CRITTER CRAZY!

Liveaboard trip 11/02/09 – 20/02/09

BURMA SAFARI

Mermaid I

Yes, we DID have the Mantas, we DID have the Leopard Sharks, and not only one, but TWO (extremely rare!) Bowmouth Guitar Sharks, and don’t get me wrong here, these are beautiful sightings indeed! However, what made this trip to the Mergui stand out, was the sheer amount of macro subjects. A virtual parade of Tigertail Seahorses, Ornate Ghost Pipefish, rare Nudibranchs and Harlequin Shrimps. In fact, coming back from any dive without having seen a bunch of these critters, would have been quite hard to achieve!

We had some stunning night dives as well, Three Islets’ probably beeing the most memorable: 7 Seahorses, 15 Ghost Pipefish, 9 Bamboo Sharks, 2 big Marble Rays, schools of Squid and 2 Spanish Dancers. Not bad for one dive, huh?

At Fanforest Pinnacle, apart from one of this trip’s Guitar Sharks, we found 3 big Whitetip Sharks, with a local following of Rainbow Runners, using the ruff skin of the sharks to clean themselves of parasites. Harlequin Shrimps, Devil Scorpionfish and an enormous Octopus were also encountered here.

We had a spectacular 10 minutes at Western Rocky, watching 4 huge (like really, REALLY huge!) Marble Rays trying to impress an even bigger female. Unfortunately, she had a headache, and the guys eventually swam off.

After an exciting 9 days, we steamed back to Phuket in blue calm seas, with a pod of Dolphins playing in our wake.

PJ Widestrand

Video-Pro
Mermaid I

Liveaboard diving Thailand, Myanmar, Bali - Komodo and the Andaman Islands.