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- VOL. 12.3
Epat Diary: You Are a Trampoline
• First, there’s the diverse marine life. Fringing reefs support many species of both hard and soft coral, a wild variety of tropical reef fish, and tens of thousands of other species of marine organism. The coral reefs remain healthy, especially compared to those in many other parts of the world, and nearby destinations such as the Similan and Surin Islands are ideal for “critter” spotting and macro underwater photography. Large open-water fish such as manta rays, whale sharks, and other oceanic sharks are frequent visitors to a number of the offshore sites.
• Another attraction is the variety of bottom topography you can encounter in one live-aboard cruise. You get everything from jumbles of giant granite boulders off the west side of the Similan Islands – submarine panoramas of pinnacles and canyons and swim-throughs, all of it aswarm with marine life – to the sloping reefs and white coral sand off the little archipelago’s eastern side. Then there are the submerged seamounts on the Burma Banks; depending on conditions, and among other things (including expertly supervised shark feedings) these present fine opportunities for high-speed live-boat drift dives. You can also dive the rocky pinnacles – giant fish attractors – such as those found off the southern province of Trang, at Richelieu Rock, in the Surin Islands, or along the deeper water outside the 800-island Mergui Archipelago. On many of these sites, divers get to enjoy interesting bottom topography, corals and coral fish, and big pelagics all in the same dive.
• Topside, the scenery is similarly spectacular and varied, which makes between-dive dining, sunning, and beachcombing all the more pleasant.
• The many scenic islands offer plenty of safe moorings—you’re never too far from shelter even if a squall comes up. In any case, sea conditions are generally calm from October till mid-May, and often benign for much of the rest of the year as well. (It should also be mentioned that these waters, year around, are warm. If you like, you can dive without a wetsuit.)
• Phuket, Thailand’s largest island, has excellent support infrastructure for diving instruction, boats and dive gear.
• These days a wide range of diveboats cater for every taste and budget, from backpacker specials to high-end luxury. If you want to dive frontiers as distant as India’s Andaman Islands, 400 miles to the west, you can. You want to dive Burma’s Mergui Archipelago? No problem. You can travel south as far as Hin Daeng/Hin Muang, off the coast of Thailand’s southern province of Trang. You can opt for just a few days of diving among the dozens of first-rate sites in the Similan Islands, only about 53 miles distant and often ranked among the top 10 diving destinations in the world. If you’re an underwater photographer, some of these boats have highly qualified instructors, lavish facilities for maintaining and storing equipment, and E6 processing labs on board. If you’re mainly interested in marine natural history, do can do specialty courses during the cruise, and a number of boats have very knowledgeable crew plus on-board libraries. If you’re an epicure, then you’re really in luck, especially on some of the higher-end boats. Onboard dining is generally a treat for gourmet and gourmand alike.
• Finally, Phuket offers a wealth of peripheral attractions for post-diving recreation or for keeping non-diving members of the gang happy while the others get down.
Ever-receding frontiers The history of Phuket-based live-aboard diving has been one of ever-receding frontiers. As nearer sites gain in popularity, industry pioneers have moved ever farther afield in search of new experiences and dive sites where customers who want exclusivity won’t be disappointed.
Live-aboard diving first really started to take off in the late 1980s, although Fantasea Divers’ sailing ketch Andaman Explorer and freelancers such as Angemiwa, another sailing yacht, had already been doing trips to the Similan Islands since 1979.
Similans In those days, the Similans were a real frontier. In most quarters, this group of nine tiny islands was little more than a tantalizing rumour. “I’ve dived in a lot of areas that are off the beaten track and… a few where they’ve never even heard of the beaten track,” said Carl Roessler in a 1985 Skindiver article. “Still, my recent adventures in Thailand’s Similan Islands have redefined remoteness in dive travel.” That was 15 or 16 years ago. Since then, the Similans have won a reputation as one of the top diving destinations in the world. Among the many other attractions the Similans have to offer, however, these islands are now a staging point for cruises to remoter areas still.
Surins. The Surin Islands, just a few miles south of the border with Burma, were another early frontier, and live-aboard cruises tended to take in both. Richelieu Rock, a pinnacle, is the prime site here, in most minds.
