Fingers. This is a very interesting area with lots of schooling fishes and occasionally you can see sharks in the outer perimeters. The last dive of the day will be a night dive at Western Rocky it selves - it's a must to see this site at night! We'll stay here for the night.

Day 7

Our first dive of the day is at Fan Forest Pinnacle, which is probably the deepest dive site in the southern area of the Mergui Archipelago. At Fan Forest we actually have a good chance to see quite some big stuff. The site consist of a pinnacle, which is situated in the open ocean, starting just 5m below the surface.

For the rest of the day, we move back to Western Rocky. There we'll have a look at it's highlight: an underwater tunnel running completely through the island! It's walls are inhabited by many lobsters and at the arch we have a good chance of seeing frogfish.

In the neighborhood is a nice pinnacle, where we probably jump as the second dive of the day. The last dive of the day is whether a sunset- or a night dive.

Day 8

Last but not least; the final day of the cruise offers 2 different dives again! The morning dive will be at Laguna. This is an almost surreal dive, with the last chance to meet up with sea horses, ghostpipe fishes, nudibranchs and maybe even blacktip sharks.

Our last dive of this cruise will be a surprise; it's our secret spot. Once we return from this dive, we will enjoy lunch and the captain starts to sail back to Kawthaung.

Once we arrive at the harbor, you will have time again to do some shopping. After the immigration passes us back our passports, we head back to Thailand in order to receive a new visa.

We'll hope you had a great time onboard and above- and underwater while cruising the scenic Mergui Archipelago in Burma!