Captains Trip Log of the Thailand Aggressor trip into the Mergui Archipelago between 15th and 20th November 2014.
Saturday 15th November
All our guests arrived around 17:30 and we were all excited to start our new itinerary. We had our welcome briefing plus the dive safety briefing and we all enjoy the delicious chef’s food.
Sunday 16th November
It was an early start today as we had to be at Myanmar for clearance early so we all jumped in the water at 6:30. We started our first dive at the week at Richelieu Rock, one of our favorite dive sites in Thailand and as a sign of a good start, as we jumped in the water and started deflating our BCDs, there was a whale shark waiting for us. How exciting it was, especially being our check dive. We also schooling barracudas, batfish, yellow snappers and tons of other fish. What an incredible start.
Visibility: 30m
Water temp.: 29oC
Monday 17th November
It was our first day of the season in Myanmar and we were all very excited about. Port clearance was extremely smooth, taking us only 30 minutes and we headed to our first dive sites. Our first dives were crayfish cave and Eagle’s nest where we saw many lobsters, thorny sea horse, plurabranch, many morays including the fimbriated, white eye and giant moray and as we passed through the cave a beautiful eagle ray paid us a visit. We spent the afternoon at Fan forest and as the name may suggest, hundreds of sea fans were swaying in the mild currents. Another great day in paradise.
Visibility: 30m
Water temp.: 28oC
Tuesday 18th November
We headed north towards three islets and the diving was just amazing. A lot of macro stuff such as gemini’s chromodoris, pipefish, flat worms, hawkfish and we saw this massive stone fish, buried under the sand you could barely see him. Shark cave was simply incredible, this is a massive canyon with a lot of schooling yellow snappers and a really beautiful swim through, just great for photography enthusiasts. We are all looking forward to our next day, Black rock here we come.
Visibility: 20m
Water temp: 28C
Wednesday 19th November
Today we spent the whole day at Black rock which is the place to see mantas rays and guess what: They were there waiting for us. We did not see them in the first dive but we saw many octopus, nudis, moray eels and and very small harlequin shrimp. On our second dive we had this magnificent manta ray swimming right up to us with its gracious movements. The day continued with a lot of barracudas, tunas and jacks.
Visibility: 30 m
Water temp.: 28oC
Thursday 20th November
What a great day we had today. We started at Rock 1 were we saw sea horses, porcelain crabs, nudis, pipe fish, blue spotted sting rays and the soft corals really amazed divers, and as for the photographers, everyone had great opportunities for some amazing shots. The day carried on with barracudas, tunas, jacks and trevallies, beautiful sea fans and soft corals. We sailed to the border of Thailand and while we were doing the clearance, our guests enjoyed a land tour visiting some temples and experiencing the local culture.
Visibility: 30 m
Water temp.: 28C
————————————
Courtesy of Thailand Aggressor