Burma Banks. In the 1990s, the Burma Banks were the big news. A series of submerged granite seamounts, they rise from about 400m to around 18m beneath the surface, and lie just 10 miles from where the continental shelf drops off to 1,000 metres. They provide the substrate for rich coral and reef fish communities. They also attract a variety of big oceanic fish.
Hin Daeng. A three- to four-day live-aboard cruise south from Phuket, Hin Daeng, or “Red Rock”, is another first-rate site, a pinnacle dive. Hin Muang, or “Purple Rock” – named for its extensive sea anemone meadows and soft coral gardens – is another pinnacle, this one lying entirely submerged just 500m away.
Andaman Islands. Over the past several years, a few Phuket diveshops have been running extended live-aboard cruises to the Andaman Islands. This group of more than 300 islands, together with the Nicobars, define the western limits of the Andaman Sea. Indian territory long closed to visitors, the Andamans offer clean virgin waters that support lots of big fish life. And who knows what else awaits discovery. Certainly, as you fly in to Port Blair, the capital, you can spot shipwrecks on some of the reef slopes. That doesn’t necessarily mean you can dive them, however. The Indian government is only opening selected locations to divers. Others remain off-limits for the time being. (Indeed, changes in official regulations have sometimes been known to make diving expeditions from Phuket altogether impracticable, upon occasion.) Overall, the diving is good, with lots of live coral and large populations of big fish. (Large-scale fisheries have yet to decimate stocks in these waters.) But, in some opinion, it is a long way to go for diving that is generally no better than that you can find in Thai waters, especially given the recurring bureaucratic hassles.
Mergui Archipelago. Over the past few years, Burma’s Mergui Archipelago has been the main cause for excitement. From the beginnings of recorded history, most of this island group has been terra incognita. Aside from a few islands on the approach to the port of Mergui, seafarers tended to stay out of the area because of its remoteness and the danger of pirates. Under the British Raj, coastal steamers and suchlike did come to enjoy a degree of security. But then, with independence and the post-1940s isolationist regime in Rangoon, the Mergui Archipelago was declared off limits to visitors for decades.
Now it has opened up again. But this is still unexplored territory, for the most part – 800 islands extending 200 miles up the coast of Burma, densely forested islands that are all but uninhabited except for a very few Mawken, or Sea Gypsies, where you can travel day after day and see little sign of human habitation beyond one or two small local boats or a bit of flotsam. Wild elephants and tigers still inhabit one or two of the islands.
Phuket will probably remain the base for diving these waters for years to come. The best of the dive sites lie in deeper waters 15-25 miles outside the archipelago. Some Phuket-based operators – notably South East Asia Liveaboards – are also running sailing-diving-kayaking-island exploration cruises inside the Archipelago itself.
Evolution Of An Industry This ever-expanding range of operations has meant that, if divers are to explore the new frontiers in comfort and safety, Phuket-based diveboats have had to evolve right along with the expanding frontiers.
Not so long ago, the norm was to take people out in open longtail boats or other local wooden fishing boats, mainly for daytrips. As mentioned earlier, a couple of sailing yachts were doing longer dive cruises as well. Then vessels such as Dive Asia Pacific’s Sai Mai (first operated under the company name “Siam Divers”, and still going strong as one of the very best live-aboard experiences in the area), Fantasea’s MV Fantasea, South East Asia Liveaboard’s Crescent, Wanderlust, and Gaia, together with a boat run by Marina Divers, set new standards. For a few years, these four operators were the only real games in town, if you wanted comfortable, expertly supervised live-aboards.
But how things have changed in recent years. The quality of the boats and services, on the one hand, has improved by another quantum leap, and now you have vessels such as Fantasea’s brand-new Ocean Rover, Dive Asia Pacific’s Pelagian, and Aqua One.
What the high-end boats, in particular, offer is individualized service. They are open to suggestions – whatever it takes to provide a memorable dive trip. Small groups, lots of attention from crew. Expert knowledge of the local sites and marine life, a love of what they’re doing and a desire to please. Many of the middle-range operators offer varying degrees of the same, but services tend to be constrained by what looks like a price war.
