Trip Report Palau Dec 2022-Jan 2023 on the Palau Siren

[Doc Harry]

Trip Report
Diving on the Palau Siren Dec 29, 2022 through Jan 8, 2023

This reports includes my comments on travel, cameras, hotels, restaurants, and of course the diving.

TRAVEL

We traveled from the USA to Palau via a two-day stop-over in Honolulu. We also had two days in Palau before the cruise, just to ensure that we had a good buffer to deal with airline troubles. We skirted the artic blast that hit the USA right before Christmas by flying to Atlanta and then westward to Honolulu south of the brewing storm.

U.S.S. Missouri, Honolulu

We flew with Delta to Honalulu. I've always had good experiences with Delta, but flying with them during the pandemic was a great disappointment. However, Delta seems to have gotten their act together again, and our trip was flawless. We flew Delta One because of the long flight, and enjoyed the Delta Sky lounges between flights.

Delta One

We flew with United from Honolulu to Palau via Guam. Flying with United has always been a s$#t-show, but this time I was impressed with their service and punctuality. United only flies into Palau at 1:00 a.m. now, which kinda sucked.

United first class

There is no taxi service in Koror, Palau, and there aren't any airport shuttles. So arrange ground transportation directly with your hotel.

LODGING

I was surprised by the prices of hotels In Koror, Palau. We stayed at the Palau Hotel, which was one of the cheapest places in town at $90 per night. The next step up in price was Palau Central at about $240 per night. My wife prefers 5-star hotels, but we were very pleased with Palau Hotel. It was simple, clean, comfortable, and the service was outstanding. The staff were really friendly and helpful. They helped us with laundry service, airport transfers ($30), car rentals, and they even loaned us umbrellas on a rainy day. The breakfast buffet was filling, and coffee is on 24/7.

Palau Hotel is centrally located. There are two grocery stores and numerous restaurants within 200 feet. There is even a coffee shop and a bakery next door that has a lot of fine sweets.

RESTAURANTS IN KOROR

We ate at a few places, but our favorite was a Japanese restaurant Tori Tori about 200 feet from the hotel.

Tori Tori

We also ate a Jasmine Thai, based on the good reviews. We were not disappointed. It's a small place that doesn't look impressive when you walk in upstairs. "Wait, am I in the right place?" It's like eating at mom's. Place an order, and mom goes into the kitchen and makes one dish at a time. A bit slow but delicious.

Jasmine Thai

CAMERA

My Nikon dSLR flooded in Belize last year, so I decided to move to a compact video system. I bought this Olympus TG-6 package from Backscatter:

OM System TG-7, Dual Macro Wide 4300, & Snoot Underwater Video Package

OM System TG-7, Dual Macro Wide 4300, & Snoot Underwater Video Package

www.backscatter.com

When I first started playing around with the camera, I noticed two problems immediately: autofocus and battery life.

The TG-6 autofocus operates were poorly, and the focus goes in and out a lot with video. I used the settings recommended by Backscatter, but it didn't help. Take a look at my video at the link below, and you'll see all the problems with autofocus.

The TG-6 battery life is criminally poor. I resorted to tuning off the camera as much as possible, but still the battery barely made it though each dive. About 20% of the time the battery died before the end of the dive. I bought four batteries and kept cycling them through the camera after each dive. In the high humidity of Palau, it was a PITA opening the camera case after every dive.

What I did really like about the TG-6 was being able to set a white balance at any depth. It didn't work so well below 50 feet, but from 0 to 40 feet the colors were wonderful.

I bought the M52 wide-angle lens ($450) and it was very useful. I kept the lens in my pocket and mounted it to the camera case whenever I wanted a wide-angle shot.

TG-6 without the wide-angle lens (Palau Siren interior)

TG-6 with the M52 wide-angle lens

DIVING

We did a 10-day cruise with Master Liveaboards on the Palau Siren.

The water temp was 84 degrees F the entire trip. I dove in shorts and rash guard.

The Palau Siren motored around the western lagoon and anchored a just a few spots. It towed two skiffs that we used for diving. That was really nice because the skiff drivers took us on mini-tours of the islands before and after each dive. The skiff rides were generally 10-15 minutes, except when we went diving off the island of Peleliu (45 minutes).

The entire crew of Palau Siren were great people, from the captain to the engineer, to the hostesses, to the cook (great food!), to the skiff drivers, to the dive guides. Everything was perfect.

Typical daily schedule:
0630 dive
0900 breakfast
1030 dive
1230 lunch
1500 dive
1800 night dive
2000 dinner

It seems that most of the rooms on the Palau Siren have two single beds. We stayed in a bow cabin, which had one queen bed.

