Tripophobia
Registered
This is my first trip report - I had been lurking for quite some time and finally decided to get an account. To give something back to the community, I am planning to post reports of trips that I have done over the past 3 years.
I am starting with my most recent trip to Palau. It was our second time in Palau and we actually had initially planned to go to the Philippines (Coron) with two friends. One day after the evening when we had more or less aligned everything with our friends, Ksenia from diveandcruise.com sent me an email that Aggressor has deals for the days we were looking for (Chinese Golden Week holidays). I immediately asked her to block two cabins for us and we booked a few days later.
Since our first trip to Palau in Feb 2018, we have been to Komodo and Raja Ampat and my personal ranking at the time of booking the trip was RA definitely at no. 1 and then Komodo slightly ahead of Palau taking into account that both are "different animals" (Corals, Mantas & Dragons, vs. Sharks, Schools and WWII).
As one of our friends did not have a lot of experience, Komodo was not an option due to the crazy currents and RA was too complicated to get to. We would not have done Palau again without the deal (fortunately, deals seem to be quite a common practice in Palau).
Same as last year, my wife and I came via Seoul (from Shanghai) and spend a few days in Korea before taking the red-eye flight to Koror. As the crews of Palau Aggressor 2 and Rock Island Aggressor had been mixed-up since our past trip, we were picked up by a familiar face at the airport at 4am in the morning. The big boat had left already so we had to follow by Dhoni which was a bit unfortunate as it took nearly an hour that we would have loved to sleep instead. When arriving to the big boat check-in and the formalities were super efficient and we started to prepare our dive equipment for the first dive at 7am (I went for the "Iron Diver" so sleeping was not an option
).
Diving:
Check dive and 2nd dive was good but nothing to write home about. Then Palau started to give us a blast and the following days were just amazing. Blue Corner and German Channel have been as superb as ever and I was really amazed by the consistency you get in Palau:
--> On 6 blue corner dives over my two liveaboard trips at very different times of the year there have always been a lot of Sharks, schools of jacks and barracudas, the funny Napoleon, turtles and the visibility was always amazing.
--> Same for German Channel, in 4 dives I have always seen Mantas and bait-balls.
Majority of the other dives were great and usually better compared to many other places. Special mention to Ulong Channel which was great this trip (better than I had it in mind), with Sharks & Eagle Rays.
Same as last time, Peleliu was good diving, but below average for Palau. On our first trip we did the land tour which I highly recommend. Orange Beach was fun, announced as a relaxed dive current was blowing us over the WWII battlefield and when descending, the dive groups were scattered over a kilometer. Shows how unpredictable Palau is.
With Jellyfish Lake being closed in 2018 it was our first trip there and it was nice. We prefer cruises where you have the possibility for 1-2 land tours.
Although October is off-season, diving was on the same level (or even better) than in Feb 2018. We rarely saw other divers and I cannot remember another liveaboard.
Boat:
Palau Aggressor is a nice boat with spacious cabins. It is not new and not as luxurious as many of the Indonesian sailing boats but this is compensated by an amazing job done by its crew: The service is just superb, everything is taken care of, all drinks are included, after every dive you get a hot towel and a drink and the food is just amazing. They have this nice lift for the dhoni so you do not need to climb back into the big boat but they just life it up and you walk in (which highly appreciated when having 5 dives a day). The crew was super proactive in supporting my drone flying approaching me when there were good times to fly or even showing me directions. They have high safety standards and my equipment was always setup perfect (compared to experiences I have made in Philippines / Indonesia). On top, they take professional pictures underwater which you get for free at the end of the trip.
I would not be German if didn't have something to criticize. The diving is guided but as one big group. We were 16 divers + 3 guides, most of us fortunately very experienced, but the beginning of the dives were often quite messy until the group spread out a bit. From the nature of diving in Palau (more big stuff), a guide showing you things is not as relevant as for Macro (you usually don't miss the Shark or Manta :-D). I have to admit that for the high ratio of divers to guides they took super good care of our not so experienced friend or divers not as experienced in hooking in, but if you have a bigger number of beginners it might get more complicated.
In summary, I can really recommend diving in Palau with Aggressor Fleet: the diving is just awesome, the service is great and I felt very well taken care from a safety pov. After this second trip, I would probably rank it ahead of Komodo.