On the other hand, the quantity of live-aboard boats has also surged to where, this season, diving customers can choose from at least 50 live-aboard boats catering to all tastes and budgets – everything from cattle-car “backpacker” mob scenes with sandwiches and fried rice to luxury air-conditioned cabins with en suite marble showers and toilets and souffles on fire (not in the cabins, generally). A cabin aboard a boat such as Pelagian, for example, costs more, but, at 113 feet in length, she takes a maximum of 12 diving passengers, two to a cabin. The food, both international and Thai, is extraordinarily good. What makes this operation distinctive? “Quality.” This kind of live-aboard operation tends to draw customers who book from America and Europe, rather than local walk-in trade. They’re the high-end divers who are typically looking for 7- to 10-day/11- night trips, and who want to get away from any crowds. Their itineraries tend to take them to the Similans, the Burma Banks, the Mergui Archipelago, and then Richelieu Rock, Koh Tachi and and Koh Bon on their way back to the Similans and then home to Phuket.
Phuket has developed such a reputation for the quality of its diving that a huge world market has arisen, and too many people, perhaps, are after a share of the pie. But there’s no arguing that the market isn’t there. Atlantis, for example, only started up in 1999. “But the bookings for our boat,” says Bert Boye, “went from zero to 82 percent occupancy in the first year, and so far this year we are doing even better.” He describes Atlantis 2000, a 65-foot wooden vessel that takes 14 passengers, as part of the “lower-end market”. Nevertheless, he says, their business is distinguished by “the high standard of service, and the fact that the boat is the only local live-aboard with an a la carte menu. (The price is also very good.”) They do cruises to the Similan and Surins from October through July.
Boye believes that there aren’t too many boats – that this is merely healthy competition, without which the industry as a whole wouldn’t develop properly. The main trend, in his opinion, will be to more luxurious boats at lower prices. Atlantis itself plans to acquire a bigger and more comfortable boat.
John Williams of Kata-based Siam Dive ’n Sail, and a pioneer in the local diving business, sees another trend: “These days, a lot of people want to do everything right now, so shorter trips tend to be more popular. The high-end consumer is no longer the majority, at least for me. I think this is true for other tour operators as well, not just for dive shops. It’s the ‘If it’s Tuesday, this must be Rome’ syndrome.”
But from the consumer’s point of view, he adds, it’s great to have such a variety of both short and long live-aboards on offer.
Be nice to the golden goose. Local live-aboard diveboats come in every shape and size. “Some system of grading is badly needed,” suggests Jeroen Deknatel of Fantasea Divers, one of the doyens of Phuket-based diving. “For example, from the bottom up, you get live-on-decks, bunk-aboards, exist-aboards, live-aboards, luxury live-aboards, and super live-aboards. Some of the Dancer and Aggressor fleet boats are super live-aboards. Our new diveboat Ocean Rover is a luxury live-aboard.”
For simplicity’s sake, however, we might say that most local diveboats fall into one of three categories:
• The real budget boats are usually smaller, and offer very basic accommodation. They can be a bit crowded. Maybe more than a bit, sometimes. These boats rely on walk-in bookings shortly before departure, and trips are generally short.
• Mainstream operators aim for a compromise between acceptable (to many) level of comfort and inexpensive rates. They run trips, sometimes booked in advance, sometimes locally, of moderate length. “Often,” says Matt Hedrick, managing director of Dive Asia Pacific who, with both Pelagian and Sai Mai, is one of the leading high-end operators, “these operators start out, after their initial investment, with a pretty high standard at a surprisingly low price. But, after a while, the reality of giving a lot for a little sets in. Problems may arise, and operators find they have to cut corners to survive. With the fierce competition, and new boats always on the horizon, sometimes the only option is to spend less on the boat, ultimately jeopardizing safety.”
• Finally, at the top end you find a few operators, most of whom have been in business for quite a while, who offer exceptional comfort and personalized service for a smaller number of clients. These trips are generally booked from abroad, cost more, and go out for longer. They aren’t feeling the same pressure of price competition.
At the same time that the live-aboard industry has boomed, the prices, in US dollar terms, have gone down. Boats range now in price from rock bottom to more than US$400 per day per person, with even the lower end of the market offering en suite cabins and air-conditioning. “Most of the price difference,” John Williams suggests, “is due to quality of accommodation, but some operators are able to sell their boats at a higher price due to the qualifications of their staff and the quality of the service. I believe this is the healthy way to compete, rather than by price alone. Improve service and quality and keep your customers happy. This will help to ensure that they return year after year.”
