Palau, Palau Dive Adventures, Liquid Dive Adventures and PPR

[exemptr]

My wife and I just returned from a week of diving on Palau with Palau Dive Adventures (PDA) - https://www.facebook.com/PalauDiveAdventures?group_id=0. We had a great time and I wanted to post our experiences here on ScubaBoard since I have benefited from a lot of the advice from others in this group. We dived the week before on Yap and a great time there (we stayed at the Manta Ray Bay Resort and dived with Yap Divers). We booked the Palau trip through Greg Carter at Liquid Diving Adventures (Scuba Diving Destinations - Vacation Specials - Liquid Diving Adventures). We found out about Greg on ScubaBoard - he was advertising a DEMA special with PDA. We stayed at the Palau Pacific Resort (PPR) and dived for 5 days with PDA. Others in this group have written that the PPR (everyone on the island calls it the PPR) is not really a 5 star hotel as claimed and, technically, I agree. However it is a very nice hotel and the service is very good. I would compare it to the best Marriott or Sheraton resorts in Hawaii with the advantage of being much smaller and more intimate. Yes, it is expensive. PDA's shop is next to the Sea Passion hotel and the Sea Passion looked fine and was less expensive than the PPR. However, if the PPR is a 4 - 4 1/2 star, the Sea Passion is probably a 3 star hotel. PDA is a small dive op owned by Chris Lubba (an American) and Jason (a native Palauan who grew up on Yap). Jason is the dive master and runs things on Palau. I have been diving for over 17 years and have about 700+ dives. I do all of my diving on trips to warm destinations and so all of my diving is resort island diving (my instructor friend calls me a wimp for not diving with him in those tropical waters of Monterey Bay California). Jason ranks as one of the best dive masters I have ever dived with, up there with Pedro Pablo at BluXtsea in Cozumel run by my friend Christi. Jason has a great laid back personality and knows the reefs and dive sites in Palau like the back of his hand. He worked as a divemaster for a number of years for Sam's, the Palau Aggressor and other operations on the island. Jason dived interesting, carefully planned and appropriate dive profiles. Almost all of our dives were over 1 hour and Jason arranged it so that many times we did our safety stop on a shallow reef rather than in the water column. Jason would pick us up at our hotel almost every evening and drop us off at a restaurant in town (the PPR is quite a ways from downtown Koror). Everyone on the island seemed to know Jason and respect him. We did 2 boat dives 3 days and 3 boat dives 2 days. A nice lunch with beverages and snacks was served each day (Jason asked us what we would like for lunch for the following day and PDA did their best to accomodate us). Nitrox (33 - 34) was included in the package. The PDA package also included Jellyfish Lake, Chandelier Cavern and Peleliu. Unfortunately, we were set to dive Peleliu on Friday, our last day of diving, and the wind had picked up and it was too rough to make the long trip to the island. So, instead, we did a dive on the wreck of the Japanese submarine chaser - The Helmet (the depth charge dive). That was nice but the visibility was poor. I agree with other comments on this forum regarding the standard dive sites on Palau. Everybody may dive Blue Hole, Blue Corner, German Channel and Ulong Channel, but there is a reason why, these are fantastic dive sites. I especially enjoyed dives that were near these famous sites - Turtle Wall and Ulong Sandbar (a relatively new dive site). PDA is styling itself as a small dive op that limits its boats to 6 - 8 people, although they can accommodate bigger groups. We were very fortunate in that my wife and I were the only 2 divers with PDA that week so we had private dives with Jason everyday except Friday when they used a larger boat for the (aborted) trip to Peleliu. PDA had no problem diving with just the 2 of us and didn't charge anything extra for the "private diving". I cant recommend PDA highly enough. Chris and Greg had everything arranged for us at the PPR (when we first tried to get a reservation there the PPR said they were booked for all but the most expensive ocean front rooms and Greg worked with Chris who contacted the PPR and got us a more reasonable ocean view room). We ate some meals at the PPR and they were fine, somewhat expensive, but no more than you would pay at the nice Hawaii resorts. In town we had good food at the Taj (Indian - good but expensive), Fuji (Japanese - excellent sushi), Moq Moq (Paluan seafood) and Kramers (seafood and American). There was also a good Thai restaurant near Moq Moq but I forget the name (ask Jason!). We live in the San Francisco bay area and it was a long haul to Yap and Palau but, having finally made it there, it was definitely worth it.

 

[snorkymn]

Thanks for the info. I'm set to dive with PDA in November. Looking forward to it!

 

[Kevrumbo]

Kudos to DM Jason for driving you into town to dine at the eateries, all the way from the Palau Pacific Resort. There is also an afternoon into evening "Blue Bird" bus service from the PPR, Sea Passion & other hotels into main street Koror for $7/week.

 

[Shasta_man]

I too think that putting 80+ lbs on to go diving is more like a job! It's definitely neat but the ease of diving in warm water is tough to beat.

 

[exemptr]

Monterey is beautiful, I did my open water certification there back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and subsequently did a 3-day liveaboard on the Vision out of Santa Barbara to the Channel Islands (I used a dry suit for that one!). However, warm tropical water has turned me into a cold water wimp. I saw the shuttle bus that Kevrumbo mentioned and it looked like a good alternative to the $7 cab ride from the PPR.