Please see my video of the trip below, give me a thumbs up and kindly follow my channel (will upload additional videos from past trips for the trip reports)
I am starting with my most recent trip to Palau. It was our second time in Palau and we actually had initially planned to go to the Philippines (Coron) with two friends. One day after the evening when we had more or less aligned everything with our friends, Ksenia from diveandcruise.com sent me an email that Aggressor has deals for the days we were looking for (Chinese Golden Week holidays). I immediately asked her to block two cabins for us and we booked a few days later.
Since our first trip to Palau in Feb 2018, we have been to Komodo and Raja Ampat and my personal ranking at the time of booking the trip was RA definitely at no. 1 and then Komodo slightly ahead of Palau taking into account that both are "different animals" (Corals, Mantas & Dragons, vs. Sharks, Schools and WWII).
As one of our friends did not have a lot of experience, Komodo was not an option due to the crazy currents and RA was too complicated to get to. We would not have done Palau again without the deal (fortunately, deals seem to be quite a common practice in Palau).
Same as last year, my wife and I came via Seoul (from Shanghai) and spend a few days in Korea before taking the red-eye flight to Koror. As the crews of Palau Aggressor 2 and Rock Island Aggressor had been mixed-up since our past trip, we were picked up by a familiar face at the airport at 4am in the morning. The big boat had left already so we had to follow by Dhoni which was a bit unfortunate as it took nearly an hour that we would have loved to sleep instead. When arriving to the big boat check-in and the formalities were super efficient and we started to prepare our dive equipment for the first dive at 7am (I went for the "Iron Diver" so sleeping was not an option
).Diving:
Check dive and 2nd dive was good but nothing to write home about. Then Palau started to give us a blast and the following days were just amazing. Blue Corner and German Channel have been as superb as ever and I was really amazed by the consistency you get in Palau:
--> On 6 blue corner dives over my two liveaboard trips at very different times of the year there have always been a lot of Sharks, schools of jacks and barracudas, the funny Napoleon, turtles and the visibility was always amazing.
--> Same for German Channel, in 4 dives I have always seen Mantas and bait-balls.
Majority of the other dives were great and usually better compared to many other places. Special mention to Ulong Channel which was great this trip (better than I had it in mind), with Sharks & Eagle Rays.
Same as last time, Peleliu was good diving, but below average for Palau. On our first trip we did the land tour which I highly recommend. Orange Beach was fun, announced as a relaxed dive current was blowing us over the WWII battlefield and when descending, the dive groups were scattered over a kilometer. Shows how unpredictable Palau is.
With Jellyfish Lake being closed in 2018 it was our first trip there and it was nice. We prefer cruises where you have the possibility for 1-2 land tours.
Although October is off-season, diving was on the same level (or even better) than in Feb 2018. We rarely saw other divers and I cannot remember another liveaboard.
Boat:
Palau Aggressor is a nice boat with spacious cabins. It is not new and not as luxurious as many of the Indonesian sailing boats but this is compensated by an amazing job done by its crew: The service is just superb, everything is taken care of, all drinks are included, after every dive you get a hot towel and a drink and the food is just amazing. They have this nice lift for the dhoni so you do not need to climb back into the big boat but they just life it up and you walk in (which highly appreciated when having 5 dives a day). The crew was super proactive in supporting my drone flying approaching me when there were good times to fly or even showing me directions. They have high safety standards and my equipment was always setup perfect (compared to experiences I have made in Philippines / Indonesia). On top, they take professional pictures underwater which you get for free at the end of the trip.
I would not be German if didn't have something to criticize
. The diving is guided but as one big group. We were 16 divers + 3 guides, most of us fortunately very experienced, but the beginning of the dives were often quite messy until the group spread out a bit. From the nature of diving in Palau (more big stuff), a guide showing you things is not as relevant as for Macro (you usually don't miss the Shark or Manta :-D). I have to admit that for the high ratio of divers to guides they took super good care of our not so experienced friend or divers not as experienced in hooking in, but if you have a bigger number of beginners it might get more complicated.In summary, I can really recommend diving in Palau with Aggressor Fleet: the diving is just awesome, the service is great and I felt very well taken care from a safety pov. After this second trip, I would probably rank it ahead of Komodo.
Please see my video of the trip below, give me a thumbs up and kindly follow my channel (will upload additional videos from past trips for the trip reports)
