Mermaid 1 - Burma liveaboard diving

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Mermaid I runs Burma liveaboard safaris to Myanmar's mysterious and largely unexplored Mergui archipelago area. Mermaid1's Burma safari is a 9 day / 9 night adventure with 30 dives (22 dives in Burma and 8 in Thailand). You get to experience the best that Thailand and Burma have to offer on this adventure trip of a lifetime.
The safari can be combined with Mermaid 2's Thailand diving safari to experience the best spots both Thailand and Burma diving have to offer. Both boats leave and return to Phuket island on Thailand's west coast in the stunning Andaman sea during the high season from November to May - Special offers

Mermaid 1

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M/V Mermaid I is a 28 metre, double engine steel motor yacht. She comfortably holds 15 guests in 1 Master State Room (king bed), 1 Single and 4 Deluxe Cabins (double or twin beds) and 2 Budget Cabins (double/twin beds) below deck. The master, single and deluxe cabins have ensuite bathrooms, refrigerators and panoramic windows offering great sea views during your Burma liveaboard.
The budget cabins are below decks with ensuite bathroom and refrigerator. All cabins have TVs for reviewing your pictures or watching a dvd, bathrobes , toiletries and loads of fluffy towels. There is a wide stern dive platform with two exit ladders and fresh water showers. 4 camera rinse tanks, a large camera table and our resident on-board video and photo professional will help keep all the photographers happy and help with your all important lens decisions.
Burma liveaboard diving is not just about the diving, delicious Thai and western meals are served in our "Sawasdee Restaurant" with large windows to enjoy the views as you cruise. Our new barbeques are also a great hit! After meals relax in our saloon equipped with a large flat screen Tv and library with a full selection of marine life books. There are two outside decks, one shaded with outside seating and the upper deck sundeck with sunshade plus cushioned sun beds ­ a great place to relax.

EANX NITROX is available on every cruise.

Mermaid 1 - cabins

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Master cabin	Master cabin bathroom
Master cabin	Master cabin
Single cabin	Single cabin bathroom
Single cabin	Single cabin
Deluxe twin cabin	Deluxe twin cabin
Deluxe twin cabin	Deluxe twin cabin
Deluxe double cabin	Deluxe double cabin
Deluxe double cabin	Deluxe double cabin
Standard cabin	Standard cabin
Standard cabin	Standard cabin

The Mergui archipelago - Burma

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800 virtually unexplored islands fringe the coast of Myanmar. A Burma dive safari to the Mergui Archipelago
promises to be the adventure of a lifetime. Closed by the Burmese government in the 1940s, Mergui was opened up again in 1997 to diving.
This opens up the opportunity to breathe compressed air where it has never been breathed before. Mergui features rugged, rocky terrain. Burma has a fantastic variety of macro life with seahorses, ghost pipefish, harlequin shrimps, frogfish and many rare and possibly un-discovered nudibranch to be found. One of the main attractions is the possibility to
observe a wealth of huge open ocean creatures, such as passing dolphins and whales and pelagics. Burma also has a high rate of mantas and whale shark sitings.Above sea level, the wildlife and scenery is equally impressive. Sea eagles and kites circle and dive for fish, while parakeets fly over the thickly forested islands. The islands are largely uninhabited, except for a scattering of Moken sea gypsies who don't often ge to see a foreign face. There are even reports that wild elephants and tigers inhabit a very few of the islands.

Burma dive sites

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Probably the most spectacular diving in Burma with the most potential for big stuff in the archipelago, Black Rock is a rocky island approximately 100 meters long. Here is the closest you’ll come to having a true wall dive, with depths to over 60-meters and a dramatic drop off in most areas.
Some of the fish you will see here include black-spotted pufferfish, spotted hawkfish, scorpionfish, and blue-ringed angelfish. If you are a moray eel fan, then this is your dive site. Many unusual and rarely seen morays are common, including extra-large common green, zebra, and fimbriated and white-eyed morays. Octopus and cuttlefish can be found here, the latter easy to photograph.

Great Swinton Islands / North Twin Island

There is a large underwater plateau located close to the North Twin Island. The top of the reef has an average depth of 5-15m, with large mating cuttle fish and the highlight here are the Manta rays that visit this place many times with there graceful displays. On the deeper side of this dive site there are big boulders dropping down to 40m where you usually find a large populationof black spotted stingrays sleeping on the sandy bottom.
An underwater pinnacle located close to North Twin Island. The shallowest point of this pinnacle is around 12m and continues down to over 60 meters. As you descend down the slopping reef which has been dynamited you will find a huge amount of sea fans swaying in the usually strong currents. At around 25 meters you can find large Indian nurse sharks sleeping in the overhangs. A look out in to the blue can be rewarding with large dog tooth tunas circling above.

Shark cave / in through the out door / 3 stooges / Cavern Island

This site has so many names and for very good reason, it's amazingly full of life and everyone wants it named by
them. Harboring some of the best marine life in the archipelago. Huge schools of fusilier and silversides surround you upon entering the water. The sandy base of the islands reveals unusual anemones and starfish, while the walls are covered with orange cup corals, whip corals, and green tubastrea coral. It is one of the better areas to see harlequin shrimp and harlequin ghost pipe fish.
If you’re looking for drama, there is a canyon that leads to a tunnel connecting the northern and southern part of the main, middle island. Here, if you’re lucky, you can witness gray reef sharks swimming in and out of the canyon. The trick here is to hang out against the east side of the wall and just watch what comes by.

The famous Burma Banks

10 hours cruising out a series of seamounts rise up from over 300-meters to just below the surface (12m).
Depths average 15-22 meters on the flat areas on top, dropping off slowly on the edges. Some banks have a more dramatic drop off than others, but nowhere will you find a vertical wall. Diving here requires careful planning, as the currents are often strong and unpredictable. Guided drift dives are the norm, usually starting on the edge of the bank in 35-meters of water where divers stare out in the blue looking for baby silvertip, nurse or grey reef sharks. If the sharks don’t happen to be around, the dogtooth tuna, Spanish mackerel and jack fish that patrol the reef edges will delight you along with inquisitive morays and groupers looking for food. The coral is in very good shape in many places, but this varies from year to year depending on storm activity and other environmental factors. In years past this was the reason for diving Burma but now that alot more of the area has been explored we have found that alot of the better sites are closer to shore.

Western Rocky Island

This limestone island features beautiful underwater terrain, includinga tunnel–often full of large tawny nurse sharks–which traverses the island about 20-meters down. The island is more like a series of pinnacles rather than one big rock and the soft limestone makes for crevices offering shelter for a wide variety of sea creatures. Some of the marine life you will see here include mantas, gray reef and spinner sharks, and eagle rays in the open water next to the island, while leopard sharks and spotted rays lie on the bottom. On and around the rocks, spiny lobster, cowrie shells, feather stars, anemones and an assortment of crabs abound. Reef fish include blue-ringed angelfish, moray-eels, snappers, frogfish, and ghost pipefish.

Burma liveaboard diving with Mermaid 1

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