Chumphon Pinnacle

[Buadhai]

A friend and I want to dive Chumphon Pinnacle; mainly because neither of us have ever done it. He is currently working in Singapore. I am retired and live in Korat.

Logistically, what would be the easiest way for us to accomplish this? Should we dive from Chumphon (mainland), Koh Samui, Koh Tao, or? What I don't want to do is make the trip and then end up having to two days of diving in and around Koh Tao.

I can travel any time, but he would have to leave Singapore no earlier than a Monday morning and he'd have to be back no later than the following Friday afternoon.

I guess that two days of diving would be plenty.

 

[augurs]

It's very far from Koh Samui so diving from Koh Tao would be easier if you wanted to go more than once (it's a great site, saw a whale shark there!). Dive ops in Koh Tao go there regularly and some ops allow you to make requests for where you want to go if you let them know in advance (Big Blue does this, not sure about others).

I don't know about diving from Chumphon so I'll let someone else answer that

 

[limbo]

Koh Tao is the best option, just look for dive centers that will make the trip the next day. This time of the year should be no problem visiting the site, weather conditions should be near perfect.

Chumphon Pinnacle is very close to Koh Tao, maybe 20 minutes max, and really far away from Chumphon. I don't know of any dc's in Chumphon, but most certainly I don't recall ever seeing a dive boat from Chumphon at Chumphon Pinnacle.

Diving this site from Koh Tao will give you the option of diving the Pinnacle during the morning dives (two dives on the morning trip) and then hop on a boat again for two shallow afternoon dives.

You can dive it also from Samui, by speedboat, but it will be a long day, pick up around 7am from your resort and return to the resort around 5pm, with 2 dives for the day.

 

[Buadhai]

Thanks for the replies. Clear and to the point.

 

[Goodtime Adventures]

Hello. We're a dive centre in Koh Tao. All bias aside you are probably better off diving Chumphon Pinnacle from here. You can do it from Samui & Phangan - I think there's a couple of centres (on Phangan at least, not sure about Samui) that do the 'golden triangle' where they hit up Chumphon Pinnacle, Southwest Pinnacle and Sail Rock in a one day trip. That's our 3 best dive sites checked off straight away! Not sure how frequently these run, or what the minimum number would be to make that feasible for them though.

There are plenty of operators here on Tao that go out on a regular basis. Some dive centres are inflexible in their scheduling, other centres like ourselves are happy to take customer input on where they'd like to go. Chumphon Pinnacle is about 12km off of Koh Tao, so on one of the big wooden dive boats it takes anything from 40min-1hour to reach. On our speedboat, about 15mins (insert smug face here!). My advice would be to try and book with a smaller centre, with small boats and small groups, and preferably one that can take you out there in the afternoon when its quieter. On morning trips its often very busy (think everest base camp of the diving world!) and lots of centres take their students their for OW 3 & 4, so it can be a bit of a clusterf#ck! We always try to go in the afternoons and often get the whole divesite to ourselves as a result - it makes a huge difference!

Enjoy, its a brilliant dive site

 

[Buadhai]

Full Disclosure: I've been to Koh Tao twice hoping to dive Chumphon Pinnacle. Disappointed both times. I really don't much like the place. Not much for an old man like me to do there.

That's why I was considering alternate venues....

 

[limbo]

Stay in Mae Haad, no need to stray much further away, all you need is there, the ferries, dive centers, plenty of restaurants, accommodation, all within walking distance.

 

[drbill]

When I doe it in 2001, I went with SCUBA Planet out of Koh Tao. As I remember that dive, the first stage on my rental regulator blew as we descended on a 100 ft dive. Once we replaced the reg and descended back to depth, it was a good dive... but we were shocked to learn when we returned to the boat that divers closer to the surface had seen both a whale shark and a manta ray.

 

[lord khram]

Full Disclosure: I've been to Koh Tao twice hoping to dive Chumphon Pinnacle. Disappointed both times. I really don't much like the place. Not much for an old man like me to do there.

That's why I was considering alternate venues....

That mirrors my sentiments exactly, I really dont like KT, having said that Chumpon Pinacle is a great site and well worth diving, one of the few good dive sites they have there and well worth putting up with another few days on the island if you haven't dived it before.

Hope you enjoy.

 

[limbo]

Alternatively, see if you can get a trip to Sail Rock, in my opinion an even better site compared to Chumphon Pinnacle. Sail Rock is further away though and this would be a full day trip from Koh Tao.