Our Traditional Aladdin Expedition is definitely the most unique and outstanding dive tour in the Andaman Sea, and is for both for beginners and professionals a very special divers experience!
Fifteen days of outstanding diving
At the best time of the year the nature along the west coast of Burma and Thailand holds the possibility for underwater sightings of all kind.
The general visibility underwater is most of the time between 20-40 meters, and the water temperature is up to comfortable 29-30 degrees.
A dive tour that is build up in 3 parts
Regarding the Traditional Dive Expedition, our liveaboard boat MV 'The Flying Carpet' departs from Ranong (Thailand) and ends the tour in Phuket (Thailand). It is divided in three parts:
Part 1: Exploring the Mergui Archipelago
Part 1 offers a journey through the reefs in the Mergui Archipelago of Myanmar (Burma). This Archipelago is far from any semblance of civilization and surrounded with untouched nature.
The most northern point, about 100 km northeast of Ranong, will be the first highlight of the tour: the dive site Shark Cave.
This dive site offers three different spots that combine an unusual topography and a tremendous variety of creatures. Nearly every sqare meter is riddled with crevices that provide shelter and holdfasts for an enormous volume of fish and invertebrate life.
From Shark Cave the tour is leading southwards through the Andaman Sea. Along the route the landscape is full of rocks and uninhabited islands with powderwhite sandy beaches. You can be quite sure to be on the only dive vessel that is around in this fairly unexplored area.
The following Dive Sites like Chiwat, Magic Rock, 3 Sisters should show you lots of beautiful corals and many colourful nudibranches. A lot of those nudibranches we can't find or look up in any fishbooks.
Also macro photographers will love this area: you will find besides nudibranches also seahorses, ghostpipefishes, porcelain crabs etc.
Once we reach the most southern area of diving in Burma, the dive site Western Rocky offers an exciting landscape with an even more exciting underwater terrain. Pinnacles, plateaus and walls like to show you their uncommon creatures. Also night dives are quite fascinating here. During daytime we even have often seen our large friend the Whale Shark around here.
Part 2: Diving in Surin and Similan NMP*
*(National Marine Park)
From there our sail will lead us, with a stop inbetween at Ranong, to the first dive of Part 2: Richelieu Rock, which is the northernmost divesite of Thailand and is known as a terrific dive site.
This underwater seamount is a magnet for big fish, but offers you, within it's cracks and wholes, also lots of fishes that are mentioned in fish guides.
After Richelieu Rock we head to the Surin Islands, from where we sail south to the top dive spots of Koh Tachai and Koh Bon.
These two extraordinary places are well known for their abundance of shouling fish and of course the regular sightings of the manta rays.
The last three days of Part 2 we will spend in the Similan Islands. Within the Similan Islands there's a variety of Dive Sites: Christmas Point, Elephant Head, Deep Six, Shark Fin Reef and Gorgonian Valley are just some of these sites.
Once you are diving within the Similan Islands, you can clearly see the difference between the boulderlike scenery here, compared to the limestone landscape in Burma.
From the Similan Islands we will head southwards to Phuket.
Part 3: Diving southwards of Phuket
After a nightly stop in Phuket, we follow our route for Part 3 of our Dive Expedition. During this part of the dive tour, we will dive at the Dive Sites southwards of Phuket, like at the sister reefs of Hin Daeng (Red Rock) and Hin Muang (Purple Rock).
These two big seamounts are situated in the open ocean, far of Koh Lanta. While diving there during this time of the dive season, we have had very often encounters with manta rays or whalesharks.
These Dive Sites are beautifully covered with soft corals and Hin Muang offers the only steep wall in Thailand that goes down to 70 meters.
We will continue our route by sailing about 3 hours away from Hin Daeng and Hin Muang, where we will make a one day stop at the dive site Koh Ha. At this dive site you will especially enjoy to dive (safely!) in the Cathedrale, which is a huge cavern with a huge entrance.
From Koh Ha, we will sail towards the well known islands of Koh Phi Phi, and dive the best sites around there. At Koh Phi Phi we will also dive at the famous Maya Bay, where once the movie 'The Beach' was filmed.
During the last days of the tour we will dive around Phuket: at the Dive Sites Shark Point, Anemone Reef and the King Cruiser Wreck.
After our very last dive of our Dive Expedition, which is at Koh Dock Mai (Flower Island), we will reach our final end destination at Aow Chalong Bay, south west of Phuket.
If you have joined all the dives during our Traditional Dive Expedition, you will now have logged 46 dives in your logbook. And we're quite sure that your head will be full of fascinating diving memories...
| 
