backpacking diver
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Hi everyone-- this is my first trip report, and I realize it's long, but here goes!
For what Im about to say, I should probably note first that this was my 3rd liveaboard (Ive also done them in Australia/Cocos Island) and I have about 170 divesso I have some basis for comparison and am not a *total* newbie. The trip was a disaster in every way possible. First, the diving was terribleone of the main subjects of discussion among us over the weekvery few fish or any life, maybe one or two sharks-- but it was clear as well that we were often getting put in at the wrong places/missing the drop-in spots. The guideswell, they arent dive guides on the Dancer, theyre dive supervisors, which is about right and as fun as it soundsoften didnt seem to know where we wereat one point in Peleliu we left the wall (where we actually were seeing some sharks) to spend most of the dive crossing the barren, current-swept plateau, which was *much* wider than the guide seemed to expect. We also got a tour of the Rock Islands in which the guide let one of the passengers steer the boat, which was loads of fun for her but of course we didnt see anything b/c she didnt know much about the Rock Islands (unsurprisingly). One of the guides, Ike, knew his stuff, but the two American divemasters seemed cluelesswell, one of them, Melissa, was only there getting her visa sorted for Papua New Guinea, and not only didnt know Palau but made it very clear that she wished she were in PNG, that she thought PNG was much better than Palau, that wed all wasted our money coming to Palau rather than PNG overall, that was a bit of a bummer over the week. The dives were at the same time every day, so we werent timing the spots for tides etc., which certainly had an impact on what we were seeing and where we could dive (the rigid schedule adherence came to be a massive headache) but over the week there was a lot of discussion among us of whether Palaus reputation was based on how it was five yrs ago etc.
We also talked a lot about the damage being done to the coralwe were given reef hooks along with a half-hour PowerPoint on how to use them (!) but if you hesitated trying to find some dead coral to hook to, the guides grabbed it out of your hand and hooked it to the live stuff. The boat photographer, Ben, was all over the coral, and I saw another guide clambering hand-over-hand on it, which was a bit disappointing. More worrying, safety seemed not to be much of a concern once we were in the watergenerally, the dive guides would all be on the boat first. It was a long wait for pick-up with 16 of us in the water, understandably, esp. since we dove all together in a giant herd, but at one point when my buddy and I were waiting 15 minutes for pick-up I gave the OK signal several times to our skiff, but none of the guides would return it, so there was no way to tell if theyd seen us (we sketched out a screenplay for Open Water 3: In Sight of the Dive Skiff). More seriously, at one point one of the divers came up and the guide, on the boat as usual, said, You all right? No, really not! she said (shed gotten tangled in a piece of gear she was trying to get off). He walked away. To do him credit, I dont think he heard her and ignored her, I dont think he bothered to listen to the answer. Happily, another diver on the line assisted her. At one point, at sunset, 7 of us were in the water watching the 3 supervisors hanging out on the skiff; again, no acknowledgment of okay signals. Some of our funniest discussions occurred while we were floating around wondering if wed been spotted
This was all the more surprising b/c the dive briefings were rather forbidding, with Your body will wash up in the Phillipines being said more than once in warning us about currents, not doing deco stops, etc. Melissa explained the last night that the Dancers policy is to intimidate the divers a bit so that we all behave. Great policy! I think they should put that one up on the website!
Nitroxwell, you pay $150 to use it for the week, and its at 26%. Yall reading this will know better than me if thats normal, since I just got my Nitrox cert in Cocos last year, but there and later at FishnFins it was 32%; despite this, we were forbidden to go into deco, so most people took the Nitrox option, altho the air folks just did a 1-3 min. deco stop (we werent diving deep) and just concealed it from the dive crew.
Finally, there was the crew. The cook, Mani, was incredible (Im vegetarian and he was from Nepal = best spicy veggie curries Ive ever had, plus I never needed my Sudafed) and the Palauan and Filipino workers on board were lovely. The three American dive supervisors never cracked a smile. We were required to go on board the skiff before each dive, with a crew member, and get a Nitrox reading on our tanks to sign off, but there were never any crew members around until the dive briefing began; finally I corralled Melissa and, while we were reading my tank, I asked if there was a particular time we were supposed to do this. Everyone else seems to be managing it without a problem, she snapped back. Interestingly, not true: most people skipped the reading and just copied down the last number in the log, except for the people who skipped the dive briefing to get the reading. I dutifully wrote in the log, No crew member available until Thurs., when Melissa finally relented and scheduled a time we could all go to the skiff and get the numbers read out. I also asked if we could, even once, go swimming, and Melissa explained it was a lot of trouble for the crew. My roommate, Ana, asked if we could go to a beach, even once, and got the same answer. Spending a week in Palau and never getting to swim or step on one of the pretty beaches we could see flat-out sucked. Finally, and for what its worth, if for some reason you decide to go on the Dancer, ask for a cabin away from the damn generator; no one in the two cabins nearest it on either side got a full nights sleep that week.
