First time in the South Pacific

[richybutler]

Me and my girlfriend are looking at heading towards the south pacific in May / June time. We're both very experienced divers (2000+ dives) and are also qualified tech divers too.
Having lived and worked in SE Asia for 5 years, we're not on a massive budget, maybe $1,000 dollars a week tops. Is there anybody that can recommend a mini itinerary for the South Pacific, best places to go. Think we're looking at about 3-4 weeks travel.

We're not too interested in big dive operations, preferring the smaller, quieter type of dive operator. Liveaboards would be great, but after a little research it seems the prices are a little off our budget, so maybe shore operators would be better. Bungalow style is perfect, again big hotels, air con, en-suite and flashy restaurants are not necessary. We just want to dive, eat and sleep. We have all our own gear, video and still cameras, so restricted dive times are a big no-no.

Also West Papua seems very tempting.

So many questions for a small post, but this is only the beginning of our plans, so i intend to add to this thread over the next 2-3 months as the research grows, to try to determine and develop a dive trip for the South Pacific that's not for the high budget traveller. Maybe this will help you to follow in our steps and break into the diving the South Pacific has to offer without breaking the bank

Hope there's a few out there that can help, also that can be helped by this thread should it grow to what I hope it will.

Many thanks

Rich

 

[altaskier]

The Philippines has some great diving and is less expensive than some other places. Check out this posting by Kathydee.

 

[Banyan]

Palau, and probably much of Micronesia, would be off budget as you'd be spending $150 a day each for boat dives and there's no other way to get to the sites. Not to mention the airfare. Guam, at least, is relative cheap with regular $40 boat dives from the dive shops and plenty of shore diving, but the reef is so degraded (comparatively) that there's really no reason for a diver to head to Guam unless they're going somewhere else in the region.

 

[richybutler]

Thanks Banyan. I think we could stretch to $150 a day for a short period if it meant we could dive Micronesia. Is this price PER DIVE? Which part of Micronesia have you experienced?

Thanks

 

[Banyan]

Thanks Banyan. I think we could stretch to $150 a day for a short period if it meant we could dive Micronesia. Is this price PER DIVE? Which part of Micronesia have you experienced?

Thanks

Per two-dive day, if you're buying one day at a time though I think you might find it down to $100 depending on what island and which operation. If you get a hotel/dive package, you might pay around $1000-1500 for a week though you could save some money if you switch from the fancy hotels to the bargain ones, if there's a choice on the island. This would normally include four or five 2-dive days, depending on the operation and the time of year. (You can pay extra for more dives.) At least that seems to be the situation in Palau, where I spent two weeks in May. I'm currently researching a trip to Chuuk and the prices seem comparable to Palau.

If you want to get a quick thumbnail view of prices in the region, you could do worse than check out my LDS's website and look at the package prices under the "Travel Desk" -> "Micronesia" sidebar on the left. It's a decent jumping off point for deciding if Micronesia is possible within your budget once you add in airfare, though you'd want to check out the sites of actual hotels and dive shops to see if you could get a better deal. Chuuk, Yap, and Kosrae each have only a couple hotels and dive operations, while Palau is dive central and has at least four major operations targeted at Westerners, and an abundance of accommodations. According to scuttlebutt, the Japanese and Korean dive shops have much more competition and their prices are significantly lower, though that's only an option if you're comfortable getting a dive briefing in Japanese.

The best dives I've had here on Guam can only be compared to the worst dives I had in Palau, though you can have some great turtle/manta dives if you know where to go at the right time of year. While the diving in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas (Saipan, Rota, etc) is significantly better than Guam, from what I hear, I haven't heard anyone dare compare it to the wonder that is Palau.

 

[TSandM]

I don't know if it fits in the budget, but some of the most spectacular diving I've done anywhere was on Rangiroa. Beautiful, vibrant, healthy reefs, teeming with fish, as well as sharks, jacks, and dolphins.

I was profoundly disappointed with the diving in most of the rest of the places we went -- Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora, Rarotonga and several other places in French Polynesia had very sick reefs, damaged apparently by runoff and by a plague of crown of thorns starfish, and most of those places ran shark feeding dives, because otherwise, there just wasn't that much to see.

 

[bfisher]

This might not be what you have in mind but try Scuba Diving Beach Resort Puerto Galera Philippines | Sandbar Divers Elizabeth's Hideaway. The place isn't real bi and fancy, but it's not bad, and even at twice the cost it would be decent. Presently a two week stay with 24 dives, breakfast is still reasonable at $1243 USD.

 

[finbob]

Banyan, the hotel 'Sea Passion' does that come with air con or would one need an upgrade?

 

[Banyan]

Banyan, the hotel 'Sea Passion' does that come with air con or would one need an upgrade?

Oh, the Sea Passion was quite posh from what I remember waiting in the dive shop's van for some divers to come out. Shiny stone pillars and artfully arranged vegetation with staff to hold doors open for you.

I looked at hotel that was $35 a night if you stayed for more than an extended stay and I think they didn't have air con, but did have hot water in a personal bathroom, so you have to go pretty far downmarket to run out of air con. The air con cut-off in Peleliu, if you're thinking of going that far, is $50-60 or so.

 

[richybutler]

I don't know if it fits in the budget, but some of the most spectacular diving I've done anywhere was on Rangiroa. Beautiful, vibrant, healthy reefs, teeming with fish, as well as sharks, jacks, and dolphins.

I was profoundly disappointed with the diving in most of the rest of the places we went -- Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora, Rarotonga and several other places in French Polynesia had very sick reefs, damaged apparently by runoff and by a plague of crown of thorns starfish, and most of those places ran shark feeding dives, because otherwise, there just wasn't that much to see.

Sounds like great advice I'm going to look into that. Yeah, I've heard about the Crown of Thorns problems. I did a course in Coral Reef preservation and research with a company called Reef Check and have conducted a few surveys of reef in Thailand. It's a great course and gives you a good insight into how reef are affected by the marine life that lives within it. Also what they call "indicator species" give you an idea of the health of reef and how they may change due to the varying numbers of these species, for example an increase of rabbit fish will show a possible increase in algae growth on the reef. The course is quite basic so it depends on your instructor to elaborate, luckily mine was very very passionate about marine resource management and global reef health. Nathan Cook based on Koh Tao, google Eco Koh Tao for his site.

I'll have a look into Rangiroa for prices.

Thanks