Palau Trip Report

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

RalphJr

Registered
Messages
63
Reaction score
15
Location
Fresno California
# of dives
200 - 499
Palau trip report

01/16/2011 through 01/27/2011.

We drove from Fresno to L.A. the night before and slept before our 10:am flight out. We flew on Continental airlines from Los Angeles to Honolulu to Guam to Palau. We arrived in Palau, about 10 PM local time. All of our flights were on time as scheduled and none of our luggage went astray. I was traveling with a group put together by our local dive shop Aqua Sports of Fresno. There were 28 of us. The bus took us to the Sea Passion hotel for our check-in. We dove with Sam’s Tours and our package included breakfast at the Sea Passion and lunch from Sam’s on our dive days. My wife and I were in room 316 and the accommodations were very adequate. There was a flat screen color television with cable. The room was clean and had two queen sized beds. Our room was a non-smoking room. The beds were firm, but comfortable, and I had no problem sleeping. The balcony view was of the lagoon as the sliding door faced northward. The room had a small refrigerator and coffee maker. The bathroom was well stocked with toiletries, including toothbrush, razor, body soap and shampoo, shower cap, and a hair dryer. The hotel uses solar heating for its water system, and sometimes it took a while for the warm water to reach our room. This was a minor inconvenience, as I applaud the use of solar energy. The large shower was equipped with a large shower head and a hand-held shower head, which I really appreciated; it is what I use at home.We found the Sea Passion Hotel perfectly adequate with a well trained and attentive staff. Laundry service is fast overnight and inexpensive. The buffet style breakfast with a lot of variety and custom cooked eggs was good. Other meals eaten on site were not epicurean delights but satisfied our hunger. We experimented with dining all over the island and did not have a bad meal anywhere. Fruit Bat soup anyone? Try the Penthouse. We had our best evening meals at the Palm Bay a short walk from the hotel. Their Hibiscus tea is memorable.

My AT&T cell worked for $4.99 per minute calling or answering so DON'T use it. Instead buy a Palau PNCC Debusch prepaid phone card for $10.00 that will give you 30 minutes of talk time to Guam, Hawaii and the mainland USA. I got mine at the hotel front desk. You can use it from any land line.

We did not dive the first day of arrival, but instead took time to get acclimated and checked in at Sam's which is a short walk from the hotel or Sam’s will pick you up and return you. For the most part, Sam's was well-organized and well run. The dive boats we well maintained and properly outfitted for safety and comfort. There is a bar and grill onsite. The sashimi was excellent. I did not like the hop profile of the locally brewed beer “Red Rooster” but the San Miguel from the Philippines was fresh and plentiful. The rest of the menu was typical grill fare and satisfying after a long morning of diving.

We started diving on January 19. The Air temperature was 85, water temperature 85, with humidity of 85% and partly cloudy skies with mild breezes. The weather conditions remained like this nearly constantly the whole time except for a couple of squalls. They rolled through with high winds dropped the temperature 10 degrees rained like hell and blew away in 30 minutes. The first dive site was called big drop-off and our second dive was at German channel. The visibility for the first dive was limited at about only 40 feet as the current and wave action had been stirring things up. Over the next 5 days we completed 15 more dives at the following sites in order: Helmet Wreck dive, Siae’s Tunnel, Ulong Channel, Blue Corner, Blue Holes, Peleliu Wall, Orange Beach, Turtle Cove, New Drop Off, Blue Holes, Chandelier Cave, Ulong Channel, Blue Corner, Dexter Wall and the Sea Plane Wreck. The visibility improved to as good as 100+ feet on most dives. The fresh water trapped inside of Chandelier cave was crystal clear. The water on the Helmet Wreck dive inside of the bay was green with limited visibility of about 30 feet (it looked a lot like Monterey Bay on a fair day). The dive sites that we repeated were on our groups request. Hint Hint.

The things that really stand out about Palau dives are: the reefs are healthy with a diversity I have never seen in one location before, hard coral soft coral with more names than I can list. Stacks and stacks (millions) of fish, sharks, turtles, Rays and on and on. It was sensory overload. I am blessed to have been able to dive in this paradise. My wife really hated being “hooked in” at Blue Corner as she would rather swim around and look at the little critters as apposed to watching the sharks from the end of a tether. Since I was shooting video it worked ok for me.

We snorkeled in Jelly Fish Lake something you must absolutely do if you make it to Palau.

We also did a Kayak tour with Ron Leidich of Planet Blue Sea Kayak Tours. He is a most knowledgeable biologist and historian. This is a great way to off gas before flying home.

There was one dive experience that turned out to be an “E Ticket Ride” The dive on Peleliu Wall. When we first arrived at the site the boat captain motored down to the south tip of the island and observed the water conditions there. It was described as “a washing machine” and it was discussed that it would not be good to end the dive in that. We turned around and headed back north a couple of miles to make our entry on the wall. We went down to about 40 feet and the current was moving maybe 1 to 2 knots south. We were only about 20 minutes into the dive when I noticed my ¾ inch size bubbles were going down so I though I was going up too fast but no alarm from my computer and when I looked at it I was at 80 feet and going down pretty fast so I got closer to the wall and put a little air in my BC to stop the decent. Every one in our group is experienced divers and they all responded in the same manor. The current had picked up to about 4 knots now so we moved up and over the top of the reef to end the dive, now we were flying along headed out to the open seas and right into the washing machine. Depending on who you ask the waves were anywhere from 3 to 10 feet tall (even bigger in the bar that night). I judged them at 5 feet and the first time I saw our boat it looked like a little toy it was so far away. It was picking up two of our divers that had gotten separated from the group and moved up over the top of the reef a little before the rest of us. The captain of the boat did a skilful job of maneuvering the boat into position to pick us up and I for one was glad to get aboard right after my wife. Without a doubt it was the most intense boat exits I have made to date. I had a lesser one out at San Miguel on the Vision and I have had several scary shore exits: Monastery Beach, Pedras Blancas and Lovers Point all come to mind as will this boat exit in the future.

The flights home were all on time but it still took 30 hours to get home. No lost luggage. The jet lag lasted about 4 days as my wife kept walking around the house in the middle of the night and waking me up it was hard to get back into our normal rhythm.

All in all a fantastic trip and one that you need to put on your bucket list.
 
Great trip report Ralph

One of the location on my list of places yet to dive

Gaz
 
I just posted some video on vemio. It does not play as well as on my PC. It is unedited and the frame rate is 60fps on the original footage and I think that thier rendering has done something to it. Lots of jaggies? I will play around with it so see if I can improve it. I have Pinnical 14 HD Ultimate to edit it with and I need to learn how to best use it.

The video is from a dive on New Drop Off Wall. I have hours of raw footage and a lot of it is really good but it takes so long to edit it. I will post other stuff as time permits. I shot it all with a Bonica Snapper HD. A really inexpensive setup that is small and light and easy to travel with. This is shot with available light using a wide angle lens with a red filter.

http://www.vimeo.com/20189718

Ok I ran it through Pinnacle Ultimate 14 and converted it to DivX it runs a lot better still a few jumpies.

http://vimeo.com/20205203
 
Last edited:
thnx for the report
 
I will be diving Truk and Palau in July, thanks for the report, really looking forward to it!
 
It sounds like a wonderful place to dive. I'll be adding it to my list.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

Back
Top Bottom