Here is a video that I put together from the trip. I plan to make a few more full-length videos, but this is a quick trailer. Thanks to the skiff driver Kaine for turning me onto Stick Figure.

The video highlights the Palau Siren, the diving, and the Olympus TG-6 video capabilities:

 

[peeweediver]

Thanks for the great report and video. We were there in early December, so lots of familiar sites. We did not get to see mantas very well. Only a few at the surface with bad viz, but lots of other nice dives.

 

[drrich2]

Enjoyed your report. First class long distance airfare with accommodations like what I see in your photos? I think my wallet would burst into flame.

My wife prefers 5-star hotels, but

Heh. I guess a lot of people would. I'm more of a mid.-range guy. For the benefit of people weighing against different standards of value for money, what do you tend to see different about the 5-star hotel experiences vs. more mid.-range? You guys were happy with Palau Hotel. What do people get in exchange for (I would imagine lots) more money?

I see some reef hook use in your videos; about what % of the dives did you use them? When used, did it tend to be for a small part of the dive, or most of the dive?

I see some drifting, too. Was most of the diving in current? Did you have to fight current much?

IIRC, Palau is noted for its shark diving, and reef hook use. Did much of the diving focus on macro subjects? I'm not a macro enthusiast, but some are.

Surprised to see that much criticism of the Olympus TG-6; it seems quite the darling from other things I've read. My room mate on a Raja Ampat trip used one to good effect on macro subjects (it's famous for microscope mode), but you didn't mention macro.

 

[Doc Harry]

Enjoyed your report. First class long distance airfare with accommodations like what I see in your photos? I think my wallet would burst into flame.


Heh. I guess a lot of people would. I'm more of a mid.-range guy. For the benefit of people weighing against different standards of value for money, what do you tend to see different about the 5-star hotel experiences vs. more mid.-range? You guys were happy with Palau Hotel. What do people get in exchange for (I would imagine lots) more money?

I see some reef hook use in your videos; about what % of the dives did you use them? When used, did it tend to be for a small part of the dive, or most of the dive?

I see some drifting, too. Was most of the diving in current? Did you have to fight current much?

IIRC, Palau is noted for its shark diving, and reef hook use. Did much of the diving focus on macro subjects? I'm not a macro enthusiast, but some are.

Surprised to see that much criticism of the Olympus TG-6; it seems quite the darling from other things I've read. My room mate on a Raja Ampat trip used one to good effect on macro subjects (it's famous for microscope mode), but you didn't mention macro.

First class - yeah, pricey, but worth it. You get two 70-pound bags free. More overhead storage than you can use. Great free food. Free drinks. You also get access to the airline lounges on layovers, which means more free food, free lunch/dinner, more free drinks, and more space to spread out with USB ports and electrical outlets at each lounge chair. Oh, yeah, and we get to lay down flat on the aircraft and actually sleep well for 8 hours.

Hotels - in general, we get better services and more amenities at the better hotels. With our points, we get free parking, free breakfast, preferred rooms, free upgrades, use of the business lounge and computers, free drinks at the cocktail hour, etc. As for Palau, I don't know why anyone would pay more for a room, unless they want a pool or something like that. The hotels are all within a short walking distance of one another, so a more expensive hotel is not closer to the amenities than a lower-priced hotel.

Reef hooking - about 25% of the dives involved hooking at the top of a wall in strong current to watch the sharks and schools of fish. That was the primary goal of a few dives. Most of the dives that required hooking also involved drifting for half of the dive. A few times the current was so strong that I thought my reef hook was going to bend, or the cord was going to break. I had trouble with my mask leaking if I turned my head sideways while hooked. I am definitely going to upgrade to a stronger hook and a thicker cord.

Current ranged from mild to strong. We never "fought" the current -- either hook in, or drift.

I tired some macro video, but even the mild current was just too strong to get stabilized for macro work. I don't grab the reef like most people, so I didn't get much macro video on this trip. This was also my first trip with this camera, so it was a bit overwhelming trying to arrange the video lights and the menus and the current all at the same time. I saw that the people who stabilized themselves by grabbing the reef did get some pretty spectacular macro shots. I was jealous, but I refuse to hold onto the reef to stabilize myself.

My criticism of the TG-6 is strictly about video performance. Backscatter markets the TG-6 as a video camera. In regard to video, the TG-6 is so-so. It does get decent video for its compact size, and there's always the option of still photos too. But the autofocus in video mode is really aggravating. The manual focus is difficult to use, and with my dive mask I couldn't really tell whether or not I had crisp manual focus. You would think that, for anything past 10 or 20 feet, I could just dial in infinity manual focus -- but that results in blurry video. Infinity focus seems to work at long range, like 100 yards, but in closer than 100 yards you actually have to dial in the manual focus. There is no indicator in manual focus mode to show the focal distance, and there's no expanded zoom to check the crispness of the focus, so it's guesswork. Looking through the dive mask doesn't help. Then there's the battery life. WTF was Olympus thinking when they went with that tiny battery?

