Liveaboard Diving in Tower Rock
What To Expect On a Tower Rock Liveaboard
Liveaboard diving to Tower Rock lets divers experience one of the best dive sites in Myanmar. This dive site is located off Northeast Little Torres Island, sailing approximately 120 nautical miles (195km) north west of of the Thai-Burmese border town of Kawthaung. Tower Rock is only dived by Myanmar liveaboard and, as it’s name mentions, has towering walls descending over 60-meters into the depths. The island rises spectacular out of the sea.
The coastline of Myanmar is one of the most extensive archipelagoes in the world with over 800 islands of various sizes. These islands and their associated reef systems protect the country from storms and other natural disasters and more importantly these offshore habitats are home to an incredibly rich biodiversity.
Liveaboards to Tower Rock show you the beauty below the water, with coral covered vertical walls to explore and lunar site of boulders, which are made up from the taller reaches of Tower Rock in years past. There are over eight dive sites in this area. The maximum depth is 40m and the visibility ranges from 10m to 50m. Currents can be strong and surface conditions can be rough, this is a dive site which is best suited for advanced divers. This makes scuba diving Tower Rock a dive site where divers could actually encounter anything.
Tower Rock liveaboards operate October to May with watertemperature of 26-28°C early in the season to 30°C around the end of the season. The seas are calm(er), the skies are more clear and the most remote dive sites are better accessible and enjoy better conditions at this time of year. I recommend to visit between December and April for optimum diving conditions in the Mergui Archipelago.
What You Can See at Tower Rock
Because of the number of different dive sites available, liveaboard diving at Tower Rock is an excellent part of your Myanmar dive safari. Enjoy the remarkable landscape of this dive site and the chance of spotting ghost pipefish. Bearded scorpionfish and moray eels are numerous. Schools of snapper, fusilier and glassfish are always on the move. The walls are laced with soft corals, sea whips and sea fans, oysters and clams. Myriads white banded cleaner shrimp fill cracks, ornate spiny lobster hide amongst the crags and other critters fill crevices. Whilst yellow striped fusiliers and blue faced angelfish dance their way up the walls.
Larger visitors are seen here often. Like schools of mobula (devil) rays and definately prepare yourself for some special close encounters with Manta rays.
February to May plankton blooms and gives you the best opportunity to witness the most frequent manta ray and whale shark sightings, attracted by this feeding opportunities. Visibility is reduced since the water is so nutrient-rich, as you might imagine. These nutrients bring in the plankton feeders and explain why the hard corals reach such impressive sizes and there is such an array of life, both large and small, at the dive sites.
A little towards the latter half of the season the visibility also tends to improve. This dive site is also a good place to spot sharks. Keep your eyes out for those reclusive black- and whitetip sharks, often staying just out of vision, behind the boulders.
Getting To Tower Rock
The best way to get to Tower Rock site is on a Myanmar liveaboard trip. Thailand will be your starting point, departing from Ranong.
Bangkok Airways operate direct flight from Bangkok to Ranong, which is located on the Thai side of the Myanmar border. Then take a taxi from Ranong Airport to the port of departure.
For domestic flights Yangon International Airport is the main hub. Local airlines include Air Bagan and Myanmar National Airlines. You can book domestic flights via agencies once you are in Myanmar, and as there are no international car rental agencies, you will find that most travel agencies in Yangon, Mandalay and Bagan, and also guest houses and hotels, can arrange cars and drivers.
