Land Based versus Live Aboard - Palau

[ewaiea]

I'm planning on doing Palau via liveaboard next year, most likely January 2011 (most likely the Palau Aggressor or Tropic Dancer). So many people say that the water temp doesn't vary much in Palau and that you can go virtually any time of year and get good diving.....so if late February to April is the best, what is considered so ideal for that time of year? Is the wind down with less surface chop? Does the water in the "non-ideal" months get down into the 70s?

Did most of you Palau liveaboarders just wear a skin or rash guard in Palau? Or is a 3mm a better bet? I've heard the water can be like bath water but is there a time of year that's best for that?

 

[padiscubapro]

The Aggressor does use a tender and that certainly does add extra time to get to the dive sites to be sure, especially since the tender needs to be "parked" on the hydraulic lift and then raised to dive deck level. However, since the dive gear remains on the tender and the tender is kept flush with the dive deck level, boarding is no more difficult for the divers than walking to the stern of the liveaboard and sitting down.

However, another downside to this arrangement is that there are a lot of divers in the water in one place, even though they try to split into two staggered groups. It wasn't so bad on many of the drift dives, but occasionally clusters would form and it would get crowded.

I definitely agree with JasonG that diving directly from the mother ship is preferable to using a tender. In fact, I've used that premise when arguing that the Odyssey makes a better dive platform in Truk than the Thorfinn. I would seriously consider the Ocean Hunter for a future visit, except that I had such a great trip on the Aggressor that I couldn't imagine not doing that boat again unless the captain/crew or boat conditions had substantially changed. It sure would be nice to do both.

I can't agree with you here... Whether its better to dive off a mothership or off a tender really depends on the type of diving you want to do..

For some places I do like the mothership approach, on others like Chuuk, I prefer the tender approach since divers can do sites based on their wishes not that of the majority..

When doing photography, a tender can be a big plus because it limits how many people will be on a site at once.. A mothersahip approach is a plus if the ship is going to be mored on a site for a long time and if allowed people can come and go as they wish...

 

[Mossman]

I'm planning on doing Palau via liveaboard next year, most likely January 2011 (most likely the Palau Aggressor or Tropic Dancer). So many people say that the water temp doesn't vary much in Palau and that you can go virtually any time of year and get good diving.....so if late February to April is the best, what is considered so ideal for that time of year? Is the wind down with less surface chop? Does the water in the "non-ideal" months get down into the 70s?

Did most of you Palau liveaboarders just wear a skin or rash guard in Palau? Or is a 3mm a better bet? I've heard the water can be like bath water but is there a time of year that's best for that?

Actually, IIRC, February through April are more pleasant because they are cooler and breezier topside, with less rain. As summer approaches, the tradewinds die off and the days can be sweltering when it's not raining. There's also the chance of being affected by a nearby typhoon. On my first trip, in May, we got nicked by typhoon Hagabis which was centered nearer to Guam. I've never seen rain that hard. In March, you're likely to have sunny breezy days with brief spells of rain. In the wet season, it's more common to have rain and windstorms interrupted by hot dead calm.

On the other hand, you can take the advice of the Ocean Hunter site which claims that due to climate change, there is no difference between the wet and dry season and all months are the same.

The water averaged 84 degrees on my last trip. Drift diving for 4 or 5 hours a day in 84 degrees, I get chilled. Most people do, since heat loss from 98.6 interior to 84 degrees of wet exterior is inevitable, though some refuse to admit it or they move around a lot. It's all a matter of personal comfort level. Me, I like comfort, so I wore a 3mm hyperstretch, which I don't believe is as warm as a conventional 3mm but it's more comfortable and easier to don. Obviously, others dive with shorties or skins or even less, and still others dive with 5mm and hood. I doubt you'll see too many drysuits there.

 

[farsidefan1]

My local dive shop is going to do the palau aggressor May 5 - 12th, I know that May is the start of the rainy season so I'm not sure I want to do it with them. I've been places that rainy season = poor vis and that just doesn't excite me. If I'm going that far I want to maximize my chances of good weather and certainly don't want to risk losing time to a typhoon. I would also like to do a bit of land touring, such as the lake with the stingless jellies (Can we interbreed them with ocanic jellies?yes, I know, they would starve, but other than the ecological disaster of destroying a niche in the worlds ecosystem what's the bad news?). Anyway I'm hoping for your comments on the timing and if the liveaboards offer access to the land tours. Thanks

 

[Mossman]

The Aggressor includes a trip to Jellyfish Lake in its itinerary, usually on the last day, as well as a land tour of Peleliu. Rainy season does not (usually) equate to poor viz in Palau, especially on the outer reefs, it just makes for a more miserable topside experience. Early May should be fine. My typhoon experience was unusual.