@Michael *******

I haven't seen John in many years. I don't know where he's hiding out these days. I just don't come across we old timers very often anymore unless they're on FB. I see posts from his canoeing company but they don't seem like they are coming from him, maybe from staff.

That house sounds amazing.

@Paul ******

A good Burmese friend of mine says that Mandalay, where she is from, is basically a free fighting zone these days. What a mess.

@Michael *******

John Gray? Yes, he and I had long discussions about the morality of going there. He was dead set against it. I'm glad we tried but in the end he was probably right in his decision. I'm just glad I had 30 years of awesome diving up there.

@Michael *******

What did you advise on? Resorts opening?

@Paul ******

Yes, they call it Myeik now, part of the whole Myanmar renaming of places. It's hard to pronounce, it's only one syllable. I always wanted to take that ferry up to Dawei (Tavoy) but never got to do it before they stopped it. When we ran the diving tours we entered with the boat permit system and most of the time we couldn't get off the boat and continue the journey without the dive boat. It changed all the time.

I'm very sad it's all closed up now. I don't expect it to open again for quite a while. We shall see. Very few foreign tourists will visit it now because of the coup and the killings and the jet fighter attacks. So sad.

I was on the first trip in 1994, it was sponsored by the owner of the Jansom Tara Resort near the hot springs in Ranong. He also set up Phuket Air (I think that was the name of it) to fly into Ranong but they went bankrupt and it never worked. Sometimes there were flights into Ranong like there are now, but often there were not so we had to drive people up from Phuket Airport. No one liked that drive except for me. Ha.

Pretty good diving around Boulder Bay but the best is at Black Rock and Western Rocky and an underwater pinnacle north of North Twin.

@Paul ******

Some areas are national parks but like with Thailand, enforcement of rules are an issue. Lampi is a national park but they allow the Moken to live there. But they didn't really understand that marine parks needed to be in certain open ocean areas and not just one or two islands. We petitioned in 2001 to have them designate the whole area protected but they ignored us. There was pressure from the Thai government for them to do the same.

It's obvious now they never took any of it seriously. They just wanted to exploit the area for fishing.

I do know at least two foreigners who leased two islands. One is American and one is Norwegian. The Norwegian leased Boulder Island and has bungalows and an eco-resort there.

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@https://www.facebook.c**********************

@Paul ******

Dive boats have been visiting Mergui since 1994, then we received full permission to go everywhere in 1997. Some boats entered Mergui Harbor and did A-B trips from there but flights in and out of Mergui were inconsistent and mostly used for oil workers. A friend of mine opened a guesthouse in Mergui in 1996 and we hoping more people would visit through that port but it never really opened up.

So it's been a while now. Some islands would be closed now and then as someone claimed "ownership" like at Clara Island. Some were military areas that would change periodically from one area to another. Yes, looking back on it now, had Thailand owned these islands they would have been better managed for sure. But that's not the way it is so it's a moot point.

Moken were all over Mergui for many years, then the government moved them mostly to Lampi Island.

I've been as far north as West Cannister which is north of Mergui town. Once in a while they would close the border islands south of Western Rocky. I know people who have sailed to the Moscos Islands but I never made it up that far. It's a long way by power boat with no place to refuel.

Yes, I have some stories. 🙂

@Paul ******

and another.

The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma