Gulf Siam Hotel & Resort

Re: Diving & fishing charters

by Thai-Guy

This maybe a little late since your post was a couple months ago.

Many tourist trap places that book trips / tours offer fishing charters. The problem is that they don't like to go out unless they have about 10 people or more. My father and I tried to go last April and never made it out. The problem is that they don't take names and group you with other people. They expected us to go find a group of people. When it comes to fishing, it is the worst run business in all of Thailand. With that said, you can always go to the pier and talk to the boat owners and get them to take you out. They will charge you about $10,000 baht. We kept negotiating with one guy and he came down to 5,000 baht but still too much. My dad didn't want to pay mor than $100 US and 5,000 came to about $150. This is for a real fishing boat with gear. You can probbly rent one of the bigger spead boats to take you out but I doubt they have gear and I don't suppose you're traveling with a full set of tackle and poles. Heck, you can even rent a long tail to take you where you want to go as long as the seas aren't rough for a few thousand baht (all day), but probably don't have the gear needed for fishing. Best bet is to go to the pier and talk to the boat owners and bypass the tour operators located all over town. Good luck on fishing.


Scuba diving is the same situation. If you want to do your own thing, you will need to rent scuba gear and you can find any boat operator willing to negotiate taking you where you want to go, otherwise all the dive shops have a predetermined agenda. Most go to a series of locations depending on the day. There about 10 dive shops in the area. I for one dive out of Pattaya Dive Center on Beach road. They recently got a new boat with dual engines and it's the fastest boat in Pattaya used for diving. Most dive shops use these Thai ferry boats that are slower than a turtle with 4 broken legs. Pattaya dive center uses a boat that is a minimum 2x faster than other dive shops boat. Dive shops will take you out for 2 dives = 2400 - 2900 baht depending if you have your own gear or not. Also depends if your traveling with another certified diver, you may be able to go off on your own or they will usually try to bunch people up with one of maybe 3 divemasters. Even when I dive with another person certified, we are still at the mercy of the dive shop and their schedule but once we get to their location we can go do our own thing for 30 - 40 minutes.

Dive shops can be found on North Pattaya near 2nd Road,

Soi 1

Soi 6

Beach Rd (3)

Soi 13,14 or 15 (somewhere not too far off beach road).

Walking Street

one shop on the way to Jomtien Beach

a couple in Jomtien (Mermaids and another that I'm aware of... both off beach road on different soi


I hope this helps.