South Myanmar Diving & Island tour between Myeik and Kawthaung.
About 800 Myanmar Islands are in the south Andaman Sea. Only a few are inhabited during monsoon time by the Salone or Sea Gypsies which only live on them when the weather is very bad. Usually they stay on their house boats. The start of our trip was at Yangon harbor.
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| Southern Beach |
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| Southern sunset |
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| Making dugout |
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| Dugout finished |
The spots in the Andaman Sea are the homes of the Salones or "Sea Gypsies", they haven't chanced since colonial times. They still live on their houseboats and during monsoon partly on the islands.
Their specialty are dugouts (Einbaum) they carve out from appropriate trees.
Visiting Myanmar's Elephant Island,
and other bizarre limestone spots in the ocean but that is a name bestowed by a stranger from afar. There is nothing of an elephant about this place at close quarters.
Every time I look into the night and see its sinister pinnacles and revetments outlined against the stars, I am assailed by their awful suggestion.
Even the wash of the Andaman Sea is real pleasant, from a geographical point of view this is already the famous south-sea which includes the even more famous pearls which has been collected by the Salone pearl diver for a long time and today they are cultures.
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| The Salone or Sea Gypsies and their house-boats |
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| The archipelago and the Salone or Sea-Gypsies |
away in the heart of this smiling archipelago and the Salone or Sea-Gypsies living there. Who would suspect its existence if he were not told of it.
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| Sea gypsies hunting |
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| Salone boy harpooning |
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| Salone Village Beach Sunset |
on our tour in south Myanmar sailed away through the night in search of a Salone camp, whose fires shone like pinpoints in the dark. For it seemed probable that they could pilot us by an easier route to the lake whose existence we had discovered.
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| Salone Camp at the Beach |
The first light of dawn showed me a boat lashed under the bows of the launch, and I am sorry to say, its owner lying on its bottom trussed like a fowl. He made no protest. Taking him with us we climbed once again up the sharp pinnacles, and looked down upon the hidden waters ; but descent to them from there was impossible.
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| Sea gypsies and beach life |
We turned back, somewhat torn as to our hands and feet, and rowed away to the cave, as interesting as it was the night before, but less tragic now in the light of day. The hoarse lapping of the sea still echoed there, but the sun, stealing in under the stalagmites, counteracted these dark suggestions.
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| Local yacht |
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Kawthaung yacht
immigration clearance
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This is between Kawthaung the former Victoria Point and the Myeik Archipelago.
The water was now a translucent green, and its roof was lit with dancing water-gleams. The Salone informed us that through this cave at low water I could enter the hidden lake. In the direction of the passage, still invisible, there was silence ; a roar came only from the blind walls where the Andaman Sea could find no entry. Through this passage the sea enters and retreats.
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| Island vacation in the Andaman Sea |
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| Island and Andaman Sea |
At spring tides the mouth of the cave is filled to the roof, and there is no passage. Coming away, till the ebbing of the tide should serve our purpose, I made a tour and entered another cave called Gwa Chee Boh. It lies outside the perimeter on its eastern face, and is overhung by sheer and tragic cliffs from which great stalactites depend, threatening to fall upon an intruder. Long ropes of rattan, leading up into secret places, and now rotting with half a year's disuse, show that the cave is visited.
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| Salone houseboat |
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| Busy beach |
The Salone on being questioned disclaimed,
with a sort of awe, their ever exploiting these cliffs for birds nests. They were too ignorant to find the nests, and too fearful of falling down from the great heights to attempt to do so. But the Malay come twice a year from Penang and climb up.
They bring torches with them and remain within the inner cave ten days, getting shut in there by the sea ; and they collect six big bags of nests. It is a fearful place, where men fall and are killed.
Formerly it was worked by peoples from Myeik, and the cave is named after one who fell and broke his back here.
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| Coastal Speedboat |
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| Cruising in the archipelago |
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| South Myanmar Trip |
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| Sea gypsies houseboats |
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| Andaman Living |
South Myanmar pearl diving
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| Myanmar Pearl Diver |
Andaman Sea Diving
New places to go underwater as Myanmar Encourages Tourism. Are you tired of crowded reefs and inconsiderate divers
stirring up a silt storm just as you enter the water? Fed up with the same old
reefs and
wrecks of the Red Sea or the Caribbean? Or maybe you would
just like to be in warm water with crystal clear visibility, instead of cold
green waters you have to dive in a dry suit.
Myanmar is blessed with a
1,930 kilometer (1,197 mile) coastline that stretches from the mouth of the
Naaf River on the border with Bangladesh, to Kawthaung at its southern tip
where it meets Thailand. Included in her territories are some of the 325
Andaman Islands (most of them are Indian) which are a few hundred kilometers
west. In Burma are around 900 more home to natives called the Salone or Moken people with a huge affinity to the sea, diving as deep
as 25 meters (80 feet) without equipment.
The modern diver is eco-aware and scuba has become a hugely popular sport since Jacques
Cousteau gave us the aqualung, with millions of people certified by PADI,
the largest, although by no means the only, scuba organization. Although
this has been a fantastic way for people to experience the wonders of the
oceans for themselves, there is a destructive element to hoards of
people kicking up sand, touching and breaking corals, and the environmental
impact of thousands of day boats and liveaboards. We have learnt a
great deal since the early days of diving, and dive centers and scuba divers
in general are far more aware of the impact they make on the delicate ocean
environment.
For some places, this awareness has come too late, and huge
tourist numbers have already made a negative impact on dive sites which are
struggling to recover. For the keen scuba diver, new territories are
sought, but with these explorers come new eco-conscious attitudes and a real
desire to ensure the sustainability of virgin reefs.
The benefits of a liveaboard
The tourist industry as a whole is still at fledgling stage
in Myanmar, and scuba is no exception. Liveaboards and day boats have
traditionally run from Thailand.
The advantages are many: diving starts early
and can end with a night dive, so clocking up four dives a day is
manageable; you can get to the more remote dive sites that are difficult for day
boaters to reach.
Dives are interspersed with surface intervals that can be
spent eating and drinking, reading, gentle
sunbathing plus a lot of napping on board, along with
the opportunity to take embarrassing photos of snoring victims.
It is also a great opportunity to meet new people on your boat who share
your passion for the ocean and her inhabitants, and to swap dive stories.
However, as the tourist industry grows, there will be
greater opportunities for dive centers to open up. Already, there is a PADI dive center
on Kayin Kwa, in the southernmost province of Myanmar, and it
is hoped that inland centers will follow suit and with it, a hyperbaric
center. At the moment, the nearest one is probably in Phuket, Thailand,
although any hospital can treat decompression sickness symptoms.
The best time for divers to visit is between October and
May, outside the rainy season, or November to April if you really want to make
sure your diving will not get blown out. The water is between 26°C to
30°C, (79°F to 86°F), so a 3mm or 5mm shorty should suffice. Although there
have been problems with dynamite fishing in the past, such practices
are strongly discouraged, so the big pelagics, including mantas and whale
sharks, are making a comeback. Visibility ranges from 10m after a storm
to 150m. There are few wrecks to explore in this area, so concentrate
instead on the multi-colored, underwater wildlife.
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