Chumphon Pinnacle

Chumphon Pinnacle sits roughly 13 kilometres northwest of Koh Tao in open water. The journey takes about an hour by speedboat, which gives you some sense of how far offshore this site is — and why the marine life is different from anything you’ll find closer to the island.

Four granite pinnacles rise from a sandy bottom at 36 metres. The shallowest peak comes up to around 14 metres, which gives divers a good working range before bottom time becomes a consideration. Most dives here start with a descent to the base of the pinnacles and a gradual ascent along the rock faces — a natural structure for a dive given that the bottom time limits how long you can spend at depth.

Whale sharks appear here more regularly than at most sites in the Gulf of Thailand. March through August produces the most consistent sightings, though encounters have been recorded outside that window. There’s no guarantee — that’s the nature of open-water wildlife — but Chumphon Pinnacle has a genuine track record that most sites around Koh Tao can’t match.

The school fish activity is impressive on its own terms. Large chevron barracuda form tight formations around the pinnacles, and giant trevally move through in numbers. Leopard sharks rest on the sandy bottom between the rocks at depth. The soft coral and sea fan coverage on the pinnacle faces is well developed, and the combination of structure and open water creates a dive that feels genuinely different from a coastal reef.

This is an Advanced dive. The depth limits bottom time and the open-water location means conditions can change. It’s one of the main reasons divers continue training beyond Open Water certification — and one of the better dives in the region when conditions are right.