Macleod Island, Myanmar

Breakfast was standard at the Victoria Cliff Hotel. They did have bacon, and didn't mind when we asked to have it "extra crunchy".

We were picked up at 11am by the Myanmar Andaman Resort folks for the 6km drive to the jetty in Kawthoung. There was another couple in the car who had just been picked up at the airport. (The next day we found out that Victoria and Chad were from Vancouver :) )

At the jetty we transferred to the very nice speedboat owned by the resort. There were 14 of us headed over: Victoria and Chad, a couple from Germany, two British guys, and a group of 6 Russians traveling with a guide.

The water was glasslike for the two hour ride pretty much due west from Kawthoung. I had an offline map of the islands so could trace our path as we went. Macleod Island is at the western-most edge of the islands in the Myeik Archipelago, almost in the open sea.

The approach to the resort is really cool. The island is shaped like an upside U, and the resort is inside the cove formed by the U. The water was even more still inside, protected from the larger waves. The resort is tucked in behind the long beach at the end, with 8 beach front cabins and 14 cabins behind.

The whole resort crew came out to greet the boat (they work on the island for the full 8 month season). A welcome drink and short intro from our host, Mr Win, and then we were showed to our cabins.

We had a yummy lunch (the chef was amazing), and then walked down the beach to the dive center to get snorkeling gear. We just snorkeled out from shore, although there wasn't much to see so close. But still, we were in the water :)

The cabins were large and clean but pretty basic. The did have a/c and a mosquito net over the bed so it was comfortable at night.

This is one of the more remote places I've been to, and they had wifi with decent speed. So I'm not going to ever say again that we're headed to a place without wifi, cause I'm always wrong.

We had a drink at the bar before dinner, and then enjoyed a 4-course dinner with salmon for the main. The dessert was labeled as "calamari pudding" which confused us at the bar, but it turned out to be caramel pudding lost in translation.

The next morning we were up at 6am so we walked along the beach, watching the hermit crabs disappear into their shells when we approached, but scurrying about in the distance.

We went for breakfast early. The usual breakfast, plus croissants that weren't too bad, especially considering that they have to bake everything themselves.

I went diving later in the morning. The first dive was just for the divemaster to evaluate us, and was inside the cove and not terribly exciting.

Typically on a dive excursion you spend about 45 minutes getting to the dive site, so you'll do two dives while you're out there. However cause we're already so remote, the dive sites are only 5-10 minutes away and so we just returned back after each dive. It was also quite nice not to have 10 other dive groups at every site, like safari jeeps around a lion. Just me, one of the British guys, and the divemaster.

The 2nd dive wasn't until 2pm so Heather and I took a kayak out to one of the other beaches in the cove. The resort wasn't visible so it really felt like we had a secluded beach all to ourselves. (Which, we did).

After lunch I went for another dive, this one at a tiny island just outside the cove. The currents were strong here, and I spent a bit of effort just trying to maintain my buoyancy and not drift into the wall. Anyways there was lots more to see here, nothing checklistable but still cool to see.

The dive itself was 45 minutes; shore to shore was just over an hour.

I was really hungry at dinner, which was excellent again, tonight we had seafood curry for the main with lots of squid.

On Friday we were supposed to go on a boat ride around the island (the resort does this every week). However I woke up feeling like I was getting a cold, and as we have a lot more travel to go, decided just to take it easy and stay at the resort. It was a relaxing day, reading in our hammocks, jumping in the sea when it got too hot.

Lunch was excellent (fish grilled perfectly plus a chef salad). In the afternoon we watched one of the local fishing boats (the waters are populated by sea people who I don't think have a nationality - they go between Thailand and Myanmar waters) come into shore to trade some fish and fill up their fresh water barrels. The episode took over an hour, by then it was time to shower and head to the bar. Dinner was again excellent, including squid tempura.

The next morning we were up early (5am) to catch the speedboat back to the mainland. Some of the other guests had a 10am flight to catch, we were staying in Kawthoung for the night so didn't have to rush, except there's only one boat :)

I'm glad we took the side trip to Macleod Island as it was cool to have an island (almost an archipelago) to ourselves (+ about 10 others). The only place I've been to that was similar was when JP and I found a little beach place in Zanzibar after climbing Kilimanjaro.