All of the foregoing might sound like a conclusive argument for the value of competition. But maybe not.
“This is good for the consumer,” Williams adds, “but I don’t see it as good for the industry as a whole. I see a parallel between what’s happening here and what’s happening in the Red Sea, where crowded divesites are driving consumers to other destinations where it’s less crowded. As far as growth goes, our own excellent marketing could hurt us, in the long run, with people deserting the area rather than coming back again.” Price-cutting, furthermore, inevitably leads, over time, to deteriorating quality and damage to the reputation of the entire local industry. Profits have to be sacrificed to stay competitive, and everything from comfort to boat maintenance and safety are finally in danger of suffering.
Jeroen Deknatel would add this observation: “In terms of the diving, the level of professionalism is good; in terms of business, it’s bad. Most dive operators are ‘just’ instructors, not people with long-term business plans. As a result, the industry suffers.”
The lower-end packages have more guests per boat, and tend to aim at younger, less experienced divers. “This is too bad,” suggests Matthew Hedrick, “since a high-volume/low-experience scenario is harder on the environment than a low-volume/high-experience market. But this is a natural progression, given an expanding industry within a limited geographical area and no usage quotas.”
Some feel it’s time for government regulation. No one likes unnecessary official interference – many in the industry believe that dive operators can and should be self-policing – but two things may be needed, if the booming live-aboard industry is to sustain its success. First, better standards need to be enforced, including those relating to environmental protection (and, some would add, boat design and safety standards). Second, kerbs are needed, in terms of boat numbers, on the boom itself.
“There are a lot of really good live-aboards on the market now selling at very low prices,” says Anders Palm, of South East Asia Divers. “If this trend continues, those boat owners will not be able to afford the yearly maintenance.” There are limits to growth, and it may be time to slow things down a bit. “If it takes increased national park fees,” says John Williams, of Siam Dive ’n Sail, “then so be it. If this requires dive boat operators to invest more in their boats, great. Let it be so.”
Others in the industry take a more pessimistic view of matters. As Matt Hedrick says, “The park authorities are now trying to establish sustainable usage levels, but I’m afraid it’s too late, as the industry has already grown beyond these levels. It’s practical to limit future growth where the industry is not allowed to grow beyond a set point established before that level has been reached. It’s virtually impossible to cut back once the levels are exceeded. Who are you going to put out of business and who can remain? These are tough questions, when large investments are involved.”
Nevertheless, argue many in the business, immediate limits are needed on any further expansion of the live-aboard industry. Some say that illegal or “casual” operators who don’t have the required permits, etc. should be barred. The number of passengers per boat, arguably, should be limited, since larger groups tend to be harder on the environment. (More has to be done, at the same time, to limit pressures on coral reefs from commercial fisheries in the area.) Finally, the authorities should levy significant user fees, earmarking the proceeds for mooring projects, patrol craft and marine national park staff. High user fees, on top of trip prices, would serve to push the market as a whole back up towards lower volume and higher quality.
More luxury live-aboards – the next evolutionary stage? In any case, people such as Jeroen Deknatel see a trend towards more luxury live-aboards in the coming years. Friedbert Becker and Franky Gun, of Anggun Charter, would agree: “In our opinion, the budget live-aboard scene will collapse due to unfair price wars and unsatisfied guests. Phuket will be known as ‘the cradle where Thailand’s upmarket live-aboard scene was born’. Demanding divers with high expectations and more money will use Phuket as their port of choice for luxurious live-aboard cruises. It all tends towards better service and better boats at higher prices, which is good for the economy and good for Thailand’s reputation.”
And the Phuket-based live-aboard trade has enjoyed an important safety valve, recently. The Mergui Archipelago presents the industry with a vast new area including numerous world-class sites. This is taking some of the pressure off the prime sites in Thai waters. Given the local explosion in live-aboard vessels, however, were Burma to close its borders for a lengthy period, the latter sites would soon be over-crowded, at least from the point of view of the high-end diving market.
For the meantime, Phuket provides some of the best live-aboard cruises in the world.
You don’t have to be an expert scuba diver to come aboard. World-class training and supervision is readily available. Moreover, even the high-end trips are not really so expensive – not when you consider how much hotel and food would cost if you stayed ashore. And few holiday experiences ashore could ever provide such memorable experiences.