Organising a club dive trip is fraught with difficulty. You have to pick a location with broad appeal - but ideally not too familiar. It can't be too expensive. It must be relatively easy to travel to and timing must fit in with the Hong Kong holiday schedule. Some destinations just don't seem to want to be visited - just ask anyone involved with attempts to visit the Andaman's! Oh, and I should probably mention that the diving must have the potential to be awesome.
The HKUC expedition to the Mergui Archipelago over the Chinese New Year holiday saw eight of us enjoying the unrivalled hospitality of the MY Orion as we sailed amongst a handful of the regions 800+ islands.
Anyone familiar with the coastline of western Thailand would find the limestone islands and outcrops of this area very familiar but Mergui was only opened to dive and sailing operators in 1997. Added to that, whereas the Thais are an adventurous bunch in their offshore waters, the Burmese seem to shun their islands, leaving them instead to the nomadic sea gypsies whom we saw frequently on our cruise. As a result the larger, forest capped islands are thought to be valuable refuges for the regions pressured wildlife. Certainly, sea eagles were a frequent sighting as we cruised and monkeys were spotted foraging on one beach. Hidden from view are reputed to be wild pigs, tigers, deer, elephants, rhinoceros and crocodiles!!
The 60 foot MY Orion provided comfortable, double room, on-suite accommodation for all of us, though most of our time, when not diving, was spent in the sheltered cockpit area where Skip and Tally plied us with what seemed like a never ending stream of fresh cooked food, the like of which I have never seen on much larger boats. Particular thumbs up go to the home made muesli, Tally's cakes and the effort skip put into to producing two roast legs of lamb for one meal. All this with a backdrop of clear skies, tropical islands, pristine white beaches and blue seas. Coming from Hong Kong's January chill this was a tonic in itself.
This was not a dive-a-thon live-aboard. No one was breaking any records for dive time versus surface interval. Generally, the demand was for three dives per day with the occasional night dive. The intervening time was filled with a very relaxing pattern of sunbathing, reading and eating, eating, eating. We did manage the occasional kayaking excursion too but mostly we ate. A bout of gearbox trouble had the potential to severely curtail our activities but a reliable brisk wind allowed us to sail peacefully (when compressor was off) between sites and provided Tristan with the chance to practice his helmsmanship. It also leant a far more chilled ambiance to the trip compared to the usually more frenetic pace of live-a-board diving. The occasional of arrival of dolphins leaping in our bow wave was one of the few things aside from the diving that could rouse us from the horizontal!
Any Internet search of diving in the Mergui Archipelago will inundate you with superlatives describing the quality and abundance of marine life and in particular, the range of shark species commonly spotted in the area including grey reef, silvertip and hammerhead. Our trip, coinciding with the new moon and strong currents, resulted in some relatively poor visibility (15-20m) at many sites though further offshore, we did get clear blue water. Many of the sites visited offered big gorgonian fans and barrel sponges with a multitude of soft corals and plenty to keep the macro photographer happy, including sea horses, harlequin shrimp and nudibranchs. Marble rays were frequently spotted and morays appeared to be everywhere. A couple of sizeable schools of barracuda gave everyone the chance to marvel at these silvery high-speed hunters gathered on mass. The diving offered some swim-throughs and small caves where large lobster could be found lurking in the crevices but generally, the technical requirement of the diving was not high. Dive times were well chosen to catch slack water and overall, dives could follow the direction of the current. All the dives allowed for a multilevel profile that ascended the slopes of the islands and ended in a short surface swim back to the yacht, typically resulting in 50-60 minute bottom times.
But what of the sharks and the mantas? The last dive of the last day produced a single sighting - a juvenile nurse shark hiding under a rock at 30m. Prior to that, we had spotted a couple of sharks in the shallow waters of a sheltered lagoon visited by kayak.
The diving at Mergui is good, and coupled with the superbly run services of the MY Orion it made for a great holiday, particularly with the availability of kayaks with which to visit the beaches. Indeed more could easily have been made of this facility with the potential for some island forest exploration or beach barbeque. However, intensive fishing by long-line and trawl, coupled with the use of dynamite (which we heard on a few occasions) has removed the regions principal draw card for divers - the sharks. The evidence of this activity was visible every night with a horizon filled with the lamps of squid boats and by day, when trawlers were a frequent sight. Our excellent dive guide Michael explained that the more distant Burma Banks had been completely denuded of sharks and no longer worth the time it takes to sail there.
Would I recommend this holiday to someone else - absolutely. However, I would urge them to view it as a relaxing sailing cruise with the chance for some good diving and island exploration in a beautiful part of the world. Coastal Thailand without the crowds.
Congratulations and thanks to Jo and James for booking a trip that satisfied all the requirements of a great club expedition. I would also mention that the MY Orion and culinary crew will soon be cruising the waters of Borneo and available for hire.
Bruce Stephens
Photos by Irene teRaa
February 2006