We’re about to embark on the most dangerous passage I’ve ever heard of.
All salty-type knows of the dreaded Cape horn, or the Cape-of-Good-Hope for their infamous foul weather. Of course there are many sea-tales of dis-mastings or collisions along other treacherous passages. Of all these, I think this will be the most dangerous passage I’ve heard of.
The passage from Yangon Myanmar to Thailand via the North Andaman Sea is seriously daunting. Not for its weather (at least at this time of year) but rather for the sheer number and severity of hazards to navigation that one must contend with during this 600-mile passage. 
Leaving the working river port of Yangon begins by navigating in a huge muddy river that flows at 7-8 knots and is full of shipping vessels and shifting sandbars that are uncharted and unmarked. Timing the tides can be tricky, as we’ll either be going with the flow or against it. 7-8 knots added to ships speed means that your speed over ground could be 8-15 knots at times! Or, in reverse, if we’re pushing the current, we’ll be motoring at 9 knots and only traveling 1-knot over ground!
After sailing 30 miles down the river, we’ll make it to “open water” in the shallows of the Gulf of Martaban (Yangon Delta). Thankfully the shipping traffic will disperse a little as the large vessels head for different ports.
Here, we’ll encounter a plethora of floating fishing villages to avoid. A few floating fishing shacks shouldn’t be too hard right? The Yangon Delta fishing shanty network is literally a thousand floating bamboo-fishing huts that are all linked together with wire and chains over a distance of 40 nautical miles! This phenomenon can actually be seen from space! That’s 40 miles of chains, wire, bamboo and people in a semi-fixed array to avoid! To add to the excitement, the timing of the tides will likely have us arrive at the gulf just at sunset. We’ll begin to encounter the first shanties well after dark. Of course, most are unmarked and un-lit. Hopefully they are tall enough to give a solid radar return. I’ve been advised that the fishing shanties are roughly in a series of straight lines heading East-West and that every couple of miles or so, there is a break in the line that you can safely sail through. That being said, I’ve now heard from two captains that have made this voyage. One of them hit a shanty and broke the propeller shaft on his vessel. That’s not very good odds or very encouraging!
Once we make it through that, we have a 4-day run down past the entirety of the both the Burmese and Thai fishing fleets! Sailing at night in the Andaman Sea is generally a nightmare for modern navigation practices. While sailing on Sunshine, we found ourselves in near collision (video) courses twice with completely unlighted vessels motoring at speed. In both cases actions were taken to ovoid collision (slowing or course change) and in both cases it was someone on deck or at the helm that simply saw the vessel approaching in near blackness. Old school navigation and helmsman observation was critical as relying on radar or navigation lights didn’t alert us to the vessels approach. Often the vessels are long-tails that are only 1-meter above the water and don’t show up on radar. During this passage we’ll have a constant watch on the radar and regular short period visuals to keep a look out for un-lit vessels. In addition, there are literally hundreds of “lighted” brilliantly or less so, other vessels out there. The squid fishing boats speckle the horizon and are so brilliantly lit that they actually overwhelm any vessels with dim lights.
The final hazard and ongoing issue involves the numerous crab floats, fish attracting devices and other debris-en-mass that need to be avoided. Even with a look-out on deck, many hazards are bound to slip by at night, unnoticed in the inky black waters.
I have to admit, this passage is weighing on my mind and I consider it the most dangerous passage I’ll have undertaken.
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