Diving in Myanmar

[kris_kelvin]

Diving spots in coast of Myanmar (or Burma, if you prefer that) are said to be untouchable and at least as good as a bit souther in Thailand. They make liveaboard trips to Myanmar from Phuket, but does anyone know if it is possible to go diving while in Myanmar itself? Are there any diving operators in Myanmar?

I will probably be in Myanmar in mid-April, has anyone been around the same coast at that time? Weather is supposedly very hot, but how about waters?

If diving in Myanmar is not possible, I will probably have to get my diving a bit souther in Khao Lak/Similan, which is not so bad either...

 

[ssra30]

I just came back from a divetrip to Myanmar last month and it was fantastic. I was on a liveaboard. From what I can see, I did not see any local boat beside fishing boats. All the diveboats came from Thailand.
I did hear of a group of German who hired a local fishing boat for their divetrips but they brought their own gears,tanks and compressor.
It is probably not a good idea to try landbase dive operation anyhow as all the more popular sites such as Burma Bank, Western Rocky, OK Rock, Black Rock are quite a way from the shore.
At some sites, there are quite a bit of damage from dynamite fishing, shark population is not what it used to be 5 years ago but you can still find them easier than in Thailand.
Visibility was anywhere from 10m+ to 20m+.
Viz could go up to 50m+ at some sites but it certainly was nothing like that when I was there.
Diving is easily on par with Richeliue. It seems to have more variety of macros and lot of large cuttlefish everywhere. The best part about it though was that there was never more than one or two diveboats at any given site which was very nice.
Water temp should be very similar to Similan/Richeliue however the water did get colder as we went further north. Burma Bank was about 28C by my divecom but it got down to about 26C at Tower Rock which was the furthest north we went.
We saw a whale shark at Black Rock and schooling devil rays at Tower Rock.