Considering Similan/Burma trip in April

[Pyro_]

I am starting to consider doing a trip in April to Thailand. Looking at spending two weeks or so there, of which most will be spent diving from a liveaboard.

Have been looking at the trips offered by smiling seahorse or on the dolphin queen. Would be combining one of the Burma trips with one of the similan trips that they offer.

Wondering if anyone has any feedback on either of the above operators? Are there any others which you think I should be considering?

Also what kind of weather/conditions should I expect in April?

Thanks

 

[Tippytoes12]

We did day trips with SDS on two separate Thaialnd trips and they are a fantastic operator. We did LOBs with other boats and saw the Dolphin Queen..it's a backpacker style boat. ..gets fantastic Tripadvisor reviews.April.is towards the end of the dry season , so the conditions should be near perfect. There have been lots of sightings of mantas and whalesharks , in theory the later in the season the better the chances is my understanding. Thailand had a terrible coral bleaching in 2010 , hopefully things have improved. SDS s Facebook page has some wonderful.shots of the diving there. Like all Thai boats the food should be fantastic.

 

[MikkelBC]

April is at the end of the dry season and therefore the risk of the weather going bad is higher than January or February. The weather could be great (but hot) or it could be too rough to dive. I have not been on a liveaboard in April, but I have been on the beach on Koh Phayam near Burma where several evenings we could not eat at the restaurant because the wind was making heavy rain come horizontally at us. This was near the end of April.
Friends told us that a week later, the weather was beautiful.
You can never completely trust the weather in Thailand. Near the end of the season, the risk is just higher.
In marginal weather, a liveaboard might limit the diving to the more sheltered dive sites. I don't know how the Burma sites are in that respect.
I hope you have a wonderful trip!

Mikkel

 

[DENLASCUBA]

Weather conditions in April can be mixed, you can have great weather one day then high winds the next. In the Similan Islands the boats are able to move around more easily to protected areas if conditions turn out to be a bit ugly.

I do numerous research trips in Myanmar and conditions between Myanmar and the Similan can be completely opposite even though most believe they should be similar since they are in the same general area. Depending on the boats route which can change at any time there can be some large distances to travel with minimal protection from the winds, this can delay the vessel to reach certain dive sites. Also it is very rare for most boats to travel at night due to the difficulty to see smaller fishing vessels as they generally do not have any navigation lights and even the radar can have a hard time picking them up. The most popular dive site Black Rock is 3-4 hours from sheltered areas, and the Burma Banks if the operator goes there is open to all weather and a ways from any protection; we have had a few trips we had to cancel those areas due to the possibility of bad weather and safety.

Also for Myanmar LB's coming out of Thailand many will only maintain the trip if they have a specific minimum of divers to join the trip.

 

[Pyro_]

Thanks for the feedback all. Will keep the weather in mind while deciding what I want to do.

As for the dolphin queen being more of a backpacker type setup that does not bother me. It is still better than my summer camping setup when I go out solo for a couple of weeks backpacking/hiking in the bush lol

 

[stevenl]

Weather conditions in April can be mixed, you can have great weather one day then high winds the next.

April is the month of the year where we consistently hardly have any days with stronger winds, see here.