I didn't try any still photos, macro or otherwise. I have a friend who has been using the TG-6 exclusively for still photos in microscope mode, with a ring light. She loves the camera and consistently gets spectacular macro and super-macro photos. And she doesn't have any problems with battery life. She will use one battery all day.

And BTW, those flex arms in the Backscatter package really suck. They're horrible. The flex arms have a tendency to pop off when you're moving the video lights. I am going to add a leash to each video light, or upgrade to better arms. The flex arms also fill with water, so you have to pop off the arms and dump the water or risk getting seawater all over your bed when you're working on the camera between dives. The flex arms are also too flimsy to support the video light when you're out of the water. Plus you can't add floats to flex arms. I can see that flex arms aren't going to last very long.

 

[cozcharlie]

Just as an FYI, my guess is it is the video that is causing problems (as you more or less noted ). I think I can usually get a couple of dives out of a friends TG6 battery in photo mode and the auto focus was quite good in photo mode (probably due to small aperture associated with small sensor size ). I used his rig this fall when my old camera was in for annual maintenance .

He and I would also agrees that those flexible arms from backscatter aren’t great at all for exactly the reasons you noted—Too flexible in current and have doubts about longevity. Also risk of popping off.

 

[drrich2]

This reports includes my comments on travel, cameras, hotels, restaurants, and of course the diving.

With your dive count and seasoned familiarity looking at the destination, I'm guessing this wasn't your first or only Indo-Pacific region dive trip (I read Palau is a bit outside the Coral Triangle). Was it your first to Palau?

For this trip, what led you to pick Palau, and how do you think it stacks up against other destinations in the region?

 

[Doc Harry]

With your dive count and seasoned familiarity looking at the destination, I'm guessing this wasn't your first or only Indo-Pacific region dive trip (I read Palau is a bit outside the Coral Triangle). Was it your first to Palau?

For this trip, what led you to pick Palau, and how do you think it stacks up against other destinations in the region?

My other trips to that area include:
10-day liveaboard on the Great Barrier Reef (Spirit of Freedom) ~$5,000 USD pp
10-day liveaboard off Thailand (West Coast Divers) ~$900 USD pp
Two private dive trips to Jeju Island, Korea with my Korean friends

We went to Palau because Master Liveaboards was having a 50% off special, and we joined our dive friends from Switzerland for a new destination. We've been diving with them in the Caribbean, Central America, and the Maldives.

Palau is a great place to visit. The topside scenery is spectacular, like the Rock Islands. And we did a historical tour of the World War 2 battle sites on Peleliu (including a dive on Orange Beach). The wall dives are pretty spectacular as well, with the strong currents and all the sharks. The manta dives are as good as in the Maldives. Ulong Channel has something like 300 species of coral, one of my favorite dives. Apparently Palau doesn't have a wet or dry season, it just storms off and on all year. There are some impressive blue holes with huge caverns at the bottom that extend laterally out to the walls.

Palau is quite different than the GBR or Thailand or Jeju. The GBR was a bit cooler, I dove in a dry suit until the boat staff punctured my neck gasket hanging up my drysuit. The west coast of Thailand and Myanmar had quite a wide variety of dive sites and terrain, and a lot of strong currents. We did not do any reef hooking on the Thai dives, but we did have to fight the current (sometimes with every bit of power you could generate to get back to the mooring). Jeju was completely different, really cold and mostly soft corals, with limited visibility. But the sushi on Jeju as out of this world. I have never eaten sushi that was so fresh that it was still moving until I went to Jeju.

We cancelled our trip to Bali because of the recent religious laws passed in Indonesia. But our Swiss friends really love diving at Bali, so we may join them in Bali later this year.

 

[Blackcrusader]

Trip Report
Diving on the Palau Siren Dec 29, 2022 through Jan 8, 2023

CAMERA

The TG-6 autofocus operates were poorly, and the focus goes in and out a lot with video. I used the settings recommended by Backscatter, but it didn't help. Take a look at my video at the link below, and you'll see all the problems with autofocus.

Thanks for the trip report.

You can manually lock the focus even when in AF mode. Choose a focal point and lock to that.
I get 2 - 3 dives on one battery. Some people do not use an SD card that is fast enough for long 4K video so get an overload.

 

[Doc Harry]

Video of the dive on the war wreck I.J.N. "Iro"

 

[Jake 10]

Thanks for the great report and video. Is a dream that someday I would like to make a reality