Burma Diving: Liveaboards From The Ranong Border

Posted on December 31st, 2005.

Burma Banks diving is made more accessible with A-One Diving, based in the Thai town of Ranong, just across the border from Myanmar

I've blogged before about Myanmar Diving, amongst the rarely visited but vast collection of dive sites off the coast of Burma. Most dive boats to Burma run out of Phuket in Thailand, combining their trips with visits to the Similan Islands - it's quite a hefty trek to get all the way up to Burma's dive sites from there.

There is one dive operation that puts itself closer to the action. A-One-Diving is based in Ranong, a small Thai town that sits on the border with Burma - the two countries are separated by the mouth of the Kraburi river which runs into the Andaman Sea. As such, A One is perfectly positioned to make trips with its liveaboard boats both to Similan Island itinerary highlights like Richelieu Rock and also to Burma. As they say on their informative website: "The remote Burmese Banks and the Mergui Archipelago are of course the highlights of our program. This huge area has only been opened to foreigners since 1997, after a closed period of over 50 years. Very few divers go there, and a lot have yet to be discovered… "

I haven't dived with A-One-Diving so I can't vouch for how good they are as a company. However, the fact that they are based so much nearer to Burma and have been running since 1999, according to their website, would hopefully mean that they have a lot of local expertise when it comes to diving there.

My underwater photographer friend Jez Trynor has spent a while diving in Burma and says that the viz tends to be not as good as the Similans, so divers on trips that combine the two destinations are usually a bit disappointed with Burma. I think it's a case of expectations though. If you read up on Burma before you dive there, you're going to be a lot more forgiving about the conditions. Mind you, look at Jez's spectacular underwater photos of Burmaand you'll be wanting to go there in a shot. Here's hoping I get there in 2006 - maybe I can persuade Asian Diver magazine to send me there.