So with a vast sigh of relief, off the Tropic Dancer after the worst week Ive ever spent on diving. Ana had scheduled a day with FishnFins (land-based) and asked if I wanted to go with her, and I figured why not, Id enjoyed diving with her and damn! We had an amazing day. After a 45-min. ride on the skiff, our Palauan divemaster Emerald took us down to Blue Corner and suddenly I was seeing everything I had hoped to see but never did on the Dancerwe had schools of game fish, grey reefies everywhere, small schools of barracuda and garden eels. The last doesnt sound exciting but we never did see those with Dancer, and while you could argue that the total absence of fish/sharks on our Dancer dives might not be about being put in at the wrong place, Emerald did seem able to show us lots of critters that stay put as well, that our dive supervisors on the Dancer seemed unaware of. From there, to a gorgeous beach for lunch. We hung around since our schedule was flexible to the tide for the best diving, went down to German Channel and it was heaventhree mantas, all of whom came down for cleaning and then went up and did those slow graceful cartwheels through the sea above us. Back on the boat, Emerald encouraged us to have a final swim if we wanted (ok, so we could pee before the ride back, but a swim is a swim
Then on the way back the captain gave us a REAL tour of the Rock Islandswe kept veering into what looked like a sheer rock wall and it would be a tiny channelAfterward, Ana and I were talking about how stunned we were. It was the Dancer that sucked, not the diving in Palau. I had another full week (happy days!) Ana had two more days and was pissed off beyond belief that shed wasted that time and money on the Dancer. And for good reason.
I know some people on the forum seem to have had really good experiences-- the crew got the week off after our trip, so maybe they had all cashed out a little early in their heads... Still, I would never recommend the Dancer to anyone. There are other liveaboards, plus tons of land-based operations in Palau-- avoid the Dancer, save your money and don't end up regretting your choice, is what I would say. I hope this is helpful!
For what Im about to say, I should probably note first that this was my 3rd liveaboard (Ive also done them in Australia/Cocos Island) and I have about 170 divesso I have some basis for comparison and am not a *total* newbie. The trip was a disaster in every way possible. First, the diving was terribleone of the main subjects of discussion among us over the weekvery few fish or any life, maybe one or two sharks-- but it was clear as well that we were often getting put in at the wrong places/missing the drop-in spots. The guideswell, they arent dive guides on the Dancer, theyre dive supervisors, which is about right and as fun as it soundsoften didnt seem to know where we wereat one point in Peleliu we left the wall (where we actually were seeing some sharks) to spend most of the dive crossing the barren, current-swept plateau, which was *much* wider than the guide seemed to expect. We also got a tour of the Rock Islands in which the guide let one of the passengers steer the boat, which was loads of fun for her but of course we didnt see anything b/c she didnt know much about the Rock Islands (unsurprisingly). One of the guides, Ike, knew his stuff, but the two American divemasters seemed cluelesswell, one of them, Melissa, was only there getting her visa sorted for Papua New Guinea, and not only didnt know Palau but made it very clear that she wished she were in PNG, that she thought PNG was much better than Palau, that wed all wasted our money coming to Palau rather than PNG overall, that was a bit of a bummer over the week. The dives were at the same time every day, so we werent timing the spots for tides etc., which certainly had an impact on what we were seeing and where we could dive (the rigid schedule adherence came to be a massive headache) but over the week there was a lot of discussion among us of whether Palaus reputation was based on how it was five yrs ago etc.
