Heading Down to South Soon - Lock Your Doors! (Hahaha)

[funrecdiver]

Hahahaha, lock your doors and hide the farm animals!

Having just completed nearly 60 dives in the Pattaya area as well as a number of training courses here, it is soon time to pack the car and drive down south to try some of that "super great diving" we read about on SB.

Maybe I can answer the long, lost question of the ancients, "is there diving with visibility more than 5 meters" ? (LOL) And..... "is there more to scuba than diving in the endless murk?" And.. "could we actually see the wreck before stepping on it?!" (LOL, again).

Pattaya has been great and I'll be back because it is fun bumping into the wrecks before seeing them But, is there actual clear blue water in Thailand to dive in? I got to find out if the rumors are true!

 

[limbo]

Sail Rock and Chumporn Pinnacle had a couple of days of excellent visibility!

 

[funrecdiver]

Thanks for the update... one of the joys of a southern trip would be to see you limbo!

Maybe I'll drive to Chumphon and ferry the car to Koh Tao and see you there!?

Is there a car ferry from Tao to Samui?

 

[limbo]

Nope, no car ferry from Koh Tao to Samui!
Either drive down to Chumpon and take the passenger ferry to Koh Tao, you don't really need a car on KT and than take a ferry to Samui or you drive another 2-3 hrs and get a ferry from Donsak (near Surat) to Samui and than take a ferry from Samui to KT.
From Samui it will be easy to take a ferry and road down to Phuket and all it's surrounding dive locations like Krabi, Koh Lanta and Kao Lak.

 

[ayeshacantrell]

The viz has cleared up nicely.....Southwest pinnacle on Monday and Chumpon on Tues ......looking forward to it ..... Tuesday might just be a deep shark safari.......

 

[funrecdiver]

Thanks for the viz and ferry reports.

I may start the long drive from Pattaya tomorrow. One thought I had was to stay overnight in Chumphon on the way down south and maybe do some diving there, in route.

 

[limbo]

When I drive up to BKK or PTY from Samui, I usually stay the night over in Cha'am on the way up and in Surat on the way down, especially since I have the family aboard.
If you need any hotel recommendations in these towns, let me know, Chumpon is an unknown quantity for me.

 

[funrecdiver]

That's a good idea. Instead of driving 8 hours, break it up and drive 4 hours, since I'm in no particular rush.

I found this property on Agoda, the Bannpantai, which looks great for the current promotion price. (Edit: And booked it.... )

 

[limbo]

That's a nice place and I checked it out, found a place a few 100 meters down the road about the half the price and adequate for what I needed being on the road with a Thai family We had two rooms and parking under the sleeping rooms!

From Cha'am to Donsak is still a bit of drive! Deffo more than 4 hours.

 

[funrecdiver]

I may go from Cha'am to Chumphon and then to Koh Tao first. I've been to Samui, Surat, Phuket and Krabi (Phi Phi) many times, but never to Koh Tao. It's time for me to find out what all the buzz is about regarding diving in Koh Tao. Besides fun diving, if I can find a high quality DPV, I may do a DPV class for fun as well.