We also talked a lot about the damage being done to the coralwe were given reef hooks along with a half-hour PowerPoint on how to use them (!) but if you hesitated trying to find some dead coral to hook to, the guides grabbed it out of your hand and hooked it to the live stuff. The boat photographer, Ben, was all over the coral, and I saw another guide clambering hand-over-hand on it, which was a bit disappointing. More worrying, safety seemed not to be much of a concern once we were in the watergenerally, the dive guides would all be on the boat first. It was a long wait for pick-up with 16 of us in the water, understandably, esp. since we dove all together in a giant herd, but at one point when my buddy and I were waiting 15 minutes for pick-up I gave the OK signal several times to our skiff, but none of the guides would return it, so there was no way to tell if theyd seen us (we sketched out a screenplay for Open Water 3: In Sight of the Dive Skiff). More seriously, at one point one of the divers came up and the guide, on the boat as usual, said, You all right? No, really not! she said (shed gotten tangled in a piece of gear she was trying to get off). He walked away. To do him credit, I dont think he heard her and ignored her, I dont think he bothered to listen to the answer. Happily, another diver on the line assisted her. At one point, at sunset, 7 of us were in the water watching the 3 supervisors hanging out on the skiff; again, no acknowledgment of okay signals. Some of our funniest discussions occurred while we were floating around wondering if wed been spotted
This was all the more surprising b/c the dive briefings were rather forbidding, with Your body will wash up in the Phillipines being said more than once in warning us about currents, not doing deco stops, etc. Melissa explained the last night that the Dancers policy is to intimidate the divers a bit so that we all behave. Great policy! I think they should put that one up on the website!
Nitroxwell, you pay $150 to use it for the week, and its at 26%. Yall reading this will know better than me if thats normal, since I just got my Nitrox cert in Cocos last year, but there and later at FishnFins it was 32%; despite this, we were forbidden to go into deco, so most people took the Nitrox option, altho the air folks just did a 1-3 min. deco stop (we werent diving deep) and just concealed it from the dive crew.
Finally, there was the crew. The cook, Mani, was incredible (Im vegetarian and he was from Nepal = best spicy veggie curries Ive ever had, plus I never needed my Sudafed) and the Palauan and Filipino workers on board were lovely. The three American dive supervisors never cracked a smile. We were required to go on board the skiff before each dive, with a crew member, and get a Nitrox reading on our tanks to sign off, but there were never any crew members around until the dive briefing began; finally I corralled Melissa and, while we were reading my tank, I asked if there was a particular time we were supposed to do this. Everyone else seems to be managing it without a problem, she snapped back. Interestingly, not true: most people skipped the reading and just copied down the last number in the log, except for the people who skipped the dive briefing to get the reading. I dutifully wrote in the log, No crew member available until Thurs., when Melissa finally relented and scheduled a time we could all go to the skiff and get the numbers read out. I also asked if we could, even once, go swimming, and Melissa explained it was a lot of trouble for the crew. My roommate, Ana, asked if we could go to a beach, even once, and got the same answer. Spending a week in Palau and never getting to swim or step on one of the pretty beaches we could see flat-out sucked. Finally, and for what its worth, if for some reason you decide to go on the Dancer, ask for a cabin away from the damn generator; no one in the two cabins nearest it on either side got a full nights sleep that week.
So with a vast sigh of relief, off the Tropic Dancer after the worst week Ive ever spent on diving. Ana had scheduled a day with FishnFins (land-based) and asked if I wanted to go with her, and I figured why not, Id enjoyed diving with her and damn! We had an amazing day. After a 45-min. ride on the skiff, our Palauan divemaster Emerald took us down to Blue Corner and suddenly I was seeing everything I had hoped to see but never did on the Dancerwe had schools of game fish, grey reefies everywhere, small schools of barracuda and garden eels. The last doesnt sound exciting but we never did see those with Dancer, and while you could argue that the total absence of fish/sharks on our Dancer dives might not be about being put in at the wrong place, Emerald did seem able to show us lots of critters that stay put as well, that our dive supervisors on the Dancer seemed unaware of. From there, to a gorgeous beach for lunch. We hung around since our schedule was flexible to the tide for the best diving, went down to German Channel and it was heaventhree mantas, all of whom came down for cleaning and then went up and did those slow graceful cartwheels through the sea above us. Back on the boat, Emerald encouraged us to have a final swim if we wanted (ok, so we could pee before the ride back, but a swim is a swim
Then on the way back the captain gave us a REAL tour of the Rock Islandswe kept veering into what looked like a sheer rock wall and it would be a tiny channelAfterward, Ana and I were talking about how stunned we were. It was the Dancer that sucked, not the diving in Palau. I had another full week (happy days!) Ana had two more days and was pissed off beyond belief that shed wasted that time and money on the Dancer. And for good reason.I know some people on the forum seem to have had really good experiences-- the crew got the week off after our trip, so maybe they had all cashed out a little early in their heads... Still, I would never recommend the Dancer to anyone. There are other liveaboards, plus tons of land-based operations in Palau-- avoid the Dancer, save your money and don't end up regretting your choice, is what I would say. I hope this is helpful!
